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Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics

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Speaker 1: used by leading innovators to get so much out of

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Speaker 1: their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imbach. I'm an

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Speaker 1: organizational psychologist, the CEO of Inventium, and I'm obsessed with

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Speaker 1: finding ways to optimize my workday. Today's episode is another

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Speaker 1: my Favorite Tip episode. The title is probably pretty self explanatory.

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Speaker 1: It's about pulling out my favorite tip from each of

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Speaker 1: the interviews that I conduct. My guest today is Jake Knapp.

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Speaker 1: Jake spent the last ten years at Google and Google Ventures,

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Speaker 1: where he created the design sprint, which is a method

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Speaker 1: for building and testing a prototype in five days. He

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Speaker 1: then went on and wrote a book about the process

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Speaker 1: called Sprint, which was a New York Times bestseller. He

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Speaker 1: recently wrote another book called Make Time, which I mentioned

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Speaker 1: on a previous episode. I personally love Make Time, which

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Speaker 1: is all about strategies to help make time for doing

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Speaker 1: your most important work and really getting the most out

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Speaker 1: of each day. So this extract from my chat with

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Speaker 1: Jake explores a really simple strategy for helping gain more

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Speaker 1: control over your working schedule. I think this is particularly

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Speaker 1: useful for those who work for someone else and perhaps

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Speaker 1: don't have full control over their schedule, or maybe even

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Speaker 1: have very little control. But if you are someone who

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Speaker 1: is trying to apply a lot of the strategies contained

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Speaker 1: in this podcast, taking back control over your working day

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Speaker 1: is key. So here is Jake talking about a super

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Speaker 1: simple strategy to gain control over how you structure your date.

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Speaker 2: One thing that is really powerful, and there's actually a

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Speaker 2: study about the power of the word because it's my gosh,

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Speaker 2: I can't remember the year, but it's long enough ago

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Speaker 2: that xerox machines were a big deal. So you know,

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Speaker 2: if listeners are old enough to remember when we used

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Speaker 2: to have to make photocopies quite often, having to make

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Speaker 2: xerox or a photocopy of something was a really big deal,

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Speaker 2: and and people would wait in line, like I remember

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Speaker 2: being a college student and waiting in line to use

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Speaker 2: a copy machine to copy off my paper. So this

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Speaker 2: study that they did was they were trying to see

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Speaker 2: what kinds of excuses would let would allow people to

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Speaker 2: sort of let people cut them and cut in front

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Speaker 2: of them in line to use the xerox machine. And

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Speaker 2: I mean they just wanted to They were studying excuses,

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Speaker 2: not xeroxes in particular. But so what they found was

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Speaker 2: that when people used the word because, folks were crazily

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Speaker 2: more likely to let them cut in line. Even if

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Speaker 2: the only thing they said was can I use the

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Speaker 2: xerox machine before you? Because I need to make copies?

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Speaker 2: If that was the only reason, because I need to

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Speaker 2: make copies, which is the only thing anyone who is

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Speaker 2: in line could do with a xerox machine, that's all

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Speaker 2: it did was make copies. But there's just something about

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Speaker 2: saying because that if they if somebody said because I

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Speaker 2: need to make copies, versus saying, can I use the

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Speaker 2: xerox machine ahead of you, they like people were like

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Speaker 2: fifty percent more likely to let or something I can't

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Speaker 2: remember the exactly, never more likely to let them cut

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Speaker 2: in line. And it's not that this is like underhanded

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Speaker 2: or tricky, but if you tell people why you want

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Speaker 2: to do something different, people are much more accommodating than

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Speaker 2: I think we generally give them credit for. I think

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Speaker 2: generally in work environments where you know, if you if

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Speaker 2: you remember like starting your job, the first day you

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Speaker 2: start your job, or any you know, you go into

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Speaker 2: a new workplace, it's natural that you're trying to figure out,

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Speaker 2: like what are the rules here, like you know and

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Speaker 2: not that like in an office, there's all these rules,

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Speaker 2: but you're kind of trying to figure out, like how

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Speaker 2: does stuff work. I remember starting to work at Google

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Speaker 2: or before that, I worked at Microsoft, and like starting

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Speaker 2: off a new project, new teams, new company, and like

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Speaker 2: trying to figure out, like how do things work? What

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Speaker 2: do you do? Like how do I get things done?

