"In all the empirical studies on psychological well-being, one thing emerges as a reliable foundation for happiness: the quality of our relationships."

Caroline Webb recommends a few hacks to have great days:<ol><li>Single-Tasking: focus on thing at once. Multi-tasking is a myth.</li><li>Planning Deliberate Downtime: Take care of yourself.</li><li>Resolving Tensions: The social problems are gonna take a toll on you.</li><li>Reboot your energy</li></ol>

The tools for having great days

There is no such thing as multi-tasking:<ul><li>Group together similar tasks (e.g., email, calls, and reading), so you’re not constantly switching from one mental mode to another. </li><li>Decide on the best time of day to tackle each batch of tasks. Create longer blocks of uninterrupted time for your most important work. </li><li>Minimize interruptions, to help you focus your attention on the task at hand. Which alerts can you switch off? Can you use an app to block access to certain websites? </li><li>Plan small rewards for good behavior. </li></ul>

Single-Tasking

If you disagree on something:<ul><li>Articulate the other person’s perspective as if you truly believe it.</li><li>Identify what you both agree on.</li><li>Isolate the real disagreement; explore how you could both be right.</li><li>Decide what you can do based on what you agree on. </li></ul>

Resolving Tensions by Finding Common Ground

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

Your brain’s deliberate system needs regular breaks to keep it fully functional. When tired, we are more likely to make poorer decisions.Allow your brain a chance to step back and consolidate the experience. Plan for breaks between “zones” in your day. Refresh your mind after every ninety minutes.

Planning Deliberate Downtime

For a complete and happy day, you need to focus on your energy and reboot it when needed.Know thyself by identifying where the typical energy highs and lows occur. Plan for the triggers and events around the highs and lows.

Knowing How To Reboot Your Energy

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize winner, explains how our mind has 2 modes:<ul><li>Your deliberate system is responsible for sophisticated functions such as reasoning, self-control, and forward-thinking. It excels in handling anything unfamiliar, complex, or abstract. But it has limited capacity and gets tired quickly. </li><li>Your automatic system lightens the load on your deliberate system by automating most of what you do and taking fast shortcuts that filter out “irrelevant” information and options. But it inevitably leaves you with blind spots. </li></ul>We need to be aware of both systems to make good decisions.

The Two-System Brain

You’re constantly moving along a discover-defend axis in your daily life, as your brain scans for threats to defend against and rewards to discover.<ul><li>In defensive mode, you become less smart and flexible, as your brain devotes some of its scarce mental energy to respond to a potential “threat”.</li><li>In discovery mode, you’re motivating yourself with rewards: a social sense of belonging or recognition; a personal sense of autonomy, competence, or purpose; or informational rewards that come from learning or experiencing new things</li></ul>When we are in the discover, we are more likely to have good days.

The Discover-Defend Axis

You are not a mind trapped inside a body. You are a body and your mind is part of it. So if you want to change your mind, start with the body.<ul><li>The way you treat your body has a direct, immediate impact on your brain’s performance, affecting both its cognitive and emotional functions. </li><li>Your brain’s deliberate system performs far better when you’ve had enough sleep, some aerobic exercise, and a few moments of mindfulness. </li><li>Mimicking the physical actions associated with feeling happy, confident, and relaxed appears to tell your brain that you are in fact happy, confident, and relaxed.</li></ul>

The Mind-Body Loop

People are often good but their circumstances can change how they come out.Get clear on the “true facts”: what you know for sure. Then assume that the other person has good intent, and imagine the circumstances that could be causing his or her behavior.

Assume “Good person, Bad Circumstances”

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

You can work towards having more productive and satisfying days. Caroline Webb believes it can be done by:<ol><li>Understanding how the brain works: the two-system brain, our discover-defence axis or mind-body loop.</li><li>Apply a series of practical advice</li></ol>

The secret behind having good days

In How to Have a Good Day, economist and former McKinsey partner Caroline Webb shows readers how to use recent findings from behavioral economics, psychology, and neuroscience to transform our approach to everyday working life. Advances in behavioral sciences are giving us an ever better understanding of how our brains work, why we make the choices we do, and what it takes for us to be at our best. But it has not always been easy to see how to apply these insights in the real world--until now. In How to Have a Good Day, Webb explains exactly how to apply this science to our daily tasks and routines. She translates three big scientific ideas into step-by-step guidance that shows us how to set better priorities, make our time go further, ace every interaction, be our smartest selves, strengthen our personal impact, be resilient to setbacks, and boost our energy and enjoyment. Through it all, Webb teaches us how to navigate the typical challenges of modern workplaces—from conflict with colleagues to dull meetings and overflowing inboxes—with skill and ease. Filled with stories of people who have used Webb’s insights to boost their job satisfaction and performance at work, How to Have a Good Day is the book so many people wanted when they finished Nudge, Blink and Thinking Fast and Slow and were looking for practical ways to apply this fascinating science to their own lives and careers. A remarkable and much-needed book, How to Have a Good Day gives us the tools we need to have a lifetime of good days.

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In How to Have a Good Day, economist and former McKinsey partner Caroline Webb shows readers how to use recent findings from behavioral economics, psychology, and neuroscience to transform our approach to everyday working life.   Advances in behavioral sciences are giving us an ever better understanding of how our brains work, why we make the choices we do, and what it takes for us to be at our best. But it has not always been easy to see how to apply these insights in the real world--until now.   In How to Have a Good Day, Webb explains exactly how to apply this science to our daily tasks and routines. She translates three big scientific ideas into step-by-step guidance that shows us how to set better priorities, make our time go further, ace every interaction, be our smartest selves, strengthen our personal impact, be resilient to setbacks, and boost our energy and enjoyment. Through it all, Webb teaches us how to navigate the typical challenges of modern workplaces—from conflict with colleagues to dull meetings and overflowing inboxes—with skill and ease.   Filled with stories of people who have used Webb’s insights to boost their job satisfaction and performance at work, How to Have a Good Day is the book so many people wanted when they finished Nudge, Blink and Thinking Fast and Slow and were looking for practical ways to apply this fascinating science to their own lives and careers.   A remarkable and much-needed book, How to Have a Good Day gives us the tools we need to have a lifetime of good days.

STEPHEN COVEY

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STEPHEN R. COVEY

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