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Hyperefficient book cover
Business Book of the Year 2025

Hyperefficient

Optimize your brain to transform the way you work

How to think well in an age of relentless work and ambient technology — built on three principles drawn from peer-reviewed neuroscience.

The big idea

The way we work is breaking the way we think.

Most knowledge workers spend their days fighting their own brains. The 9-to-5 was designed for a kind of work that no longer exists — repeatable, paced, physical — and the cognitive demands of modern work sit awkwardly on top of it. The result is an entire class of workers who feel busier than ever and produce less of the thinking work they were hired for.

Hyperefficient is a tour through the neuroscience of how the brain actually performs, built around three principles for getting it to work at its best. Drawing on research from cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, and clinical medicine, it offers a practical framework for designing a day — and a working life — around how the mind was built to think.

Three principles

How the brain works at its best.

I

Get in gear

Cognitive momentum doesn't build in the wrong gear. Your brain drifts through many different mental states or "mental gears" all day long — from scattered and distracted, to calm and creative, from wired and anxious to deeply focused. Your brain does its best work in one specific gear at any given time. Most of us let these states happen passively, leaving the quality of our output to chance, but if you learn to recognize these states and master the skill of intentionally shifting into the right gear on demand, everything changes. You'll produce your highest-quality work consistently, not just when luck is on your side. Ideas will flow more freely, focused work will feel lighter, and you'll finish each day with more energy.

II

Run in rhythm

Your brain operates on biological rhythms. These rhythms create distinct windows of peak neurochemical states: some hours are optimal for deep focused execution and analytical thinking, while others are ideal for divergent thinking and generating insights. The industrial workday flattens these rhythms out, which is why so much knowledge work feels both exhausting and unproductive. If you align your tasks with these endogenous rhythms instead of forcing your brain to conform to arbitrary workplace schedules, you will sustain high-intensity work for longer, maintain higher output quality, reduce mental fatigue, and preserve energy reserves through to the end of the day.

III

Find your flame

The old goalposts are disappearing fast: job security, predictable career ladders, and clearly defined roles. To thrive in this new reality, you need a fresh kind of motivation, one that comes from within. The most reliable way to ignite your inner fire is by intentionally designing your work around learning, mastery, and measurable progress. When these three elements become your new compass, motivation stops being something you chase and starts becoming something you create.

Press appearances

Selected coverage.

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