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Speaker 2: How do I be effective in my job? And how

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Speaker 2: do I also help other people do what they're trying

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Speaker 2: to do. And you're kind of on the lookout for

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Speaker 2: the norms and for like how to kind of make

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Speaker 2: sure you're working in the appropriate way. And we do

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Speaker 2: this out of the best of intentions, but the result

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Speaker 2: is that we're often like we get really set and

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Speaker 2: like stuck on these default ways that people behave. So

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Speaker 2: if you want to, for example, block off your mornings

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Speaker 2: every morning of the week from you know, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: eight am till eleven am or eight am till noon,

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Speaker 2: just to work on individual work and to be heads down,

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Speaker 2: to not let people interrupt you so that you can

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Speaker 2: do your own project that might break the norms of

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Speaker 2: what other people are doing but just because it breaks

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Speaker 2: the norms, Like you can't assume that people really care

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Speaker 2: about the norms that much. And if you tell people like,

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Speaker 2: I'm breaking the norm because and then you just give

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Speaker 2: them a reason why you're doing it, people are inclined

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Speaker 2: to let you do that, I think because sort of

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Speaker 2: unlocks this this feeling that we all have of like trust.

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Speaker 2: We generally want to trust one another and want to

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Speaker 2: give each other the benefit of the doubt. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: so my tactic would be, like back when I was

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Speaker 2: at Google, like, hey, I'm blocking this off or I'm

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Speaker 2: going to say no to that meeting or whatever because

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Speaker 2: I'm working on this project I'm working on. I would

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Speaker 2: tell people the name of the thing, you know, or

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Speaker 2: I might just say I'm working on an important project.

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Speaker 2: I can't do it right now, or I need this

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Speaker 2: time because I'm working on an important project. That was

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Speaker 2: really powerful putting a little signature at the bottom of

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Speaker 2: my email that said I'm only checking email two times

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Speaker 2: a day because I'm focusing on important work, and that

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Speaker 2: was always on there. You know, that was a powerful

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Speaker 2: way to let people know I'm not going to get

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Speaker 2: back to your email as fast as possible. But the

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Speaker 2: thing that actually was amazing about both of those things

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Speaker 2: was the most powerful signal wasn't to the other people.

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Speaker 2: It was to me. It was to tell me, Hey, Jake,

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Speaker 2: is okay to not check your email every five minutes?

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Speaker 2: Oh hey, it's okay to actually focus on that thing

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Speaker 2: that you think is important on in the mornings. I'm

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Speaker 2: giving myself permission by doing that. Other people are less

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Speaker 2: hard on us than we are hard on ourselves, usually

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Speaker 2: about being true to what we believe is important.

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Speaker 1: Hello, it's Amantha here again. I hope you found that useful,

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Speaker 1: and I wonder if you might set yourself the challenge today,

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Speaker 1: maybe of asking your boss for something, or perhaps even

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Speaker 1: a coworker and using the word because to help increase

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Speaker 1: the chances of your request being accepted. Let me know

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Speaker 1: how you go with that, And you know what, like

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Speaker 1: something I find One of the most common questions I

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Speaker 1: get when I'm delivering a keynote around the topic of

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Speaker 1: restructuring your day or doing deep work in the morning

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Speaker 1: or something like that, is that people ask me, well,

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Speaker 1: what if I'm not in control of my schedule? And

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Speaker 1: how I answer that is I say, well, that needs

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Speaker 1: to become the first step you need to gain back

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Speaker 1: at least a little bit of control over your schedule

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Speaker 1: to start to get a significant boost in your performance,

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Speaker 1: not to mention happiness at work. So keep me posted

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Speaker 1: on how you go with Jake's because strategy. So that

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Speaker 1: is it for today. If you like this extract, you

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Speaker 1: might want to go back and listen to the whole

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Speaker 1: interview with Jake, which I'll link to in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: And if you're still well listening, I would love it

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Speaker 1: if you would take five seconds to leave a review

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Speaker 1: in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts from. Leaving

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Speaker 1: reviews actually helps other people find this podcast, which is awesome.

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Speaker 1: And also if you write a review, I will absolutely

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Speaker 1: read it and unless it's horrible, it will probably bring

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Speaker 1: a huge s mile to my face, which is lovely.

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Speaker 1: So that is it for today and I'll see you

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Speaker 1: next time.