Hi, I'm Dr. Sahara Yusuf, welcome to Radio Headspace and to Monday morning.

I'm a cognitive neuroscientist and a lecturer at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

I'll be guest hosting Radio Headspace this week and I am so happy to be here.

My work is all about using science to help you get your most important work done

in less time with less stress. I also founded a training and consulting firm called

Becoming Superhuman with fellow neuroscientist Lucas Miller who's hosting the show next week.

This week we'll explore how neuroscience can improve your life and discuss some powerful

strategies that you can use to quickly get better focus. Today I'll talk about what you may be

getting wrong about productivity and what becoming superhuman actually means.

The concept and the ethos of becoming superhuman. First it was grounded in the research that was

being done. We could see that there was just so much untapped potential and how the brain can

actually change for the better. We can raise the roof on basic cognitive functions like our

attention span, our memory, our information processing speed. All of these things are malleable.

If your cognitive function is not serving you to some extent you are in control of that

and that was a super aspirational and a lifting thing to experience working with people and seeing

the amazing changes that they can undergo in just a matter of weeks. Becoming superhuman is all

about questioning the status quo. It's change. Change is possible.

I think one of the biggest mistakes that we see people make as it relates to day-to-day

productivity is actually around choosing what to focus on. And listen, I'll be the first to admit

I love it to do list. Big list maker over here. However, the research on to-do lists is rather abysmal.

As it relates to actually being able to identify and prioritize what is actually going to move the

needle forward, for you, your life, your career, your family, etc. So take a step back. Have the list.

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