Speaker 1: When you boil it down. Upping your productivity is about
Speaker 1: two things, working more efficiently and working to a better plan.
Speaker 1: You can work as efficiently as possible, powering through an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of work in one short sprint, but if
Speaker 1: you're not doing the right work at the right time,
Speaker 1: that extra efficiency isn't doing you any good. And when
Speaker 1: you zoom out and look at an entire days or
Speaker 1: week's worth of work, you realize that you simply can't
Speaker 1: bulldoze through meaningful work for eight hours straight, five days
Speaker 1: in a row. So intelligent planning is the bedrock of
Speaker 1: all productivity, and even better, if you do your planning
Speaker 1: at the right time, you can save yourself a lot
Speaker 1: of anxiety too. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm
Speaker 1: an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy
Speaker 1: invent Him. And this is how I work, a show
Speaker 1: about how to help you do your best work. Welcome
Speaker 1: to your favorite Tips across ten bite size episodes, I'll
Speaker 1: be sharing tips from some of the world's best thinkers
Speaker 1: that you, the listeners, have found the most useful. We're
Speaker 1: covering everything from creating better to do lists to setting
Speaker 1: more effective boundaries around your time, and you'll be hearing
Speaker 1: from people like best selling author Sally Hepworth, Corona Cast
Speaker 1: host and journalist Norman Swan, and Google's executive productivity advisor
Speaker 1: Laura may Martin. Today's favorite tip comes from Jason, and
Speaker 1: he writes, I have two primary school children, and I'm
Speaker 1: a teacher. I've just began at the high school after
Speaker 1: twenty years in primary school, so this year has been
Speaker 1: a welcome shock of how the upper schools do it
Speaker 1: differently due to different subjects I teach and room changes
Speaker 1: each period. I ensure I put together a to do
Speaker 1: list every night before leaving for home, a small A
Speaker 1: five notepad with today's plan of attack written on it.
Speaker 1: I detail each subject, room number, and the changes if
Speaker 1: need be, as well as a side note on content.
Speaker 1: Each morning, when I log on, I check for any
Speaker 1: last minute changes or extra relief classes I may need
Speaker 1: to take. It's been a lot with COVID this year
Speaker 1: in WA and this notepad then travels with me all
Speaker 1: day for referencing. It's been incredibly helpful. While it might
Speaker 1: seem simple, it calms me each night knowing that tomorrow
Speaker 1: is prepped and noted as a reminder especially with last
Speaker 1: minute room changes and relief classes. So here is Laura
Speaker 1: may Martin, Google's executive productivity advisor, talking about her daily planning.
Speaker 1: Richell called the daily Plan.
Speaker 2: So this is something I've used internally, but given all
Speaker 2: of the work from home and changes, I actually posted
Speaker 2: it to the Google blog, so I can send you
Speaker 2: a link to that. But I call it the daily plan,
Speaker 2: and I ac actually do it the night before. So
Speaker 2: one thing that I do is I add three actions
Speaker 2: that I want to do for the next day, so
Speaker 2: my top three priorities. That's kind of that what does
Speaker 2: the successful day look like? And underneath the first one
Speaker 2: thing I need to do, it says until this first
Speaker 2: task is finished, everything else is a distraction. So that's
Speaker 2: basically like my one thing I need to get done.
Speaker 2: Then I take a look at hour by hour, which
Speaker 2: I think is the most important part. So a lot
Speaker 2: of productivity tips mention this, but planning out what you
Speaker 2: plan to do hour by hour beforehand makes a huge
Speaker 2: difference in whether you actually do it. Even just writing
Speaker 2: down I plan to work out seven to eight makes
Speaker 2: you way more likely to do that than to wake
Speaker 2: up and trust yourself. So I do a rough hour
Speaker 2: by hour plan. Obviously I don't always know how long
Speaker 2: naps are going to last, but you know, I do
Speaker 2: an estimate, and then I also have a little snack
Speaker 2: size to do. I call it the bottom corner, and
Speaker 2: I say, okay, if I end up having fifteen extra minutes,
Speaker 2: those are all tasks that are fifteen minutes or less.
