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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers now.

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Speaker 2: Like, how can you really curate and design your physical

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Speaker 2: environment to make it easier for you and your kids

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Speaker 2: to do the healthy in inverted commas behaviors?

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson. Unfortunately I'm without the

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Speaker 3: star of the show. I'm without Kylie. She's not with

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Speaker 3: me today. My wife, my co host, mum to our

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Speaker 3: six daughters, couldn't well. Stuff was happening every now and again.

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Speaker 3: It happens when we're recording the podcast, and Kylie just

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Speaker 3: can't be here. But I am absolutely thrilled to welcome

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Speaker 3: a special guest for our conversation today, doctor Amantha Imba.

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Speaker 3: Amantha is an organizational psychologist. She's a founder of behavioral

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Speaker 3: science consultancy Inventium. Amota's thoughts have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur,

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Speaker 3: and Fast Company. A whole lot of corporate stuff and

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Speaker 3: she's very very good at it. And she's the author

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Speaker 3: of two best selling books, The Creativity Formula and The

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Speaker 3: Innovation Formula. Oh and doctor Amantha Imber hosts a podcast

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Speaker 3: called How I Work, which I've really been enjoying lately

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Speaker 3: and have gotten quite a lot out of. So I

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Speaker 3: reached out to her and thought, if doctor Amantha Imber

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Speaker 3: knows so much about how people work and how we

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Speaker 3: can be more effective and more efficient, maybe she can

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Speaker 3: help us to be more effective and more efficient in

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Speaker 3: our families. Amantha, you've talked to some of the most

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Speaker 3: genius minds in the world on your podcast How I Work,

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Speaker 3: and as you've talked productivity and efficiency. Now, I want

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Speaker 3: to preface this by saying that parenting is not all

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Speaker 3: about productivity and efficiency. Sometimes it's about exactly the opposite

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Speaker 3: and just being there in the moment, in the process.

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Speaker 3: But we know that mornings and evenings and weekends there

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Speaker 3: are times where we've got to be productive or we've

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Speaker 3: got to be efficient and get processes going so that

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Speaker 3: our household can run. So what I'd love to know

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Speaker 3: from you is what have you picked up from some

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Speaker 3: of these absolute gurus. I mean, we're talking Greg McKeon,

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Speaker 3: the guy who wrote Essentialism. It's one of the most

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Speaker 3: it's one of my top five books of all time.

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Speaker 3: What have these kinds of people shared with you that

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Speaker 3: you think that mum's and dads who will listen to

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Speaker 3: the Happy Families podcast would benefit.

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Speaker 2: From Yes, I've learned a lot. I think let's start

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Speaker 2: with the phone, because I reckon the phone is one

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Speaker 2: of the things that really stands in the way of

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Speaker 2: being a very present and let's say effective parent, because

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Speaker 2: so many people these days, so many adults with children,

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Speaker 2: are glued to their phones. So happy to start there justin.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think as you were saying that, would you

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Speaker 3: believe my phone just buzzed and I had to quickly

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Speaker 3: pick it up and put it away, and I was like,

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Speaker 3: oh my goodness, it's taking me out of this. I've

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Speaker 3: just asked you a really import question. And my phone

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Speaker 3: is now on the other side of the room, by

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Speaker 3: the way, face down because I've thrown it across the

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Speaker 3: carpet because I want to be here. But doesn't that

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Speaker 3: happen when when our children are trying to talk to us,

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Speaker 3: We're like, yeah, yeah, as soon as I just finished

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Speaker 3: reading this news dot com dot a you story, Like, seriously,

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Speaker 3: have you noticed by the way that you reading news

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Speaker 3: dot com dot a you story and three minutes later

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Speaker 3: you don't remember what you read? Oh yes, yeah, so important,

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Speaker 3: so unimportant, and we get so caught up and all

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Speaker 3: we're flicking through our Instagram. So let's let's start with

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Speaker 3: the device and tell us what you've what you've discovered there?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I remember I learned something really cool from

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Speaker 2: Jake nap So. Jake is a New York Times pectilling

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Speaker 2: author of Sprint and Make Time, and he spent many

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Speaker 2: many years working at Google and then at Google Ventures.

