Speaker 1: Are you tired of spending too much time composing emails
Speaker 1: or writing reports from scratch? Do you wish you had
Speaker 1: more time to focus on the core of your work
Speaker 1: rather than the administrative minutia. In today's quick Win episode,
Speaker 1: Wharton professor Katie Milkman shares her favorite time saving hack,
Speaker 1: the template. My name is doctor amanthe Imbach. I'm an
Speaker 1: organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and this is how I work a show about how
Speaker 1: to help you do your best work. On today's quick
Speaker 1: Win episode, we go back to an interview from the
Speaker 1: past and I pick out a quick win that you
Speaker 1: can apply today. In today's show, I speak with Katie
Speaker 1: Milkman about her favorite time saving hack.
Speaker 2: My favorite time saving hack is that for anything possible,
Speaker 2: I start from a template, whether it's an email to
Speaker 2: a student interested in getting involved with my research, or
Speaker 2: a referee report for a journal, which is an important
Speaker 2: part of the academic publishing process. I spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time reviewing other people's manuscripts or manuscript i'm writing myself.
Speaker 2: I really try to have a model and make as
Speaker 2: much of the world a mad lib as possible. And
Speaker 2: it saves tons of time.
Speaker 1: So give me some examples of maybe some of the
Speaker 1: more unusual things that you've got templates for that would
Speaker 1: surprise people.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, well, I do have literally templates for every
Speaker 2: kind of email you could imagine, responding to everything from
Speaker 2: an invitation to deliver a talk at a conference, to
Speaker 2: a student who wants to work with me, to someone
Speaker 2: who's interested in consulting, or a podcast appearance. I have
Speaker 2: template emails to say both yes and no that, so
Speaker 2: that I can go straight to those. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of things I don't have templates for, but that
Speaker 2: before I would ever start writing, I would find a
Speaker 2: template for. So, for example, if I'm going to write
Speaker 2: an op ed in a newspaper, I don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: one on hand, but I would never begin writing without
Speaker 2: going and finding three examples and basically backwards diagramming what's
Speaker 2: their structure? You know, what are the first two paragraphs?
Speaker 2: Is it a story that it opens with a quote?
Speaker 2: Does it get right to the point of the research
Speaker 2: that's trying to present. I find examples and then I
Speaker 2: turn them into templates so that I understand the exact
Speaker 2: structure I'm writing with it so I do this for
Speaker 2: everything written, and then I actually think you can use
Speaker 2: templates not only with writing, but with goal pursued, and
Speaker 2: so that might be a more unusual example. In fact,
Speaker 2: I have a paper with Angela Duckworth and Katie Mahyer
Speaker 2: on this topic where we looked at whether or not
Speaker 2: people recognize that when they have a goal and they
Speaker 2: have friends or acquaintances who have the same goal, it
Speaker 2: can really save time and improve outcomes if your first
Speaker 2: step is to try to emulate something that's working for
Speaker 2: someone else and try to actually go in investigate. Ask
Speaker 2: your friend, you know, I noticed that you got in
Speaker 2: shape last month, which is something I've been wanting to do.
Speaker 2: Could you explain what you did that made that work
Speaker 2: for you? Or you know, I noticed that you figured
Speaker 2: out how to find the job of your dreams and publishing,
Speaker 2: and I've always wanted to do that. What were the
Speaker 2: steps you took? Could you break them down for me?
Speaker 2: So essentially everything in life there is a template because
Speaker 2: others have succeeded at doing it before you. And rather
Speaker 2: than trying to reinvent the wheel, I think we should
Speaker 2: spend a lot more time trying to figure out what's
Speaker 2: the mad lib we can fit ourselves into so that
Speaker 2: the you know, which isn't say you don't want to
Speaker 2: be creative and lots of parts of life, but you
Speaker 2: don't want to create a necessary work for yourself. And
Speaker 2: whenever there is something that you can use as a model,
Speaker 2: that's always the right place to start.
Speaker 1: What's the trick of you in thinking, ah, I need
Speaker 1: a new template here?
Speaker 2: Well, that's an interesting question. I think, you know again,
Speaker 2: anything that's written, it's really straightforward. And if I've seen,
Speaker 2: for instance, an ask coming through or a question that
Speaker 2: I'm getting multiple times, I'll give you an example. Today,
Speaker 2: I got an email from one of my research assistants,
Speaker 2: and I run a big research group, and she is
Speaker 2: about to talk to a professor who is at a
Speaker 2: PhD program where she's planning to apply. And he said,
Speaker 2: you know, let's set up a time to talk. And
Speaker 2: she wrote me and she said, could you help me
Speaker 2: think about how to prepare for this meeting. It's sort
Speaker 2: of like an interview, but it's informal. And I realized, oh,
Speaker 2: I got an email just like this year ago from
Speaker 2: another research assistant who was going into a conversation an
Speaker 2: informal conversation with a faculty member at a university where
Speaker 2: he hoped he would end up as a PhD student.
Speaker 2: I should have a template for this. I should have
Speaker 2: a set of advice that I always offer when someone
Speaker 2: is in the situation. So it's really about pattern recognition.
Speaker 2: That's one thing, Like something that comes up repeatedly. I
Speaker 2: don't want to have to think through and give the
Speaker 2: same advice to multiple people, which is ps part of
Speaker 2: why I wrote a book because I realized, Oh, lots
Speaker 2: of people are asking me, lots of companies and individuals.
Speaker 2: You know, you have all this wisdom about how to
Speaker 2: change from your research. Could you come give us advice
Speaker 2: or consult us on this? And I thought, enough people
Speaker 2: are scared, just write it all down and then I
Speaker 2: handle my book instead of having to have, you know,
Speaker 2: two hundred conversations with all these people. So I think
Speaker 2: anytime something comes up repeatedly, or something is going to
Speaker 2: be big and new, you want to think about whether
Speaker 2: there's a template you can use to break down the big,
Speaker 2: scary new thing, or whether there's a template you can
Speaker 2: use so that the question that's coming up repeatedly you
Speaker 2: only spend time on it once and then you save
Speaker 2: time in the future.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
Speaker 1: that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that
Speaker 1: contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me
Speaker 1: work better, ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving
Speaker 1: three to interesting research findings. You can sign up for
Speaker 1: that at how I Work dot code That's how I
Speaker 1: Work dot c. Thank you for sharing part of your
Speaker 1: day with me by listening to How I Work. If
Speaker 1: you're keen for more tips on how to work better,
Speaker 1: connect with me via LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm very easy
Speaker 1: to find. Just search for Amantha Imba. How I Work
Speaker 1: was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people,
Speaker 1: part of the kool And Nation. I am so grateful
Speaker 1: for being able to work and live on this beautiful land,
Speaker 1: and I want to pay my respects to elders, past,
Speaker 1: present and emerging. How I Work is produced by Inventium
Speaker 1: with production support from Dead Set Studios. And thank you
Speaker 1: to Martin Nimba who did the audio mix and makes
Speaker 1: everything sound better than it would have otherwise.