Speaker 1: Hello there, it's Amantha.
Speaker 2: I'm currently on a break, so I've handpicked a bunch
Speaker 2: of my favorite episodes from the last year to share
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 1: Okay, on with today's best of episode.
Speaker 2: If you're a regular hall I Work listener, you're probably
Speaker 2: a sucker for a morning routine, just like me, and
Speaker 2: for good reason. When left to our own, devices were
Speaker 2: surprisingly bad. It's something as seemingly simple as getting fed
Speaker 2: and heading out the door on time.
Speaker 1: So maybe by now you've.
Speaker 2: Got yours perfected. You're meditating, exercising, journaling, drinking water with
Speaker 2: a pitch of Himalayan rock salt and a squeeze of
Speaker 2: lemon or before your first Pomadora session at the office,
Speaker 2: or if you're like the rest of us, it's a
Speaker 2: work in progress. And to add one very complex variable
Speaker 2: to the mix, maybe.
Speaker 1: You have kids.
Speaker 2: Most kids hopefully aren't as interested in being little productivity
Speaker 2: machines as we are, but the right start to their day.
Speaker 1: Is still just as important as yours.
Speaker 2: Is. Best Selling author and parenting expert and host of
Speaker 2: the top ranking podcast Happy Families, doctor Justin Coulson says
Speaker 2: that the solution is actually to do less, and according
Speaker 2: to research, it can be as simple as a four
Speaker 2: part formula to turn our mornings with kids from messy
Speaker 2: to magic. My name is doctor Amantha Imbert. I'm an
Speaker 2: organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 2: and this is how I work a show about how
Speaker 2: to help you do your best work. So what are
Speaker 2: some of Justin's time saving hacks as a working parent,
Speaker 2: especially when thinking about the mornings.
Speaker 3: So there's probably a couple of different ways to answer this, Samantha,
Speaker 3: and I know that I don't want to get too
Speaker 3: deep and philosophical, but we do definitely have a couple
Speaker 3: of those things that I'll share with you in just
Speaker 3: a tick. Before I do that, though, I think it's
Speaker 3: probably worth highlighting my relationship with time and how it's
Speaker 3: changed over the years, and having children has been a
Speaker 3: really major element to that. I used to feel like
Speaker 3: time was a resource, and I felt like it was
Speaker 3: my job to maximize and utilize time for the very
Speaker 3: best of my ability, and to squander time was just
Speaker 3: the wrong thing to do. Watching my children when they
Speaker 3: get to live their life outside of the structures that
Speaker 3: we place upon them for their good of course, Amantha,
Speaker 3: like school for example, what I've discovered is that they
Speaker 3: actually don't think about time. Not just not in the
Speaker 3: way that we think about time, but they actually don't
Speaker 3: think about time at all. It isn't important to them.
Speaker 3: It's not a thing. They're so present and so delighted
Speaker 3: to be in whatever moment they're in with I'm not
Speaker 3: suggesting that the future is an important that we shouldn't
Speaker 3: be making plans, but just their ability to be there
Speaker 3: and to enjoy that. And it's something that I've really
Speaker 3: learned as I've considered my life. I mean, I'm getting
Speaker 3: dangerously close to fifty now, and I'm maturing, and so Amantha,
Speaker 3: I think that what I'm what I've actually decided. And
Speaker 3: this might sound a little bit woohoo and airy fairy,
Speaker 3: but I've decided that I am time like I am
Speaker 3: just made up of the moments that I have, and
Speaker 3: with that it's helped me to be a lot more
Speaker 3: easy with what happens. I'm still an efficiency junkie. I
Speaker 3: still need to get things done. When I step into
Speaker 3: the office, stuff has to be done. We've got deadlines
Speaker 3: and all that kind of thing. But when I step
Speaker 3: out of the office, my focus is actually less about
Speaker 3: time and efficiency with my children and just being with them.