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Speaker 2: And he told me this story about one evening he

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Speaker 2: was playing with one of his sons and he was

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Speaker 2: looking on his phone, just scrolling through kind of mindlessly,

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Speaker 2: and his son and they were meant to be playing

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Speaker 2: with trains, and his son just innocently asked, Dad, why

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Speaker 2: are you on your phone? You know, not in an

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Speaker 2: aggressive way, not in a frustrated way, just out of curiosity.

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Speaker 2: And Jake thought to himself, that's actually a really good question.

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Speaker 2: Why am I on my phone rather than being present

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Speaker 2: with my son? And so that led to a stack

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Speaker 2: of changes in Jake's life. And one of the things

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Speaker 2: that he did is he turned his phone, which ironically,

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Speaker 2: he helped build apps that go on the phone. When

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Speaker 2: he was at Google, he turned it into what he

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Speaker 2: calls a distraction free phone. So what this means, and

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Speaker 2: you know, this might be something that justin I'd love

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Speaker 2: to know the state of your phone, but essentially, what

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Speaker 2: Jake did is he deleted all the apps that were

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Speaker 2: hijacking his attention in an unhealthy way. And generally they

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Speaker 2: were the apps that had an Infinity score, where you know,

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Speaker 2: like when you're on Instagram, you're never going to get

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Speaker 2: to the end of Instagram. It just goes on. And

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Speaker 2: he deleted all of those apps from his phone. He

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Speaker 2: even deleted or disabled Safari and deleted email, and so

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Speaker 2: his phone was basically just a utility device, like a

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Speaker 2: boring phone. It had all the amazing things that we

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Speaker 2: can do with our phone, like it had maps, and

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Speaker 2: it had a compass, and it had an alarm clock

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Speaker 2: and you know, all these things that are just really

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Speaker 2: useful to have on your device, but they're not things

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Speaker 2: that grab your attention. And for me, I think that's

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Speaker 2: a game changer. I did that with my phone after

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Speaker 2: I spoke to Jake, and my phone is really really boring.

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Speaker 3: Now it's funny that you say that I've removed as

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Speaker 3: much as I can from my phone. And again this

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Speaker 3: is a really intentional decision. I don't have Instagram on

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Speaker 3: my phone. I do have Facebook, but I have two

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Speaker 3: accounts for Facebook. I've got my business account and I've

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Speaker 3: got to fake Justin Coulson account for that. And i

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Speaker 3: only use my fake account to do business stuff because

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Speaker 3: it's part of my work and I really don't engage

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Speaker 3: very much with that. I'm fortunate my team can look

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Speaker 3: after most of the business stuff. I very very rarely,

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Speaker 3: if ever, spend time on Facebook, but it's only it's

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Speaker 3: only there because of work. And I've also reduced I've

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Speaker 3: removed all notifications from my phone except for text messages

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Speaker 3: and phone calls. So if there's stuff happening on apps

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Speaker 3: that I'm supposed to know about it, I just don't

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Speaker 3: find out about it until I open up the app

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Speaker 3: because I've deleted all the all the notifications. And what

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Speaker 3: I've also found is that it gives me more time

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Speaker 3: to do things that matter to me. I get to

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Speaker 3: be more present with my kids. I'm more inclined to

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Speaker 3: pick up a book and read. I mean I read

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Speaker 3: forty or fifty books a year, so obviously that's working

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Speaker 3: pretty well for me. It's it's been a it's been

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Speaker 3: a game changer. But yeah, I love that idea from

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Speaker 3: Jake Napp about reducing and removing the distractions that phones create.

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Speaker 4: You know how you.

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Speaker 2: Mentioned that you threw your phone across the room. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: so now it's physically out of reach, which I love.

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Speaker 2: And it reminded me of something else I heard on

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Speaker 2: How I Work, which was from Matt mullin weg and

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Speaker 2: so probably most people wouldn't have heard of Matt, but

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Speaker 2: they would have used his product or service. So Matt

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Speaker 2: is the co founder of word Press, which then turned

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Speaker 2: into Automatic and so WordPress is responsible for about a

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Speaker 2: third of the websites that you would visit if you're

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Speaker 2: browsing online. So it's like the sort of the software

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Speaker 2: that sits behind people that build websites that people then visit,

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Speaker 2: and something that Matt thinks about. And this kind of

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Speaker 2: relates to nudge theory, which just been the subject of

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Speaker 2: a lot of recent yea.

