Work as we know it is changing fast. Why do we need a new approach to efficiency?

With AI gaining territory over lower-level-thinking jobs, the knowledge-work spectrum is shifting toward an emphasis on idea generation, complex learning and problem solving. The industrial-era, factory-style concept of continuous work doesn’t fit into the ecosystem of the digital age. Efficiency is no longer defined by the quantity of output, but by its quality. That’s why I am proposing a new approach to efficiency that can make knowledge workers “hyperefficient.”

In the book, you explain how our brains switch between three different “gears” every day. Can you describe what you call the “gear network?”

The gear network is a metaphor I use to describe the brain at work. It is based on the brain’s norepinephrine network, and its connections with networks involving acetylcholine and dopamine. If you imagine your brain as an engine, there are three gears or modes in which your mind processes information: slow, medium and fast. Gear one is like sitting in an armchair by the fire: it helps you rest, recover and daydream after hard labour. Gear two enables you to work comfortably and efficiently. It calibrates your brain to optimally focus, learn, solve and analyse. And finally, the gear three state of mind is like sprinting: it gives you a jolt of energy, but if you stay in it for too long, it tires you out. Each gear changes the precision of your focus, the volume of data you process and the overall efficiency of your mental engine.

This is important for leaders to understand because when employees sit down to work on a standard workday, their brains are not static. They switch between different states throughout the day. The way you feel when you are trying to come up with new ideas is very different from how you feel when you’re focusing — and that’s because it’s a very different brain state. What we know is that in the middle brain state — gear two — the parts of the brain required for high-level thinking and cognitive performance are most active and engaged.

What are some of the external factors that impact which gear we are in at any one time?

Broadly speaking, three things influence which gear our brain is in: our mental load, our perception of time and our perception of uncertainty. If your brain is tired but you force it to carry on, it is working with what it perceives to be a higher cognitive load and has fewer resources to do the work with. You will notice that the work feels more effortful.

As soon as a brain perceives a higher load, it “steps on the gas pedal” and if you are already in gear two, it shifts you up to gear three. This can happen when you sense information firing at you from all sides — beeps, messages and calls to action. If you have 20 emails pile up within 30 minutes but you don’t know about it, that’s one thing; but if they are flashing up in the corner of your screen, your brain perceives the increase in mental load and summons extra help. It has to utilize all of its processing power to deal with the demands, and this puts you in reaction mode.

Describe how the second element, our concept of time, influences our brain gears.

If your brain perceives a sense of urgency about what you’re working on — an approaching deadline or any kind of time pressure — it responds by accelerating. Think of the brain as an information processing system. It says, “Okay, this information has to be sliced and diced by 3 p.m. today, so I have got to work faster.” What do you do to work faster? You step on the pedal to summon all your resources; and if you are currently in gear two, you move to gear three.

The third thing that impacts which gear we are in is our perception of uncertainty. Describe how that works.

If you want your team to produce their best quality work, as a leader, you do not want to create an environment that feels too uncertain or threatening. In the workplace, this translates into things like blame culture, unfair competition, distorted effort-reward relationships and threats of punishment.

When your brain senses a threat, it steps on the gas pedal to process information faster. If you are already in gear two, this puts you into gear three. Your brain also works defensively. People in these environments aren’t working to make gains and going forth with ideas, they are working to avoid a loss. Of course, uncertainty is everywhere — we can’t escape it. But we can moderate its impact with things like transparency in decision-making and communication, organizational fairness, rewarding effort and being consistent in our relationships. All of these things help to create the perception of safety, agency and predictability.

Why is gear three so bad?

This state of mind trades off accuracy for speed, impairing your ability for complex analysis, nuanced thinking and problem-solving. It can cause you to make snap decisions and fall prey to biases, because you’re short on time. You will not see the big picture. If you are working on something that requires no thinking, you can work faster in this gear; but if you need to think, you won’t perform very well.

Increasingly, more and more people across organizations are needing to do work that involves high-level thinking. Until recently, knowledge workers at the top of an organization’s seniority pyramid were the decision-makers and problem-solvers. Today, we have AI tools that can gather data, assemble PowerPoint presentations for us and make predictions. The junior members of an organization will have AI assistants at their disposal performing these tasks for them, and will instead be doing more of what only senior executives used to do — innovating, structuring problems and making decisions.

