Speaker 1: Then whenever I had my next meeting with them, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, hold on, I got a lot of
Speaker 1: things to go through here, and think, bam bam bam,
Speaker 1: bam bam. Go through all the things in that list,
Speaker 1: and we just resolve them so quick because there's real
Speaker 1: time back and forth. Bam bam, bam, bam bam. Probably
Speaker 1: saved many dozens of unscheduled emails per week by just
Speaker 1: waiting until I got to those next meeting. So that
Speaker 1: was a great That was a great productivity saver for
Speaker 1: that particular role.
Speaker 2: We all know that email is one of today's biggest
Speaker 2: productivity killers, but do we actually understand why it's so detrimental. Clearly,
Speaker 2: it's not completely useless, or we would have dropped the
Speaker 2: tool a long time ago. When email first made its
Speaker 2: way into our offices, was a massive time saver because
Speaker 2: we no longer had to send physical notes to one another,
Speaker 2: no longer had to wait to talk about certain things
Speaker 2: with certain people in face to face meetings. But like
Speaker 2: much of modern technology, it's a double edged sword. My
Speaker 2: name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and
Speaker 2: the founder of Behavioral Science Consultancy invent him and this
Speaker 2: is how I work a show about how to help
Speaker 2: you do your best work. Welcome to the first episode
Speaker 2: of your Favorite Tips. Across ten by sized episodes, I'll
Speaker 2: be sharing tips from some of the world's best thinkers
Speaker 2: that you, the listeners, have found the most useful. We're
Speaker 2: covering everything from creating better to do lists to setting
Speaker 2: more effective boundaries across your time, and you'll be hearing
Speaker 2: from people like best selling authors Sally Hepworth, Corona Cast
Speaker 2: host and journalist Norman's One, and Google's productivity advisor Laura
Speaker 2: May Martin. Bey's favorite tip comes from Ruth and she writes,
Speaker 2: I've been using the two discuss list via the Microsoft
Speaker 2: to do list app. I have a separate list for
Speaker 2: all my director reports and next level up and when
Speaker 2: I'm in meetings and something gets raised and I want
Speaker 2: to advise them, I add it to the list with
Speaker 2: their name on it. Then when you meet with anyone,
Speaker 2: you have a handy list already compiled. It also helps
Speaker 2: me keep engaged in meetings that aren't strictly to topic,
Speaker 2: as I'm monitoring the discussion for points of interest for
Speaker 2: my network. So it was cal Newport, one of my
Speaker 2: favorite guests who originally shared that tip on the show.
Speaker 2: If you're not familiar with Cal, he is a professor
Speaker 2: of computer science at Georgetown University and the best selling
Speaker 2: author of books including Deep Work, A World Without Email,
Speaker 2: and Digital Minimalism. Here is Cal talking about the too
Speaker 2: Discuss list in your book. You talk about a column
Speaker 2: in your board that is called to discuss. Can you
Speaker 2: talk a bit more about the two discuss columns? I
Speaker 2: found that quite interesting.
Speaker 1: Oh, that was critical for my director of Graduate Study
Speaker 1: setup because there was a couple people in that role
Speaker 1: that I had to talk two weekly. So there's my
Speaker 1: department chair and there's lots of issues that the department
Speaker 1: chair is the right person to talk to in that role.
Speaker 1: And then also there's a programmed administrator, the graduate program
Speaker 1: administrator with whom I worked, and so we would meet
Speaker 1: a couple times a week usually, and so it was
Speaker 1: sort of a two man job. And what I had
Speaker 1: with this two discuss column is I realized I could
Speaker 1: save a ton of communication if every time I had
Speaker 1: something I needed to ask my department chair or ask
Speaker 1: my program administrator instead of just shooting off an email
Speaker 1: in that moment, which in the moment would give me
Speaker 1: a little bit of relief. But every one of those
Speaker 1: is a new unscheduled message that's out there, and a
Speaker 1: new unscheduled response that's going to come back, and perhaps
Speaker 1: even a long back and forth chain of unscheduled messages,
Speaker 1: which I learned doing the research for my book is
Speaker 1: productivity poison. I would put it under the two discussed column,
Speaker 1: and I actually had one for each of those two
Speaker 1: different people. Then whenever I had my next meeting with them,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, Okay, hold on, I got a lot
Speaker 1: of things to go through here, and the bam bam, bam,
Speaker 1: bam bam, go through all the things in that list,
Speaker 1: and we just resolve them so quick. Because as a
Speaker 1: real time back and forth m bam bam, bam bam
Speaker 1: probably saved many dozens of unscheduled emails per week by
Speaker 1: just waiting until I got to those next meeting. So
Speaker 1: that was a great That was a great productivity saver
Speaker 1: for that particular role.