Speaker 2: So you know, those aren't necessarily my top three. But
Speaker 2: if I end up having fifteen minutes that I didn't
Speaker 2: know I had a meeting ends early and nap goes long,
Speaker 2: you know, I need to have a list of things
Speaker 2: I can quickly do. So make that one phone call,
Speaker 2: you know, do that one email that I've been needing
Speaker 2: to do. So I have that I have also at
Speaker 2: the very top it says something that I'm grateful for.
Speaker 2: And I think I had that in a planner once
Speaker 2: that I bought, like I think in high school or something,
Speaker 2: and I just thought it was a great way just
Speaker 2: to kick off. You know, you're starting all these things
Speaker 2: you need to do, maybe feeling stress making this list,
Speaker 2: but having that at the very top, just something you're
Speaker 2: grateful for, like maybe that you do have the opportunity
Speaker 2: to work from home. That's always a good perspective.
Speaker 1: That's cool. I like that process. Do you so that's
Speaker 1: the daily process or the evening process. Do you have
Speaker 1: any kind of weekly, monthly, quarterly sort of rhythms as
Speaker 1: well when it comes to planning, prioritizing. What does that
Speaker 1: look client for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So weekly I do something similar. I do a
Speaker 2: template that basically says, you know, what are my priorities
Speaker 2: for the week, and then not just what do I
Speaker 2: need to do, but when do I plan to do it?
Speaker 2: So if I have if I say, like, you know,
Speaker 2: I really want to complete that project where people get
Speaker 2: stuck in productivity I think is just listing everything they
Speaker 2: want to do but never assigning the right place for it.
Speaker 2: So I've heard you talk about this in some of
Speaker 2: your other other episodes, but finding when that natural rhythm
Speaker 2: you already know you have. So I know that I,
Speaker 2: you know, tend to be really high energy on Mondays
Speaker 2: and I can get a lot done because I've been
Speaker 2: rested over the weekend. So already knowing that about myself,
Speaker 2: I can slot things into that Monday time slot that
Speaker 2: I know Fridays, you know, that's a better day to
Speaker 2: do things like catching up on articles, I wanted to
Speaker 2: read or maybe responding to some lower energy emails, creative meetings, catchups.
Speaker 2: So I try to structure my week and days in
Speaker 2: kind of like that rhythm where I know when I'm
Speaker 2: going to be most productive and I slot the things
Speaker 2: I need to do there.
Speaker 1: If you're keen to try out Laura's The Daily Plan,
Speaker 1: you can download it from the show notes. And if
Speaker 1: you've just joined in for your favorite tips, make sure
Speaker 1: you go back and listen to previous episodes in this
Speaker 1: series to hear which tips other listeners have found the
Speaker 1: most valuable, including cal and Newport's method for cutting down
Speaker 1: or needless emails, Oliver Berkman's dune list suggestion, and more.
Speaker 1: As a listener of how I work, you've hopefully picked
Speaker 1: up a few tips on this show to help you
Speaker 1: work better? But do you want more? And maybe in
Speaker 1: a book form, because let's face it, books are the
Speaker 1: most awesome thing on the planet. Well, now you can.
Speaker 1: In my new book, time Wise, I uncover a wealth
Speaker 1: of proven strategies that anyone can use to improve their productivity, work,
Speaker 1: and lifestyle. Time Wise brings together all of the gems
Speaker 1: that I've learned from conversations with the world's greatest thinkers,
Speaker 1: including Adam Grant, Dan Pink, Mia Friedman, and Turia Pitt
Speaker 1: and many many others. Time Wise is launching on July five,
Speaker 1: but you can pre order it now from Amantha dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you pre order time Wise, I have a
Speaker 1: couple of bonuses for you. First, you'll receive an ebook
Speaker 1: that details my top twenty favorite apps and software for
Speaker 1: being time Wise with email, calendar, passwords, reading, cooking ideas,
Speaker 1: and more. You will also get a complimentary spot in
Speaker 1: a webinar that I'm running on June twenty nine, where
Speaker 1: I will be sharing the tactics from time Wise that
Speaker 1: I use most often, and also some bonus ones that
Speaker 1: are not in the book that I use and love.
Speaker 1: Hop onto Amantha dot com to pre order now. How
Speaker 1: I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from
Speaker 1: Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Martina who does
Speaker 1: the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound
Speaker 1: so much better than it would have otherwise. See you
Speaker 1: next time.