Speaker 1: Did you ever have a great study buddy, someone in
Speaker 1: high school or university who made those long sessions on
Speaker 1: the books a little less punishing. What did that person
Speaker 1: actually do?
Speaker 2: Were they giving you tips or was it enough to
Speaker 2: just have them there? I know I work with a
Speaker 2: whole lot more concentration and energy when my teammates are around,
Speaker 2: and Taylor Jacobsen does too. He had such a great
Speaker 2: study buddy in college that he turned the experience into
Speaker 2: a company folks mate, So how can we all turn
Speaker 2: a regular social interaction into an accountability tool. My name
Speaker 2: is doctor amanthe Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and the
Speaker 2: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how
Speaker 2: I work A show about how to help you do
Speaker 2: your best work. On today is my favorite Tip episode.
Speaker 2: We go back to an interview from the past and
Speaker 2: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In
Speaker 2: today's show, I speak with Taylor Jacobson, and if you
Speaker 2: have never heard of Taylor's company, Focus Mate, a good
Speaker 2: place to start is understanding how it actually works.
Speaker 3: Very simply, you and another community member get paired up
Speaker 3: for a video call where you sit quote unquote side
Speaker 3: by side and you keep each other company and you
Speaker 3: hold each other accountable while you each work on your
Speaker 3: own work. Using Focusmate is going to the website and
Speaker 3: you log in and it's a calendar that shows all
Speaker 3: of your appointments, and so you just decide, you know,
Speaker 3: this is when I want to be working, and you
Speaker 3: book an appointment at that time, and we take care
Speaker 3: of the rest. We find you the right person based
Speaker 3: on your preferences, and you just show up and you
Speaker 3: join the video call, and in the first minute you
Speaker 3: greet your partner. You know, Hiamantha, what are you working
Speaker 3: on today? And you'll tell me what you're working on.
Speaker 3: And you'll say, okay, Taylor, what are you working on today?
Speaker 3: And I'll say, you know, I'm I'm trying to get
Speaker 3: to inbox zero. I'm going to do as many emails
Speaker 3: as I can, and then we just get to work.
Speaker 3: People will often mute their microphones and kind of drag
Speaker 3: their partner off to the side of their screen, or
Speaker 3: they'll have their partner on a separate device so they
Speaker 3: can keep them there sort of next to their main
Speaker 3: screen workspace. And at the end of the session, whether
Speaker 3: it's twenty five minutes or fifty minutes, a bell goes off,
Speaker 3: and then we come back and I say, you know,
Speaker 3: how to go Atmantha? How'd you do on your whatever?
Speaker 3: And you know you say, oh, it went pretty well.
Speaker 3: I got distracted for like a minute in the middle there,
Speaker 3: but not a big deal. And you asked me how
Speaker 3: to go for you Taylor, and oh, I think I
Speaker 3: got through like eight emails. Felt great. And then we
Speaker 3: say thanks, goodbye, and you know, and we go off
Speaker 3: on day.
Speaker 2: It's interesting my team and I invent heres. There's about
Speaker 2: ten of us. We try something similar. We call it
Speaker 2: what do we call it, like virtual deep caves or
Speaker 2: something like that, where we basically book out. It's typically
Speaker 2: a one and a half to two hour time period
Speaker 2: and everyone in the team is invited, although probably about
Speaker 2: half to two thirds will actually attend, just due to
Speaker 2: coordiniting diaries and someone will facilitate it. We'll do a
Speaker 2: little like round the virtual table to talk about what
Speaker 2: we're working on. Then we'll get into work.
Speaker 1: Our cameras will be switched on, which kind of makes you.
Speaker 2: Feel accountable, like you can't just go off and make
Speaker 2: multiple cups of tea or something. And then we'll have
Speaker 2: a halfway check in where we'll talk about how we're
Speaker 2: all going, and then we'll get back to work, and
Speaker 2: then we'll do a little wrap up at the end.