Speaker 3: And that might mean that if they're having a bad morning,
Speaker 3: as much as we have a process for getting through
Speaker 3: the morning and making sure that well children or four
Speaker 3: children now that the oldest ones don't need is so
Speaker 3: much are out the door on time and doing what
Speaker 3: they need to do, we've kind of allowed ourselves to
Speaker 3: just be with them where they are. We have one
Speaker 3: daughter as well who has ADHD, and so that has
Speaker 3: also forced us to look at time and efficiency in
Speaker 3: a completely different way. So that's a kind of philosophical
Speaker 3: treatis before my answer. The short answer though, is we've
Speaker 3: got a couple of things that we do. One of
Speaker 3: the things is what we call our making Morning's Magic system,
Speaker 3: and that's comprised of four elements. Element number one. The
Speaker 3: morning begins the night before, so that means that we
Speaker 3: get the kids lunch boxes organized, or at least have
Speaker 3: them out and ready for the next day. They've got
Speaker 3: their uniforms, is it library days? At sports day? Do
Speaker 3: we know where their shoes are? Has a rogue sock
Speaker 3: been left under the seat in the car as their
Speaker 3: swimming gear ready for the next day? All that sort
Speaker 3: of stuff morning begins the night before. We have found
Speaker 3: that that is one of the most incredibly useful things
Speaker 3: to make sure that we have smooth mornings. We even
Speaker 3: sort of pull out the stuff for breakfast and stick
Speaker 3: it on the kitchen bench so it's ready. That's the
Speaker 3: first thing. The second part of the four part process
Speaker 3: is that we wake the kids up about ten or
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes before they need to be awake. And what
Speaker 3: that does is it creates two things. First of all, connection,
Speaker 3: because when we wake them up, we walk into the
Speaker 3: room gently and softly and sit with them and give
Speaker 3: them a hug and talk to them about the dream
Speaker 3: that we've wokened them from or what they're looking forward
Speaker 3: to in the day. We just have two or three
Speaker 3: minutes with each of them. It doesn't take long, but
Speaker 3: they wake up feeling connection before we move it to
Speaker 3: the next room. And then a manth of the critical thing.
Speaker 3: It also creates margin because no one's rushing because we've
Speaker 3: got an extra ten or fifteen minutes because everyone's getting
Speaker 3: up a little bit early. The third thing that we
Speaker 3: do is we actually have kind of like a breakfast
Speaker 3: and lunch system. The kids put in their breakfast order
Speaker 3: and their lunch order by You know, when you go
Speaker 3: to a motel, usually a cheap motel on the side
Speaker 3: of a highway, you can do a quick time can
Speaker 3: flick for room service breakfast the next day and you
Speaker 3: order those two pieces of thin white bread with a
Speaker 3: couple of fried eggs that usually arrive cold and a
Speaker 3: little bit too hard. Not running it off. But you've
Speaker 3: got that tick and flick process, so we actually use
Speaker 3: We don't do it anymore because the kids have got
Speaker 3: the system nailed. But to start it off, we would
Speaker 3: get the kids to fill in their menu for breakfast
Speaker 3: to lunch the night before, which means that when they
Speaker 3: walk out into the kitchen, the list of what they
Speaker 3: need to do is already there. What they're going to eat,
Speaker 3: what they're going to prepare, how it's going to work.
Speaker 3: And I can't tell you how amazing that is to
Speaker 3: remove the decision making process from a tired, sleepy child's mind.
Speaker 3: They just have to look at the piece of paper
Speaker 3: and make that. And we've spent the time to teach
Speaker 3: them to make it, which means that step number four
Speaker 3: is that we don't tell them what to do. What
Speaker 3: we do instead, as we say Hey, how are you
Speaker 3: going with the five things that need to be done
Speaker 3: this morning? What's next? How can I help?
Speaker 1: That is so good.
Speaker 2: I'm taking copious notes as you're talking, justin I'm loving this.
Speaker 3: We found that it's made an enormous difference, and in fact,
Speaker 3: it was so popular that The New York Times picked
Speaker 3: up an article that I wrote and they published it.
