Eat Sleep Work Repeat

Eat Sleep Work Repeat is a guide to making working life less draining and more enjoyable. Bruce Daisley, host of a business podcast of the same name, was vice president of Twitter Europe and spent decades as an executive at top Silicon Valley companies including YouTube, Google and Twitter. This is his debut book. It draws on his experience of what keeps a workforce productive and which changes to the workplace benefit employees, customers and the bottom line.

The book is built around thirty research-based hacks, many of them counterintuitive. Why does a lunch break trigger a burst of productivity? Can a team perform better just because the coffee maker has moved? Why are so many meetings a waste of time, and how can a walking meeting get decisions made? Daisley's practical suggestions include taking a proper lunch, which leaves you less tired over the weekend, and proposing a tea break, which builds team cohesion and productivity. He also recommends running a pre-mortem, since anticipating problems in advance can prevent them and encourages curiosity.

The starting point is a Gallup survey of global workers, which found that only 13 percent of employees are engaged in their jobs. Burnout and unhappiness are therefore the norm for most people at work. Daisley argues that managers and employees alike can improve things, and that it is time to rediscover the joy of work.