Eat Sleep Work Repeat

Do you ever wonder whether work really has to feel this stressful—or if there’s a way to rediscover excitement and satisfaction in what you do? In Eat Sleep Work Repeat, Bruce Daisley, former European Vice President of Twitter, argues that the modern workplace is exhausting us not because work itself is inherently bad, but because we’ve designed it badly. Constant connectivity, meaningless meetings, and hyperactive busyness have replaced focus, trust, and joy. His book is a manifesto for transforming this daily grind into a sense of purpose and community that helps people truly thrive.

Daisley believes that today’s work culture systematically diminishes creativity, collaboration, and psychological safety—the feelings that make us productive and fulfilled. Drawing on decades of research in organizational psychology, neuroscience, and real-world examples, he identifies the forces at work: long hours that hurt performance, tech-driven distractions, and outdated management ideas like stack ranking or presenteeism. The good news? He also finds clear, evidence-based solutions: small shifts in how we rest, relate, and reflect can radically enhance happiness and output.

Three Elements of Happier Work

The book’s structure revolves around three pillars for healthier, more human work. The first—Recharge—focuses on what we can do individually to restore energy and attention. The second—Sync—examines how to build trust and connection within teams. The third—Buzz—shows how teams can reach a creative, energized state that turns good work into great work. Each part contains simple, science-backed actions you can try immediately, from redefining your lunch break to designing social rituals that spark collaboration.

Why Work Feels Broken

Daisley starts by examining two “megatrends” that have reshaped work for the worse: constant connectivity and artificial intelligence. Smartphones have chained us to our jobs, erasing the line between work and home, while AI-driven automation raises anxiety about the relevance of human contributions. The stress of keeping up has reached epidemic proportions—83 percent of Americans report feeling stressed by their jobs. The problem isn’t just overwork; it’s the resulting loss of creativity. Drawing on the story of musician Julian Casablancas and The Strokes, Daisley illustrates how pressure kills originality. Under relentless scrutiny, we repeat the old instead of creating the new.

To survive in an AI-powered world, Daisley argues, human creativity and empathy become our real competitive advantage. But those capacities depend on rest, trust, and safety—exactly the things that modern corporate life undermines. So fixing work requires redesigning habits, not overhauling people. Work doesn’t need another motivational talk about passion or purpose; it needs environments that allow people to “love what they do” without burning out.

The Science of Psychological Safety and Positive Affect

A recurring theme in the book is the concept of psychological safety, pioneered by Harvard’s Amy Edmondson, and positive affect, a state of upbeat energy described by psychologist Alice Isen. When people feel emotionally safe to speak up, admit mistakes, and ask questions, teams learn and improve faster. When they experience positive affect—a genuine but subtle sense of good mood—they think more creatively, solve problems better, and cooperate. Together, these two ingredients create what Daisley calls a state of Buzz: the ultimate synergy of trust and enthusiasm in a team.

He illustrates this with examples like Pixar’s “Braintrust” meetings, where candid feedback is shared without undermining the creator’s authority, and with the story of hospital surgical teams who learned that admitting uncertainty saved more lives than maintaining hierarchy. Similarly, laughter in teams, as researcher Robin Dunbar shows, builds trust through endorphins; it’s not frivolous—it’s biological teamwork fuel.

A Blueprint for Reclaiming Joy

Throughout the book, Daisley weaves a hopeful, practical message: changing work starts with micro-experiments, not massive reforms. Try a “Monk Mode Morning” for deep focus. Host a social coffee break to rebuild sync. Ban phones from meetings to nurture authentic dialogue. Replace slides with short memos to encourage real thinking. And above all, he urges leaders to relinquish the outdated “mill owner” mentality—the idea that productivity comes from visibility and control. As Dan Kieran admits, even creative founders must wrestle their inner mill owner who demands bums on seats.

If overwork and burnout have become the new status symbols, Eat Sleep Work Repeat is a necessary antidote. Daisley isn’t promising a utopia; he’s offering a toolkit for realistic renewal. The book’s central question—What if you could fix work by making it more human?—becomes both a challenge and an invitation. By restoring time to think, space to laugh, and permission to rest, you can rediscover not only engagement but pride in what you do. The joy of work, Daisley shows, isn’t gone; it just needs better conditions to grow again.

We live in a culture that equates productivity with exhaustion. Daisley’s first section, Recharge, demolishes the illusion that working longer or faster leads to better results. Instead, it reveals that rest, focus, and cyclical energy management are the true drivers of creativity and performance. Each 'recharge' is a practical shift—small but transformative—that gives you back cognitive control and restores your enthusiasm for your job.