Speaker 2: Would you ever come across things that you're like, no,
Speaker 2: that this is an urgent thing to discuss, or do
Speaker 2: you think that people may be listening going well, when
Speaker 2: I fire off an email to someone I need a
Speaker 2: response now. Do you think that maybe just overestimating what
Speaker 2: is urgent and what is not actually that urgent.
Speaker 1: I mean often when people think they need a response now,
Speaker 1: it's because they don't want to keep track of it.
Speaker 1: They say, Okay, I want a response now, because I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're going to answer or not, and
Speaker 1: I can't. I'm not organized enough to keep track of
Speaker 1: Like have I heard back from cal about this? So
Speaker 1: I just I'm going to send you this email and
Speaker 1: just get a response right away so I can take
Speaker 1: this off the things I need to worry about. That's
Speaker 1: usually why people need immediate responses. It's a function of disorganization,
Speaker 1: not an actual function of urgency. Structure solves this proble.
Speaker 1: Base Camp, for example, Jason Fried's company, their subject matter
Speaker 1: experts have office hours. If you have a question for me,
Speaker 1: wait till my office hours. Come to my office hours,
Speaker 1: ask me in my office hours. They worry that people
Speaker 1: want it put up with the delay. I mean some
Speaker 1: of these people only did office hours once a week,
Speaker 1: so you could have up to seven days you had
Speaker 1: to wait before you could ask someone a question. There
Speaker 1: are very few complaints because it turned out urgency was
Speaker 1: not really a big issue here. It's just clarity. So
Speaker 1: if they know, oh, this is how I ask questions
Speaker 1: on Monday mornings, I go there and ask you this question. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'll just have to wait till Monday and then
Speaker 1: I'll ask you.
Speaker 2: Let me.
Speaker 1: People are fine. So again I come back to this
Speaker 1: a lot. Clarity trumps accessibility. We need an urgent response,
Speaker 1: typically not because this actually needs a response right now,
Speaker 1: but because I don't want to keep track of it.
Speaker 2: I must say Cal's two discuss list has been one
Speaker 2: of my favorite tips too. I currently have two main
Speaker 2: two discuss lists, one for my CEO Mish and one
Speaker 2: for my assistant Hannah, and it meets it. When I
Speaker 2: have my regular meetings them, I can come armed with
Speaker 2: my two discuss list and I'm able to reduce the
Speaker 2: amount of email discussions that I have with both of them.
Speaker 2: As a listener of how I work, you've hopefully picked
Speaker 2: up a few tips on this show to help you
Speaker 2: work better. But do you want more? And maybe in
Speaker 2: a book form, because let's face it, books are the
Speaker 2: most awesome thing on the planet. Well, now you can.
Speaker 2: In my new book, time Wise, I uncover a wealth
Speaker 2: of proven strategies that anyone can use to improve their productivity, work,
Speaker 2: and lifestyle. Time Wise brings together all of the gems
Speaker 2: that I've learned from conversations with the world's greatest thinkers,
Speaker 2: including Adam Grant, Dan Pink, Mia Friedman, and Turia Pitt,
Speaker 2: and many many others. Time Wise is launching on July five,
Speaker 2: but you can pre order it now from Amantha dot com.
Speaker 2: And if you pre order time Wise, I have a
Speaker 2: couple of bonuses viewed. First, you'll receive an ebook that
Speaker 2: details my top twenty favorite apps and software for being
Speaker 2: time wise with email, calendar, passwords, reading, cooking ideas, and more.
Speaker 2: You will also get a complimentary spot in a webinar
Speaker 2: that I'm running on June twenty nine, where I will
Speaker 2: be sharing the tactics from time Wise that I use
Speaker 2: most often, and also some bonus ones that are not
Speaker 2: in the book that I use and love. Hop onto
Speaker 2: Amantha dot com to pre order now. How I Work
Speaker 2: is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios,
Speaker 2: and thank you to Matt Nimba, who does the audio
Speaker 2: mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much
Speaker 2: better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.