Your Brain at Work by David Rock

In David Rock’s book, “Your Brain at Work”, he uses a theatre analogy to describe the workings of the human mind. The stage represents our short-term working memory, managed by the prefrontal cortex, and can accommodate a limited number of ‘actors’, which symbolise information chunks. Our ability to focus is compared to a spotlight that can only illuminate one actor at a time, and attempting multitasking can drastically reduce our cognitive capacity. Throughout the day, the ‘director’ of this mental theatre weakens, making it challenging to concentrate. To optimise brain function, Rock suggests limiting information input, managing tasks sequentially, and tackling demanding tasks in the first half of the day.