Monk Mode Mornings: Deep Focus over Distraction

Open-plan offices, endless notifications, and social chatter make concentration nearly impossible. Studying open office environments, Daisley found that people sent 67 percent more emails and spent 70 percent less time talking face to face. The solution? Schedule “Monk Mode Mornings”—blocks of distraction-free time for deep work. Inspired by Cal Newport’s Deep Work, Daisley suggests delaying meetings and emails until late morning, reestablishing solitude as a creative resource. Like psychologist Teresa Amabile’s “flow,” these periods produce happiness by letting people make visible progress.

Shorten Your Workweek and Overthrow the Mill Owner

Historical studies—from Ford’s eight-hour day to Stanford research on munitions workers—show that working beyond fifty hours actually decreases output. Daisley profiles executives like Scott Maxwell of McKinsey and Stewart Butterfield of Slack, who discovered that cutting hours made their teams more efficient. What holds us back is our “inner eighteenth-century mill owner” who equates presence with performance. Replace it with results-oriented cultures like ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment): focus on outcomes, not clock time, and ban jokes about long hours. Productivity, Daisley insists, thrives on limits.

Turn Off Notifications and Take Real Breaks

Constant alerts pump cortisol, our stress hormone, into the brain, exhausting memory and focus. Research shows that turning off phone notifications for even 24 hours can improve concentration for years. Daisley introduces “microboundaries”—rules like deleting email apps during holidays or muting alerts while eating—to regain control of our attention. Similarly, reclaim your lunch break. Experiments show that skipping lunch leads to fatigue and poorer weekend recovery, while social lunches release endorphins that elevate mood.

Find Rhythm: Digital Sabbaths and Sleep as Power Tools

Daisley urges teams to adopt “digital Sabbaths”—no-work weekends—to break email contagion. He cites data showing workers are more productive after rest. Equally vital is sleep: neuroscientist Matthew Walker’s research shows that even one night of good rest increases creative problem-solving by 60 percent. Anecdotes of self-proclaimed “short sleepers,” Daisley jokes, are largely delusions. Recharge isn’t laziness; it’s industrial-strength restoration. As he puts it, “Sleep makes us more attractive, smarter, and happier—and it’s free.”

Each tactic—whether banning hurried multitasking or enforcing boundaries—builds cumulative psychological safety within yourself. You move from burnout’s negative affect to the calm curiosity where new ideas form. The message is radical in its simplicity: if you want to do better work, stop trying to do more work.

After restoring personal energy, Daisley turns to connection—the social fuel he calls Sync. Humans evolved to work together; yet modern offices, remote work, and digital overload have fractured that bond. Sync is about belonging, psychological safety, and the magic that emerges when teams genuinely like and trust one another. Drawing on neuroscience, sociology, and the experiments of pioneers like Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland at MIT, Daisley shows how the right kind of human interaction dramatically increases productivity and happiness.

The Science of Synchrony

Pentland’s “sociometric badges” tracked how employees communicated in real offices. His big discovery: informal, face-to-face chats—not emails or meetings—predicted 40 percent of performance differences. Moving a coffee machine between departments improved collaboration as much as an organizational restructure. Daisley calls this “the coffee machine effect”: small design tweaks that create spontaneous connection. Shared rituals like fika—the Swedish coffee break—or Radio 1’s communal pizza meetings nurture trust through conversation and rhythm.

Laughter as Social Glue

Laughter, Daisley explains, isn’t trivial—it’s a primitive synchronizing mechanism. Psychologists Robert Provine and Sophie Scott found that laughter signals safety and releases endorphins, aligning group mood. Firefighters, soldiers, and doctors rely on dark humor to cope with stress. Leaders like James Comey noted that great bosses laugh to show humility and openness. Teams that laugh together, studies show, generate more creative solutions—a finding echoed by Daniel Kahneman, who said his most productive collaborations were also his funniest.

The Role of Good Bosses and Psychological Safety

Sync depends heavily on leadership behavior. Bad bosses—the ones who micromanage, blame, or stay aloof—literally make people sick. Swedish studies show poor management increases heart attack risk by 60 percent. By contrast, great managers act as “guardians of belonging.” They’re supportive, humble, and competent enough to understand their teams’ work. Amanda Goodall’s research shows that expert bosses, who’ve done the job themselves, build the most trust. When managers care and listen, dopamine rises and collaboration flourishes.

In a world of Slack and Zoom, Daisley’s advice cuts through: human connection isn’t inefficiency—it’s infrastructure. The best teams synchronize like jazz musicians: each voice distinct but attuned. When rhythm replaces bureaucracy, work starts to hum.

Buzz is Daisley’s ultimate goal: a team state where psychological safety meets positive affect to create energy, openness, and creativity. Where Survival and Grind cultures suppress innovation with fear, Buzz cultures channel confidence into collaboration. Drawing from Pixar, Netflix, and surgical teams, Daisley shows how feedback, candor, and laughter coexist to produce exceptional results.