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Speaker 3: Richard Saylor and Cas Sunstein wrote that fabulous book Proo Much.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, It's a brilliant book, and this is thinking

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Speaker 2: about how can you design your environment to encourage better

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Speaker 2: behavior without relying on the need for willpower do things

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Speaker 2: like you know, with the phone as an example, we

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Speaker 2: all know that we should spend less time on our phones.

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Speaker 2: I don't think anyone would argue with that, and a

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Speaker 2: lot of us try to, but a lot of us

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Speaker 2: just rely on sheer willpower and brute force and just like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to use my phone less or I'm not

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Speaker 2: going to look at Instagram while I'm with my kids tonight.

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Speaker 2: But that's really hard, Like willpower is a limited resource

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Speaker 2: and we want to rely on it as little as possible.

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Speaker 2: And so something that Matt thinks about because he thinks about, well,

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Speaker 2: how can he change his environment to encourage better behavior. So,

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Speaker 2: for example, Matt knows that if on his bedside table

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Speaker 2: the phone is sitting on top of the kindle, he

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Speaker 2: will go and scroll through his phone at night, whereas

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Speaker 2: if the kindle is sitting on top of the phone,

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Speaker 2: he will read a book on his kindle. So I

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Speaker 2: think this is a really interesting thing for parents to

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Speaker 2: think about, like how can you really curate and design

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Speaker 2: your physical environment to make it easier for you and

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Speaker 2: your kids to do the healthy in inverted commas behaviors

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Speaker 2: like the things that we know are good for us

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Speaker 2: and that are enriching as opposed to the things that.

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Speaker 3: Are not so me Ethan, what have you done in

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Speaker 3: your home to be intentional like that? To nudge your

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Speaker 3: family You've got a seven and a half year old daughter,

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Speaker 3: to nudge your family in the direction of being present

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Speaker 3: for one another and engage with one another rather than

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Speaker 3: staring at a screen or doing other distracting things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so something for me, And look, I'm fortunate in

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Speaker 2: the way my house is laid out is that when

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Speaker 2: I moved into the house that I'm in, I made

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Speaker 2: sure that the TV was not in the main kind

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Speaker 2: of living area. So we've got a room that's you know,

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Speaker 2: I guess, like the size of a small bedroom that

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Speaker 2: sits off to the side of the main living area,

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Speaker 2: which is sort of like the open plan living kitchen area.

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Speaker 2: And I find when I visit most people's houses, the

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Speaker 2: TV is front and center. Yeah, it's pride of place.

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Speaker 2: Whereas for me, I'm not a big TV watcher myself,

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Speaker 2: and while my daughter loves TV, it's really restricted in

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Speaker 2: terms of when that TV goes on. Like if it's

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Speaker 2: TV time, then it's TV time, and TV generally doesn't

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Speaker 2: happen before four o'clock in my household. And so the

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Speaker 2: TV sits in a completely separate area, so it's not

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Speaker 2: front and center, it's not on, just in the background.

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Speaker 2: And that was a really deliberate design decision to kind

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Speaker 2: of go, Okay, I don't want the TV dominating my

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Speaker 2: daughter's life.

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Speaker 3: You're a woman after my heart, Amantha. We've done exactly

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Speaker 3: the same thing. We've got upstairs and downstairs. Our living

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Speaker 3: area is upstairs and the rumpus room is downstairs down

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Speaker 3: the hall way. It's as far away from our living

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Speaker 3: and bedroom space as you can actually get in the house.

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Speaker 3: And that's where we've put the TV. One TV in

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Speaker 3: the entire house. That's it, that's where it is. And

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Speaker 3: we've left our living room free for the exact same reason.

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Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting. Now, another thing that I think about is reading.

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Speaker 2: So I just I'm so big on reading, as is

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Speaker 2: Frankie's dad. You know, we literally so she so we're divorced,

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Speaker 2: so she's between our houses, but like literally a night

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Speaker 2: would not go by where we don't read to Frankie

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Speaker 2: at night, and and just encouraging her to have that

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Speaker 2: love of books, that love of reading is really important,

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Speaker 2: and so for me, I think about books always need

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Speaker 2: to be within easy reach. So whichever room in the

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Speaker 2: house we are in, there will be a book, as

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Speaker 2: opposed to all the books just being on the bookshelf

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Speaker 2: in Frankie's bedroom, where it means that it's slightly harder,

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Speaker 2: just a little bit like if we want to grab

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Speaker 2: a book and do some reading. So it means that

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Speaker 2: a book is generally within a few steps reach. And

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Speaker 2: that is another thing I've thought about in terms of

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Speaker 2: designing the physical environment at home.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost like we're living in the same house.

