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Great at Work
A review of

Great at Work

How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More


Work With Common Sense

by David Meyer

Morten T. Hansen Ph.D. shares the results of his prodigious research into how to work smarter.

Morten T. Hansen Ph.D. — management professor at the University of California, Berkeley and faculty member at Apple University — launched a massive research project into what “working smarter” actually means. He tracked the practices and performance of 5,000 managers and employees and distilled the data into seven top-performance principles. The principles are simple — for example, winnow your tasks to the important few and focus on them intensely. However, Hansen recognizes that putting his principles into practice amid the pressures of modern business is more difficult.

Being great at work means performing in your job, infusing your work with passion and a strong sense of purpose, and living well, too.Morten T. Hansen

His team found that the top performers don’t work longer hours. Instead, they make each hour count by following seven “work-smart” principles.