Framing Work as a Shared Challenge

Amy Edmondson’s research on hospital teams proved that those who frame tasks as learning challenges, not execution orders, adapt faster and succeed more. Leaders who admit fallibility—“I need to hear from you because I might miss things”—create safety. Daisley’s examples range from Nokia’s silence during its collapse to surgeons who thrived by inviting team input. Reframing transforms fear into curiosity, activating Buzz.

Focus on the Issue, Not the Person

When feedback feels personal, trust evaporates. Using Danish architect Bjarke Ingels’s practice as a model, Daisley urges teams to externalize ideas physically—sketch them, diagram them—so criticism targets the work, not the creator. This visual method, akin to Pixar’s “Braintrust,” enables candid debate without ego. It’s how great teams evolve rather than entrench.

Playfulness, Diversity, and Humor

Buzz thrives on diversity of thought and identity. Citing experiments with fraternities and juries, Daisley shows that diverse groups feel less comfortable but make twice as many correct decisions. Humor bonds such differences. The Cambridge rowing team that added a “hilarious” member outperformed stronger rivals because laughter built psychological safety. In Oxford studies, humor triggered endorphins that led to greater honesty and vulnerability. Play isn’t wasted time—it’s how trust grows.

Buzz isn’t reserved for creative industries; it’s a replicable chemistry of trust, safety, and joy. When you cultivate these conditions—authenticity, curiosity, and humility—work no longer drains you. It powers you.

One of Daisley’s most practical insights is how we collaborate. Endless meetings, PowerPoint slides, and performative busyness dominate modern work. Yet studies and real-world examples show that these rituals destroy clarity and creativity. Daisley suggests rethinking the rhythms of how teams meet and share ideas—to swap presentation for participation, and showmanship for substance.

Kill Bad Meetings, Keep Human Connection

At PayPal, COO David Sacks famously burst into meeting rooms to shut down any gathering with more than four people. Daisley sympathizes: modern meetings are “a cultural tax” paid by those who can’t find time to think. Unproductive sessions burn focus and display hierarchies, not progress. His fix: halve meeting time, cancel unnecessary ones, and make discussions short, specific, and inclusive. He also warns that smartphones during meetings sabotage empathy. Harvard professor Frances Frei banned phones at Uber to rebuild broken trust—a lesson every office needs.

Replace Presenting with Reading

Borrowing from Jeff Bezos’s Amazon meetings, Daisley describes how silent reading of six-page memos replaced PowerPoint. This ensures equal engagement: no grandstanding, just ideas evaluated on merit. Psychological research by Anita Williams Woolley on “collective intelligence” supports this—teams that share talk time equally and exhibit social sensitivity consistently outperform those dominated by loud voices. The silent read democratizes attention and builds collective intelligence.

(Note: Daisley’s insight echoes Edward de Bono’s view in Six Thinking Hats—structured conversation ensures creativity and civility. The Amazon meeting style enforces reflection before reaction.)

When collaboration is redesigned around empathy rather than ego, meetings become meaning-making engines. As Daisley sums up, “It’s not who talks most, but who listens best.”

In the final chapters, Daisley highlights what keeps Buzz alive: curiosity, reflection, and humble feedback. Too many teams, he warns, stop learning once they start succeeding. Preventing stagnation requires not just recognition of mistakes but a system for anticipating them.

Hot Debriefs and Pre-Mortems

Borrowing from military practices, Daisley praises the “hot debrief”: after any mission, the leader first admits what they could’ve done better, creating space for others to speak candidly. UK Special Forces and elite teams like the SAS use this humility to sustain excellence. Complementing that is the business “pre-mortem”—a technique championed by Gary Klein and Deborah Mitchell—where teams imagine a project has failed and brainstorm why. This foresight improves accuracy of predictions by 30 percent and reduces fear of speaking up.

Curiosity as Cultural DNA

Harvard researcher Francesca Gino found 70 percent of employees feel constrained from asking questions at work. Yet curiosity fuels innovation and engagement. In call centers Daisley studied, new hires who asked “why” questions were not only more effective but more fulfilled months later. Fostering curiosity means rewarding inquiry, not compliance—like WiPro’s onboarding experiments that asked new employees to share stories of their best selves. The power of that 15-minute reflection was profound: turnover dropped by a third and customer satisfaction rose by 18 percent.

Curious teams don’t fear mistakes—they metabolize them into learning. In such workplaces, feedback isn’t a threat; it’s the sound of growth. “The question,” Daisley concludes, “is not ‘Did we fail?’ but ‘What did this teach us before next time?’”