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Speaker 3: I mean, let me be clear, we're not. But we've

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Speaker 3: done the same thing. We've got books in every room

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Speaker 3: and we've also set up a little basket with games

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Speaker 3: like spot it, and you know, because obviously with six kids,

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Speaker 3: that's easier to facilitate that kind of that kind of play.

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Speaker 3: Whereas you've got a single chance. It's like, Okay, I

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Speaker 3: guess we're going to play again. So we've done that. Hey,

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Speaker 3: I want to get one or two more ideas from you.

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Speaker 3: We're going to do that right after the break.

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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 4: Are screens creating tension at home? Tweens, Teens and Screens

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Speaker 4: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe super

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Speaker 4: screen solutions. Bye today at happy families dot com dot

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Speaker 4: au slash shop.

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Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers. Now, this is doctor

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Speaker 3: justin call. Kylie couldn't be with us today scheduling. Sometimes

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Speaker 3: it just happens like that, and so Kylie has got

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Speaker 3: another commitment. But I am hanging out today with the

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Speaker 3: host of a fabulous podcast that I've been listening to

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Speaker 3: quite a lot over the last few weeks, called How

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Speaker 3: I Work. Doctor Amantha Imba is joining me. That's Amantha,

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Speaker 3: which is like Samantha but without the S. And Amantha

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Speaker 3: is talking about the different ways that we can be

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Speaker 3: more present, more productive, and more efficient in the way

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Speaker 3: we do things with our family, because sometimes we've just

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Speaker 3: got to get stuff done. We've talked about making telephones

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Speaker 3: invisible or reducing screen news. We've talked about nudge theory

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Speaker 3: and how we can set our house up so that

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Speaker 3: it's the default to play games or read books rather

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Speaker 3: than stare at a TV. Amantha, I'm wondering there are

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Speaker 3: one or two other things that you've picked up from

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Speaker 3: all of the extraordinary interviews that you've done over the

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Speaker 3: years with so many wonderful New York Times best selling authors,

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Speaker 3: people who have been at the top of their game

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Speaker 3: in the software industry, all these people who think about

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Speaker 3: productivity and efficiency. Is there anything else that has realisted

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Speaker 3: out to you from your podcasts that would be on

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Speaker 3: your greatest hits for families to try to implement.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple of other things come to mind.

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Speaker 2: So one you mentioned Greg McEwan at the start, and

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Speaker 2: Essentialism is also on definitely my top favorite business books

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Speaker 2: list ever, so I was very excited when I did

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Speaker 2: have Greg on the show. And his most recent book, Effortless,

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Speaker 2: really challenges a lot of the assumptions around how we

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Speaker 2: think about work, and particularly how we think about work

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Speaker 2: being hard. And something that Greg really challenged is that

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Speaker 2: we can't assume that hard work can't be fun. That

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Speaker 2: seems to be a fundamental assumption that underpins most people's thinking.

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Speaker 2: And you know, if we think about like our lives

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Speaker 2: as parents, and you know, chores and like cleaning up

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Speaker 2: after dinner, that can't be fun, surely, And in Greg's house,

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Speaker 2: he thought, well, let's challenge that because he noticed that

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Speaker 2: his kids when dinner was over, even though they were

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Speaker 2: meant to help with the cleanup, they would disappear like

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Speaker 2: Little Ninja's sneak off and him and his wife would

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Speaker 2: be left to do the cleaning up. So Greig thought about,

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Speaker 2: how can we actually make this clean up after dinner fun? Like, yes,

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Speaker 2: it's hard work, but can we make it fun? And

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Speaker 2: so his daughter loves Disney music and so now what

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Speaker 2: they do is they literally kind of have this dance

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Speaker 2: party where they put on Disney music pretty loud, and

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Speaker 2: they dance around and they sing, and they clean up,

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Speaker 2: They do the dishes, they you know, clean up the table.

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Speaker 2: And I thought that is really cool. And you know,

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Speaker 2: so as parents, how can we think about all those

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Speaker 2: things that feel like chores and hard work and you

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Speaker 2: know it must be really miserable and dreary to do,

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Speaker 2: But instead, how can we flip that and go, well,

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Speaker 2: how can we actually redesign that and make it fun?

