Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 1: used by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 1: much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imba.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day.
Speaker 1: This episode is another my favorite Tip episode. The title's
Speaker 1: probably pretty self explanatory. It's about my favorite tip from
Speaker 1: each of the interviews that I conduct. So on today's show,
Speaker 1: my guest is Harris Faulkner. Harris is a multiple Emmy
Speaker 1: Award winning newscaster, anchor, and trailblazer in her field. Harris
Speaker 1: currently leads two daily programs on Fox News over in America,
Speaker 1: out Numbered over Time with Harris Faulkner, which airs every
Speaker 1: weekday from one to two pm Eastern Time, and she
Speaker 1: serves as the co host of out Numbered, which is
Speaker 1: also on every weekday from twelve to one Eastern Time.
Speaker 1: Harris joined the Fox News channel in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: so she is quite the veteran, and throughout her career,
Speaker 1: Harris has interviewed many notable figures, including President Trump, Senator
Speaker 1: John McCain and Bill Clinton, to name just a few. Now,
Speaker 1: in this my favorite Tip episode, what we get into
Speaker 1: talking about is how Harris blocks out downtime in her life,
Speaker 1: but more specifically, how she schedules time to be spontaneous.
Speaker 1: So let's head to Harris to hear exactly how she
Speaker 1: does that.
Speaker 2: Well, I have to schedule downtime. I have to force
Speaker 2: myself to change what used to make me feel comfortable
Speaker 2: like I used to. And I it's funny because for me,
Speaker 2: more information is always the thing. Like I would come
Speaker 2: home and I would continue reading stuff after a whole
Speaker 2: day of news. I can't do that now. It's too much.
Speaker 2: And I have to help my children manage. My ten
Speaker 2: and my thirteen year old daughters manage their stress and
Speaker 2: whatever they're feeling. The little ones have not seen anybody
Speaker 2: other than the four of us and so long, and
Speaker 2: the one camera man who comes here is on the
Speaker 2: first floor wearing a mask and gloves. They don't go
Speaker 2: near him, so they literally, other than looking out the window,
Speaker 2: haven't had human contact outside of us. And I don't
Speaker 2: want to stress them out with my stress, so I
Speaker 2: have to self care. I take more bubble baths than
Speaker 2: I've ever taken in my life, and you.
Speaker 1: Said, like, you're now literally scheduling downtime, Like, what does
Speaker 1: that look like? Is it almost if I looked at
Speaker 1: your calendar there would be time where you're uncontactable, for example,
Speaker 1: by the rest of the world outside your family, Like,
Speaker 1: what's that looking like on a really practical level?
Speaker 2: So it looks exactly the way you described it. And
Speaker 2: you know, here's how old school I am too, Amantha.
Speaker 2: I have all these digital devices and everything else. I've
Speaker 2: got to phones and laptops and tablets and stuff. I
Speaker 2: use four devices for every show. But I have a
Speaker 2: beautiful fabric calendar book and I love it, and I
Speaker 2: buy a new one every eighteen months. And it is
Speaker 2: something about physically writing in the words my time spontaneity. Yes,
Speaker 2: I actually schedule spontaneity. That's awesome, lad. But my husband,
Speaker 2: he's a big role in this because I'll start to
Speaker 2: I'll schedule and it's no more than forty five minutes
Speaker 2: to an hour at a time, but it may be
Speaker 2: turning on my favorite We have sonas in my house
Speaker 2: and I'll just turn it on for the bedroom and
Speaker 2: my favorite channel is called Poolside, and it's just like
Speaker 2: it's almost like a boat's rocking. The music is just
Speaker 2: kind of bumping and it's not too you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's got some soul behind it, but it's you know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like a TikTok video. And I will
Speaker 2: do anything for I just finished a book by Gabrielle
Speaker 2: Union called We're Going to Need More Wine. It didn't
Speaker 2: just come out, It's been out for a while. It
Speaker 2: was bestseller. But I had started that book like five
Speaker 2: times last year and just never do you know, I
Speaker 2: finished that book in just a manner of hours. Wow,
Speaker 2: just a couple of break times because I don't allow
Speaker 2: anything else to impede. And my husband really supports me
Speaker 2: with this, like he will tell the girls, Mommy's having
Speaker 2: a moment. Now. I don't get to do that every day,
Speaker 2: but if I'm doing it three times a week, that's
Speaker 2: three hours. That's that's like. And I create a spa,
Speaker 2: you know, I'll light a candle. I'm very I love aromatherapy,
Speaker 2: so I like for things to smell good. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'll take that bubble bath and the whole that just
Speaker 2: makes the whole upper floor with all the bedrooms smell good.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll just get out my yoga mat and do
Speaker 2: a couple of down dogs and just look at the
Speaker 2: city with the curtains open. I mean, they're Florida to
Speaker 2: ceiling windows and that's my time. It doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be complicated, but it does have to be kept. And
Speaker 2: that was something that my husband was really supportive on.
Speaker 2: He's like, well, what good is it to schedule my
Speaker 2: time or spontaneity on your calendar. If you're not going
Speaker 2: to keep it, it can't be a broken promise. So
Speaker 2: that's the deal.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by this idea of scheduling spontaneity. So when
Speaker 1: did this start? And how often are you doing this spontaneity.
Speaker 1: Is that always just on your own the spontaneity or
Speaker 1: is it sometimes spontaneity with your family? Like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: curious as to the origins to start with.
Speaker 2: So that is the question of the day. I love
Speaker 2: that question, Amantha. It can be by myself. But the
Speaker 2: best spontaneity is when I surprise everybody and I walk
Speaker 2: in with I did this last weekend. They looked a
Speaker 2: little scared, but it turned out to be fun. A
Speaker 2: five hundred piece puzzle that I had ordered off of Amazon.
Speaker 2: We're not usual to do that, but we did. We
Speaker 2: cleared everything off the dining room table and we did
Speaker 2: this for hours and had such a good time. The
Speaker 2: whole point is it is for it to be relaxing
Speaker 2: and fun and to feel disconnected. So I love the
Speaker 2: idea of doing things that I don't normally do. So
Speaker 2: my spontaneity isn't always by myself. But I try not
Speaker 2: to write anything down, like I literally whatever. When that
Speaker 2: time comes, I'll say what sounds good, what feels good,
Speaker 2: and I'll go do that. And the other day we
Speaker 2: made homemade biscuits for breakfast. My time was thirty minutes
Speaker 2: in the morning, and I said, you know what, school
Speaker 2: hasn't started yet, Let's go do this. And we did
Speaker 2: and it was delicious. I made some egg whites, fluffy
Speaker 2: biscuits and sausage, and I made little sandwiches.
Speaker 1: Sounds delicious.
Speaker 2: There's a way I could have known I wanted to
Speaker 2: do that, but we work for it.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. If you liked it,
Speaker 1: you might like to listen to my full chat with Harris,
Speaker 1: which I linked to in the show notes. And if
Speaker 1: you're enjoying how I work, Why not leave a review
Speaker 1: in Apple Podcasts or wherever you've listened to this. It's
Speaker 1: awesome hearing reading people's reviews. It really does make my day.
Speaker 1: So thank you if you've left a review, and thank
Speaker 1: you as well if you intend to leave one today.
Speaker 1: So that's it for today and I'll see you next time.