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Speaker 1: If you're a bit of a productivity buff, you probably

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Speaker 1: have some clever hacks for reducing time spent reading or

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Speaker 1: sending emails. Maybe you use Superhuman like I do, or

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Speaker 1: maybe you're a big proponent of inbox zero. Either way,

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Speaker 1: you're probably not looking for So how I work episode

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Speaker 1: that suggests you spend more time on email? But this

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Speaker 1: is different. The goal of true productivity, after all, is

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Speaker 1: to get more meaningful work done in less time. So

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Speaker 1: what if using some work tools at home could enable

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Speaker 1: you to make more intelligent decisions in less time. That's

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Speaker 1: exactly what Brown University economics professor Emily Oster and her

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Speaker 1: partner and sometimes even her kids do when they send

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Speaker 1: emails to each other. So how can using email in

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Speaker 1: your personal life actually help strengthen relationships and lead to

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Speaker 1: better decisions. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an

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Speaker 1: organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy invent Him.

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Speaker 1: And this is how I work, a show about how

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Speaker 1: to help you do your best work. On today is

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Speaker 1: my Favorite Tip episode. We go back to an interview

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Speaker 1: from the past, and I pick out my favorite tip

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Speaker 1: from the interview. In today's show, I speak with Emily

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Speaker 1: Osta about why she sends fairly regular emails to all

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Speaker 1: members of her family. Now, I've heard that when you're

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Speaker 1: talking about like different matters relating to your kids, you

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Speaker 1: will do quite a bit of email discussion with your husband.

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Speaker 2: Is that right? That is right? Yeah, we do a

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Speaker 2: lot of our interaction over email. I love a good email.

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Speaker 1: Can you tell me why you decide to do that

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Speaker 1: via email than some other communication channel, like face to

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Speaker 1: face at the dinner table.

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Speaker 3: Well, first of all, the kids are at the dinner

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Speaker 3: channeling about that. But I yeah, so I think that

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Speaker 3: that we try pretty hard to do to do much

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Speaker 3: of this interaction over email. And I think part of

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Speaker 3: you know, or over some like to get even more extreme,

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Speaker 3: like in an Assana task or over something like that.

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Speaker 2: And I think that the reason is that that you

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Speaker 2: can be much more direct and concrete and understanding is

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Speaker 2: just much clearer when it is written down and it

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Speaker 2: sets expectations in a way that everybody can see, like

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Speaker 2: can see what is written, can see what we agreed on,

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Speaker 2: can sort of like see all of the information together.

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Speaker 2: It's also an efficient way to be able to go

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Speaker 2: back and back and forth between sort of learning something

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Speaker 2: and asking questions and learning more. So give you an example,

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Speaker 2: there was like a period of time when one of

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Speaker 2: my kids had a tick on them, like there's like

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Speaker 2: a bug and tick on them, and there's like a

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Speaker 2: question about there's a concern about mime disease where I live,

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Speaker 2: which is a thing that you can get if you

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Speaker 2: have a tick bite. And we had to have a

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Speaker 2: discussion about whether we wanted to like pre treat him

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Speaker 2: with antibiotics for this. And that is a place where

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Speaker 2: like having the interaction the about that question over email

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Speaker 2: is very productive because I can say here are the facts.

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Speaker 2: He can say, well, here's the question that I still have.

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Speaker 2: And rather than him saying over the breakfast table, here's

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Speaker 2: the question I still have and me being like, okay,

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Speaker 2: let me try to remember, like look at that later

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Speaker 2: and then get back to you about it. I can

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Speaker 2: just see the email, put it aside when I have time,

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Speaker 2: come back to it, send it back to him. And

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Speaker 2: it's sort of like so sometimes I say, like, your

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Speaker 2: computer doesn't get tired of remembering things even though you do,

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Speaker 2: and so you've got to like give your computer a

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Speaker 2: little mental load.

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Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you do like because of

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Speaker 1: your background that helps you like in work or life

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Speaker 1: that other people would go, oh, that's really quirky.

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Speaker 2: See, we have a lot of these same kinds of

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Speaker 2: interactions with our kids where we will sort of interact

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Speaker 2: over email with them. And the other day so I

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Speaker 2: noticed that they were emailing each other, and you know,

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Speaker 2: there's like six and ten, it's like my son opened

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Speaker 2: up his computer and he was like emailing with he

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Speaker 2: like emailed like, I hope you have a good evening.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I don't even know where they come up

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Speaker 2: with this, where they come up with this stuff, but

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Speaker 2: but I think we do, you know, sort of lean

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Speaker 2: into the idea that had kind of everybody in the

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Speaker 2: in the household can engage in this kind of slightly

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Speaker 2: structured decision making.

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Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. I hope you enjoyed

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Speaker 1: my chat with Emily. And if you're looking for more

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Speaker 1: tips to improve the way that you work, I write

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Speaker 1: a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that

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Speaker 1: I have discovered that helped me work better, ranging from

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Speaker 1: interesting research findings three to gadgets that I'm loving. You

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Speaker 1: can sign up for that at Howiwork dot co. That's

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Speaker 1: how I Work dot C. How I Work is produced

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Speaker 1: by Inventi with production support from Dead Set Studios. And

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Speaker 1: thank you to Martin Nimba who does the audio mix

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Speaker 1: for every episode and makes everything sound so much better

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Speaker 1: than it would have otherwise. See you next time.