Books like Your Brain at Work

01

The Organized Mind

Daniel J. Levitin · Science

Daniel Levitin's argument is that the human brain's organizational architecture was built for a very different world — one with far fewer decisions, far less information, and far lower cognitive demand than the environment most people now navigate daily.

Shares attention and decision-making with Your Brain at Work.

02

Deep Work

Cal Newport · Self-help

Deep Work is Cal Newport's case that the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task is becoming both rarer and more valuable, and that people who cultivate it will thrive while everyone else stays stuck in shallow busywork.

Both dig into attention.

03

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

Both dig into decision-making.

04

Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

Nir Eyal · Self-help

Indistractable is Nir Eyal's argument that distraction is not a technology problem — it's a psychology problem.

Both dig into attention.

05

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

Paul Bloom · Psychology

Paul Bloom's argument is not that we should care less about others.

Both dig into decision-making.

06

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths · Psychology

Brian Christian is a writer and Tom Griffiths is a cognitive scientist, and together they argue that computer science has worked out rigorous solutions to many of the problems humans face every day — when to stop searching for a better option, how to manage your schedule, how to sort your memory — and that these solutions are both interesting and useful.

Both dig into decision-making.

07

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Malcolm Gladwell · Psychology

Blink is Malcolm Gladwell's argument that fast, unconscious decisions — the ones made in the first two seconds of encountering something — are often just as reliable as slow, deliberate analysis, and sometimes more so.

Both dig into decision-making.

08

Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

Ethan Kross · Psychology

Humans talk to themselves more or less constantly.

Both dig into attention.

09

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

Antonio Damasio · Psychology

Antonio Damasio is a neurologist at USC whose work challenges the centuries-old idea that reason and emotion are separate faculties, with reason the reliable guide and emotion the unreliable interference.

Both dig into decision-making.

10

Dollars and Sense

Dan Ariely · Psychology

Dollars and Sense is Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler's examination of why people consistently make bad financial decisions even when they have the information and intention to do otherwise.

Both dig into decision-making.

11

Fooled by Randomness

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · Psychology

Fooled by Randomness is Nassim Nicholas Taleb's argument that humans are wired to misread luck as skill, noise as signal, and random outcomes as the product of ability or effort.

Both dig into decision-making.

12

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

David Eagleman · Psychology

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford who argues that the conscious self is a late, small, and largely uninformed participant in the brain's activity.

Both dig into decision-making.