Speaker 3: So if people want more, you could probably just link
Speaker 3: to the Making Morning's Magic New York Times piece that
Speaker 3: I wrote, and it outlines precisely what those steps are
Speaker 3: and also how it taps in with basic psychological needs
Speaker 3: that kids have. And this is why it works because
Speaker 3: it fulfills the need for connection. They're getting lots of
Speaker 3: that when we wake them up nice and early and
Speaker 3: spend time with them, but also as we say, hey,
Speaker 3: how are you going? What help do you need? Which
Speaker 3: is connection rather than where are your shoes? Why haven't
Speaker 3: you done this?
Speaker 1: Hurry up?
Speaker 3: We're going to be late, which is correction and direction.
Speaker 3: So it meets that need for connection. It satisfies the
Speaker 3: need for autonomy because they're making lots of choices about
Speaker 3: what they're going to eat or what they're going to
Speaker 3: do to make the morning work, and it also satisfies
Speaker 3: a basic psychological need for what research is called competence
Speaker 3: because they do it themselves. We spend the time teaching
Speaker 3: them how to make their breakfasts, how to scramble their eggs,
Speaker 3: how to pour milk onto their week bics, and how
Speaker 3: to get their lunch organized, which means that by the
Speaker 3: time they're about sort of eight or nine years old,
Speaker 3: they're doing it all on their own, which is just
Speaker 3: bliss for a parent who is busy and tired and
Speaker 3: probably stayed up till late the night before watching Netflix
Speaker 3: instead of remembering that their morning began the night before
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: That's very cool.
Speaker 2: I was curious around what you were saying, just around
Speaker 2: being really present and almost losing that sense of time
Speaker 2: and almost the artificial structure that a lot of us
Speaker 2: can impose onto our kids.
Speaker 1: And it was funny.
Speaker 2: It reminded me of a moment this morning with my
Speaker 2: daughter before homeschool started, and we were playing with Lego
Speaker 2: and I'm on a never ending mission to sort all
Speaker 2: the Lego blocks into their appropriate color box.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like achieving in box zero.
Speaker 2: It might happen for one minute and then it'll all
Speaker 2: be ruined, and I was just I was really in flow.
Speaker 1: And I asked Frankie, you know, do you know what
Speaker 1: it means to be in flow?
Speaker 2: And she said no, no, And so we were talking
Speaker 2: about that concept, which I feel is all about just
Speaker 2: being really present and losing yourself in the moment.
Speaker 1: So what has helped you be present with your children?
Speaker 1: Because I feel like that's easier said than done.
Speaker 3: It's paradoxical. But what I've discovered is that when I
Speaker 3: try to do it all, I feel stressed and pressured
Speaker 3: and frustrated, and I feel like the world is moving
Speaker 3: too fast. And the great paradox of this is I've
Speaker 3: had to recognize that I am finite, and my time
Speaker 3: is finite, and my capacity is finite, and that therefore
Speaker 3: I can't do it all. And the tremendous paradox of
Speaker 3: accepting that you can't do it all is that you
Speaker 3: kind of sit there for a second on the sofa
Speaker 3: and think, I'm helpless, I can't do this. But then
Speaker 3: this really remarkable thing comes out of that acceptance, and
Speaker 3: that is, well, if I can't do it all, what
Speaker 3: will I do? Because I Am going to do something,
Speaker 3: And it's in that moment that you kind of get
Speaker 3: this crystal well if you're intentionally about it, you get
Speaker 3: this crystallization of values. If I can't do it all
Speaker 3: this morning in terms of my gigantic to do list
Speaker 3: I'm supposed to. I mean, if you read all the
Speaker 3: health and wellness blogs, I'm supposed to meditate, and I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to have my spiritual or religious practice, and I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to exercise, and I'm supposed to work on my
Speaker 3: to do list or my mantras or my affirmations. I've
Speaker 3: got to look at my I mean, you know the
Speaker 3: blogs that I'm talking now, and they make you feel
Speaker 3: so inadequate, because not very many of us wake uppen
Speaker 3: with our lives like that. And what has happened instead
Speaker 3: is I sit andre like, okay, so that's not going
Speaker 3: to work for me. So what can I do what matters?
Speaker 3: And that's actually part of the way we distilled our mornings.
