Speaker 1: The dreaded three thirty itis, that big dip in the
Speaker 1: afternoon when you just can't seem to focus, the words
Speaker 1: on your screen start to blur, your eyelids start to
Speaker 1: feel heavy, and anything more than scrolling through social media
Speaker 1: feels impossible. You know it all too well, don't you,
Speaker 1: Unless you don't. What if three thirty is your most
Speaker 1: productive time of the day. Do you scratch your head
Speaker 1: when you hear about people who get up at the
Speaker 1: crack of dawn and get a head start on the
Speaker 1: day's work. Or maybe you find yourself buzzing at nine
Speaker 1: pm when everyone else is getting ready for bed. This
Speaker 1: is why it's so important to understand your chronotype. Everyone
Speaker 1: has peaks and valleys in their energy levels at different
Speaker 1: times of day, but for the most part, we all
Speaker 1: work on a pretty similar schedule. But we don't have to,
Speaker 1: especially now that so many of us work from home.
Speaker 1: So how should you rearrange your schedule according to your cronotype.
Speaker 1: My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 1: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy invent Him, and
Speaker 1: this is how I work a show about how to
Speaker 1: help you do your best work. Welcome to your Favorite
Speaker 1: Tips across ten bite size episodes. I'll be sharing tips
Speaker 1: from some of the world's best thinkers that you, the listeners,
Speaker 1: have found the most useful. We're covering everything from creating
Speaker 1: better to do lists to setting more effective boundaries around
Speaker 1: your time, and you'll be hearing from people like best
Speaker 1: selling author Sally Hepworth, Corona Cast host and journalist Norman Swan,
Speaker 1: and Google's executive productivity advisor Laura may Martin. Today's favorite
Speaker 1: tip comes from Christy, and she writes, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite tips is to plan my day in line with
Speaker 1: my circadian rhythm. I've scheduled focus time each morning and
Speaker 1: leave the afternoon free for meetings. I suggested this technique
Speaker 1: to my broader team and we changed our weekly team
Speaker 1: meeting from nine am to two pm. This has made
Speaker 1: a big difference to us because previously our team members
Speaker 1: would always view the morning of this day each week
Speaker 1: as a write off after having the hour long meeting
Speaker 1: and then having a coffee together afterwards. Now we all
Speaker 1: have the morning back to focus on our work and
Speaker 1: instead use the time in the afternoon when we're going
Speaker 1: through a slump to have the team meeting I love
Speaker 1: that tip, Christy, and I think that the first guest
Speaker 1: who spoke about this was Dan Pink back in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: So here is Dan talking about how he proactively structures
Speaker 1: his work day based on what he learnt when he
Speaker 1: was writing his best selling book When, the Scientific Secrets
Speaker 1: of Perfect Timing.
Speaker 2: One of the ideas and when has to do with
Speaker 2: the pattern of our performance and our attention and our
Speaker 2: mood over the course of a day, and how we
Speaker 2: go through this day typically in three stages, a peak,
Speaker 2: a trough, and a recovery. Most of us go in
Speaker 2: that order. Night outs go in a very different order.
Speaker 2: And I realize in looking at some of this research
Speaker 2: that I should be doing my heads down analytic work
Speaker 2: writing first thing in the morning, and definitely in the morning.
Speaker 2: And I change my schedule around there so that on
Speaker 2: writing days, I will set myself a word count, however
Speaker 2: many words, you know, not a lot, seven hundred words, say,
Speaker 2: and I would come into my office. I don't come
Speaker 2: in exceptionally early. I come in at half past eight,
Speaker 2: and I'll say, okay, today I got to write at
Speaker 2: seven hundred words. And I won't bring my phone into
Speaker 2: the office with me I will not open up my email,
Speaker 2: will not do anything until I hit those seven hundred words,
Speaker 2: and then I'm free to do other things and that.
Speaker 2: And so the idea that this peak period, this idea
Speaker 2: that the research showing that I had this three or
Speaker 2: four hour peak of vigilance and ability not to be distracted,
Speaker 2: that I shouldn't furtit it that a way answering email
Speaker 2: or going on Twitter or any of that nonsense. I
Speaker 2: really stuck to that and use that kind of schedule
Speaker 2: to actually write this particular book. And this is the first.
Speaker 2: Out of the six, five of them were late, only
Speaker 2: one was on time, and this was the one on time.
Speaker 1: How do you use the other two sections of your day?
Speaker 2: I use the early to mid afternoon typically for answering
Speaker 2: email and putting. I'm a big I have a lot
Speaker 2: of files, paper files, and like filing stuff away and oh,
Speaker 2: I need to scan this thing and put it into drop,
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of stuff that doesn't require heavy load.
Speaker 2: And then during their cover period, which is basically like
Speaker 2: the mid to late afternoon and early evening, I generally
Speaker 2: do interviews. So interviews like this one are also even
Speaker 2: interviews when I am asking questions, So that period of
Speaker 2: the day. So the peak again for most of us
Speaker 2: early in the day, that's when we're most vigilant. We
Speaker 2: should be doing our heads down work the trough early
Speaker 2: to mid afternoon, that is a really bad time of day.
Speaker 2: Our mental performance, cognitive skills are way down, and so
Speaker 2: I do my administrative stuff then and then when I
Speaker 2: come out of the trough, you know, around whenever three o'clock,
Speaker 2: three thirty four o'clock in the afternoon, I tend to
Speaker 2: do interviews like this or things that require not necessarily
Speaker 2: be lockdown and vigilant, but just to be open to possibility,
Speaker 2: open to ideas, a little bit more mentally loose.
Speaker 1: If you are keen to assess your prototype after listening
Speaker 1: to this clip, I've put a link to a scientifically
Speaker 1: validated assessment in the show notes. I personally love this tip,
Speaker 1: and I have spent the last few years working in
Speaker 1: a very similar way to Christy, where I always do
Speaker 1: my deep work in the morning and schedule almost all
Speaker 1: my meetings for the afternoon. As a listener of how
Speaker 1: I work, you've hopefully picked up a few tips on
Speaker 1: this show to help you work better, But do you
Speaker 1: want more? And maybe in a book form, because let's
Speaker 1: face it, books are the most awesome thing on the planet. Well,
Speaker 1: now you can. In my new book, time Wise, I
Speaker 1: uncover a wealth of proven strategies that anyone can use
Speaker 1: to improve their productivity, work, and lifestyle. Time Wise brings
Speaker 1: together all of the gems that I've learned from conversations
Speaker 1: with the world's greatest thinkers, including Adam Grant, Dan Pink,
Speaker 1: me Readman, and Turia Pitt and many many others. Time
Speaker 1: Wise is launching on July five, but you can preorder
Speaker 1: it now from Amantha dot com. And if you pre
Speaker 1: order time Wise, I have a couple of bonuses for you. First,
Speaker 1: you'll receive an ebook that details my top twenty favorite
Speaker 1: apps and software for being time wise with email, calendar, passwords, reading,
Speaker 1: cooking ideas, and more. You will also get a complimentary
Speaker 1: spot in a webinar that I'm running on June twenty nine,
Speaker 1: where I will be sharing the tactics from time Wise
Speaker 1: that I use most often, and also some bonus ones
Speaker 1: that 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 Matt Nimba who
Speaker 1: does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything
Speaker 1: sound so much better than it would have otherwise. See
Speaker 1: you next time.