Speaker 1: And I must say I love those sessions.
Speaker 2: I mean, if any of my team are listening, we
Speaker 2: don't them often enough. I feel like once a fortnight,
Speaker 2: and I'd be loving them if they're like once every
Speaker 2: couple of days, because I just get.
Speaker 1: So much work done.
Speaker 2: And tell me, like, what are the behavioral triggers that
Speaker 2: this kind of idea is tapping into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I can like hear you smiling as you
Speaker 3: as you think about it, And that's kind of a
Speaker 3: good segue in terms of the behavioral triggers because we
Speaker 3: can get into some of the details of specific triggers, meaning, hey,
Speaker 3: there's research that's validated this thing, and here's what it's
Speaker 3: called according to these studies, blah blah blah. Right, But
Speaker 3: if we just take a step back, all of it,
Speaker 3: I think, or a great deal of the science of
Speaker 3: it is is just based on the fact that we're
Speaker 3: tribal animals that were social animals, that were mammals, pack animals.
Speaker 3: That's how our brains work, it's our bodies work, that's
Speaker 3: how our nervous system is optimized to function. So that's
Speaker 3: why it works, is we're tapping in to just human
Speaker 3: nature basically, is we work better when we're you know,
Speaker 3: playing as part of a team or a tribe or
Speaker 3: or what have you. So you know, just just for example,
Speaker 3: you know, and this one is sort of the like
Speaker 3: the obvious, but there are studies that show that if
Speaker 3: you are in the room with another person while you're
Speaker 3: performing a task, your performance increases pretty pretty pretty straightforward.
Speaker 3: You know, there's research that shows if you tell another
Speaker 3: person what you're going to do, your performance increases. There's
Speaker 3: some other cool stuff and one of my favorites is
Speaker 3: is actually the reflection that we do at the end.
Speaker 3: There's a little celebration and reflection at the end, and
Speaker 3: actually both of those are impactful. So you know, celebration
Speaker 3: provides some dopamine, right, so it really reinforces what we
Speaker 3: just did, create some more momentum. But then also reflection.
Speaker 3: You know, there's there's two types of work quote unquote,
Speaker 3: one executive function and the other is reflective function. And
Speaker 3: I think societally we're pretty obsessed with the executive function thing,
Speaker 3: which is like what we think of as getting things done.
Speaker 3: We don't necessarily think of even writing our to do
Speaker 3: list is like, it's not part of getting things done
Speaker 3: in a sense. It you know, it feels like prep
Speaker 3: work or something like that. But it turns out that
Speaker 3: reflection is extremely valuable in making us more productive. So
Speaker 3: even just taking sixty seconds at the end of a
Speaker 3: coworking session to just talk about how it went, it's
Speaker 3: just a moment of awareness, but doing it right then
Speaker 3: is really valuable.
Speaker 2: So I wonder if after this extract you're feeling inspired
Speaker 2: or perhaps just a little intrigued to set up a
Speaker 2: virtual working and accountability session. I love the virtual caves
Speaker 2: we run an Invantium. We currently do a deep work
Speaker 2: cave every Monday morning from nine thirty to eleven thirty
Speaker 2: am and a shallow work cave from two to three
Speaker 2: point thirty pm on Thursdays. And while it's often just
Speaker 2: a small group of us that do it regularly, I
Speaker 2: personally find them very motivating and productive, and also just
Speaker 2: a nice chance to hang out with my work mates
Speaker 2: given that we don't work in the same office together.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
Speaker 2: that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that
Speaker 2: contains three core things that I've discovered that helped me
Speaker 2: work better, ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving
Speaker 2: through to interesting research findings. You can sign up for
Speaker 2: that at Howiwork dot co. That's Howiwork dot co. How
Speaker 2: I Work is produced by inventing and with production support
Speaker 2: from Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Matt Nimba
Speaker 2: who does the audio mix for every episode and makes
Speaker 2: everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: See you next time.