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Speaker 3: I love it? And once again singing from the same

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Speaker 3: song sheet, is there one more thing that's stood out

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Speaker 3: to you from how I work your podcast that you

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Speaker 3: think happy families listeners would just love in terms of

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Speaker 3: how they can set up their home to work more effectively.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so, something a few of my guests have spoken

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Speaker 2: about is the idea of chronotypes. So this is underpinned

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Speaker 2: by a huge body of psychological research and it basically

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Speaker 2: what a chronotype is is it's where are peaks in

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Speaker 2: terms of energy and lack of energy over a twenty

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Speaker 2: four hour period. So broadly speaking, there are mourning people

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Speaker 2: who were laks who you know, upright and early at

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Speaker 2: five am. There's ours four.

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Speaker 3: Thirty if you don't mind for me, it's four thirty.

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Speaker 2: I'm just saying good you are a lark, justin and

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Speaker 2: probably deeply irritating to owls, who are about twenty percent of

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Speaker 2: the population. They do their best thinking they've got their

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Speaker 2: highest energy at night, and then everyone else is a middlebird.

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Speaker 2: So follow the patterns of a lark, so more sprightly

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Speaker 2: in the morning, just delayed by a couple of hours.

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Speaker 2: And what is really important for parents to know, kily,

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Speaker 2: parents of teenagers that feel like they're just fighting against

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Speaker 2: these people that want to sleep in and not be

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Speaker 2: at school on time, is that our chronotype is genetically

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Speaker 2: predetermined and it changes with eight So when we're young.

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Speaker 2: When we're really little people, we're quite larkish. When we

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Speaker 2: get into our teenage years are chronotype shifts and we

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Speaker 2: become like ours and then in our twenties and thirties

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Speaker 2: we start to level out at where a natural chronotype is.

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Speaker 2: So I think that is a really helpful thing for

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Speaker 2: parents to be aware of. This is genetically predetermined, So

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Speaker 2: wherever possible, try not to fight against where your child

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Speaker 2: is out in terms of their chronotype phase.

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Speaker 3: If you like doctor Amantha Imber, what a fantastic conversation,

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Speaker 3: let's just do a really like a ten second summary.

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Speaker 3: We've talked about how phones can interrupt our ability to

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Speaker 3: be present and to be effective with our kids, and

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Speaker 3: we should well to the extent that we can reduce

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Speaker 3: the impact that they have by making them invisible or

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Speaker 3: at least making their impact at less noticeable. We talked

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Speaker 3: about nudge theory and how we can set up our

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Speaker 3: environment to point us towards defaults that are better for

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Speaker 3: our relationships. The third thing that we talked about came

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Speaker 3: from Greg mckeeon in his book Effortless. We're talking about

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Speaker 3: how to make work the hard stuff actually fun, so

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Speaker 3: it doesn't feel so hard. And this last idea about chronotypes,

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Speaker 3: which I had to laugh when you said larks and

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Speaker 3: ours and you started talking about nighttime and I was

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Speaker 3: going to intrude and just say, what is night I

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Speaker 3: don't know what that is because once the sun goes down,

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Speaker 3: my eyes just automatically close. This has been such a wonderful,

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Speaker 3: wonderful conversation. I'm sure people have found it helpful, Amantha.

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Speaker 3: If people want to find out more about you, your

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Speaker 3: podcast and how you work, where would they go and

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Speaker 3: what would you want them to know?

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Speaker 2: Well, search for how I work wherever you listen to

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Speaker 2: your podcasts. If you want more productivity and time management advice,

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Speaker 2: just using our time wisely as generally what myself and

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Speaker 2: my guests talk about. And if you want to connect

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Speaker 2: with me, my name is quite unique, Amantha, like Samantha

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Speaker 2: without the es, and my surnname is Kimba like Timber

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Speaker 2: without the tea. So if you google that, there'll be

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Speaker 2: lots of links leading you in various places.

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Speaker 3: What a great conversation. Thanks again, Amantha. The Happy Family

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Speaker 3: podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig

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Speaker 3: Bruce is our executive producer and if you'd like more

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Speaker 3: info about making your family happier. You can always check

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Speaker 3: out How I Work from Amantha and visit happyfamilies dot

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Speaker 3: com dot au