Eventually, every company will have comparable levels of AI integration and automation, so for one organization to have an edge over the next, it will come down to thinking quality — the quality of insights, innovation and the ability to spot things. You cannot achieve quality if you are stuck in gear three.

How can we ensure we (and our teams) remain in gear two for as long as possible?

To remain in the most optimal state (gear two) for as long as possible, you have to let your brain recharge regularly by taking it down to gear one. This is why breaks are so important. If you can’t move from your chair, letting yourself daydream for a few minutes or even just gently closing your eyes can help.

Why can walking be a powerful tool in the workplace? Walking can help you see a problem in a new way. When you’re focused on your screen, your attention sticks tightly to your current approach to your problem. The best way to step back and look at the whole picture is by leaving your screen, which forces your attention to detach from it and wander along other avenues. A senior manager I know gets up and goes for a walk if he can’t figure something out after working on it for 10 minutes. When he returns, he doesn’t necessarily have a solution — but he can suddenly see things through a wider lens and discover more avenues to pursue. We all need to regularly come down to gear one and refresh our brains.

Talk a bit about sleep, and how it impacts the gear network.

Sleeping resets your brain, replenishes its resources and readies it for another day of work. In order to fall asleep, you have to wind down and downshift into gear one at the end of the day. If you work late into the night, you are forcing your brain to stay alert, in gear two or three instead of winding down, and it can feel difficult to fall into restful sleep when you finally finish work. As a result, your brain works with limited resources the next day. Some research suggests that our tendency to sleep is governed by a 12-hour cycle that prompts us to want to sleep every 12 hours (though the urge is stronger at midnight than at noon). At midday, it pulls you into what is known as a post-lunch dip — a brief period when you feel sluggish and your gear climbs down. For most people, the dip dissipates later in the afternoon, when their alertness returns. One way to deal with the post-lunch dip is by taking an afternoon nap. Research shows that even a short nap in this time bracket has the potential to improve mental performance for up to two hours afterward.

Are there examples of how the quality of mental performance varies throughout the day?

A real-world example comes from a study of bank workers who approve loans. After investigating over 25,000 credit loan applications at a major bank, researchers discovered that loans were most likely to be approved before 11 a.m. The percentage of loans that were approved sank after that and then rose again (though to a lesser degree) later in the afternoon.

It takes more mental energy to approve a loan than to deny one because of the meticulous analysis needed to confirm that a loan will be repaid. Our minds are fresh first thing in the morning, which may be why loans were most likely to be approved during this time. Our alertness levels tend to dip from lunchtime until early afternoon, which may account for the decline in approved loans during this time interval. If all decisions had been made in the morning, the bank would have made $509,023 in extra revenue in one month.

Is it possible to take control of our gears and encourage a gear-switch that suits the context?

When you’re doing knowledge work, you want to be in a gear two frame of mind. If you’re overshooting into gear three because of too intense a workload, urgent deadlines, or general distractions, you can draw yourself back down into gear two by lowering your workload and modifying your environment to make it feel slower and more certain. You can also calm yourself down using your body’s physiology.

Slow breathing — and in particular, prolonged exhalations — lowers your gear. Breathing at a rate of about 10 seconds per breath, approximating to a cycle of five seconds inhalation and five seconds exhalation — the frequency used in pranayama techniques — has an intriguing effect, it appears to stimulate the activity of the vagus nerve, one of the “calming” branches of the autonomic nervous system. Another technique that uses your body’s physiology is known as the “Quiet Eye” technique. Actively holding your gaze on a small, focal target can help to calm you down from gear three and anchor you in gear two. This is used in an array of high-tension situations, from competitive archery and basketball to target practice and surgery, when you want to dial your gear down and tip back from gear three into gear two. This method isn’t new; meditators have long used it to enter deep states of concentration.

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of the Rotman Management Magazine. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to the magazine or to the Rotman Insights Hub bi-weekly newsletter.