Speaker 3: We looked at how mornings needed to work, and we
Speaker 3: realized that our children really have either four or five
Speaker 3: things to do. They need to have breakfast, make their lunch,
Speaker 3: get dressed, and do their hair and brush their teeth.
Speaker 3: And if they can do that by a certain time.
Speaker 3: What that allows is all the other stuff is superfluous.
Speaker 3: All the other stuff doesn't really matter. And as we've
Speaker 3: taught them how to do those things themselves, as we've
Speaker 3: developed their competence, what it's meant for us is that
Speaker 3: we can actually be in those moments with them. We
Speaker 3: don't have to be rushing around and stressing and panicking
Speaker 3: about it. And it just makes it makes such a difference. Now,
Speaker 3: do we get it perfectly? Do we have calm, pieceful
Speaker 3: mornings every morning? Now that's that would be just such
Speaker 3: a such a lie. But most mornings we actually get
Speaker 3: it eighty or ninety percent of the way.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 3: It might be our challenging child, or a child who's
Speaker 3: had allows his sleep or woken up with a sore head,
Speaker 3: or just got out of bed on the wrong side.
Speaker 3: That stuff happens. Sometimes it's me or my wife, But
Speaker 3: just pausing and being intentional about it and having done
Speaker 3: that heavy lifting in those early years, those first five
Speaker 3: to seven years, it makes a difference. I think that's
Speaker 3: one other thing as well that really sits in with
Speaker 3: this in a profound way for me as a parent,
Speaker 3: And it seems to resonate with a lot of parents
Speaker 3: that I talk about Amantha, it may do the same
Speaker 3: thing for you. There's an old, old saying in the
Speaker 3: parenting literature. It's been around for decades, and that is
Speaker 3: that to a child, love is spelled T, I M E.
Speaker 3: And if love is spelt time, I can't help but
Speaker 3: pause and wonder what hurry up to a child? What
Speaker 3: that means to a child? My sense is that hurry
Speaker 3: up to a child something like you don't matter. It's
Speaker 3: my agenda that is king here. We are so focused
Speaker 3: all the time on managing time. But what if I
Speaker 3: am time? What if I am the moments that occur
Speaker 3: in time because they're happening in me. What if I
Speaker 3: choose how I'm going to not use time, but how
Speaker 3: I'm going to be right now? And what will that
Speaker 3: do to my experience of this moment? What will that
Speaker 3: do to my experience of time? What will that do
Speaker 3: in terms of the relationships that my family.
Speaker 1: Have with me?
Speaker 3: That's kind of that's really affected the way that I
Speaker 3: think about my time, or in other words, how I
Speaker 3: am with my family, with my children, mornings, afternoons, evenings.
Speaker 2: Now, justin for people that are keen to connect with you,
Speaker 2: and consume more of your work. What is the best
Speaker 2: way for listeners to do that?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm the co host and parenting expert on the
Speaker 3: brand new channel Line TV show Parental Guidance. So basically,
Speaker 3: if you google my name, all roads from Google will
Speaker 3: lead to my Facebook page, my Instagram, my website, Happyfamilies
Speaker 3: dot com dot au. I'm pretty visible on the internet
Speaker 3: and I'll be pretty easy to find.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, Justin, I have learned so much. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for your.
Speaker 3: Time, Amantha. I hope it was valuable. Thank you.
Speaker 2: If you like Justin's advice, check out his podcast Happy Families.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorites for getting research backed and
Speaker 2: practical parenting advice. And if you're looking for more tips
Speaker 2: to improve the way that you work, I write a
Speaker 2: short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've
Speaker 2: discovered they helped me work better, which range from interesting
Speaker 2: research findings through to gadgets that I'm loving. You can
Speaker 2: sign up for that at Howiwork dot co. It's Howiwork
Speaker 2: dot co. How I Work is produced by Inventing with
Speaker 2: production support from Dead Set Studios.
Speaker 1: And thank you to Martin.
Speaker 2: Nimba who does the audio mix for every episode and
Speaker 2: makes it all sound amazing.
Speaker 1: See you next time.