Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 1: used by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 1: much out of their day.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, doctor Amantha.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day.
Speaker 2: On today's show, I am.
Speaker 1: Going to be answering a listener question, and if you're
Speaker 1: a regular listener of How I Work, you'll know that
Speaker 1: I've been doing a shout out for listener questions because
Speaker 1: I am super curious as to what is on your mind.
Speaker 1: What are the things that you're struggling with right now
Speaker 1: at work, What are the questions that you have around
Speaker 1: improving your own productivity? And I'm really keen to answer those,
Speaker 1: So if you've got a question, send it through to
Speaker 1: Amantha at Inventium dot com dot au and my email
Speaker 1: address is also in the show notes. I can't get
Speaker 1: around to every question. I have received a lot of them,
Speaker 1: but I will be picking the ones that I think
Speaker 1: could fit the most amount of listeners. So today's question
Speaker 1: is I've gotten finally into a groove working from home,
Speaker 1: and now I'm worried we're all going to be called
Speaker 1: back into the office. It's open plan, freezing cold. Has
Speaker 1: just never been a comfortable place to be. Most of
Speaker 1: my key colleagues are interstate anyway, so I'll be mostly
Speaker 1: on MS teams anyway, and can't imagine taking video calls
Speaker 1: in an open planned space. How would you recommend I
Speaker 1: approach my boss about working from home long term? That's
Speaker 1: such a great question, And I feel like any kind
Speaker 1: of conversation with your boss around changing the way that
Speaker 1: you work can be a little bit tricky. So the
Speaker 1: first thing that I recommend here is understanding your boss's
Speaker 1: point of view and trying to put yourself in their shoes, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is presumably going to be driving
Speaker 1: his or her resistance? And I'm assuming by your question
Speaker 1: that you're assuming that you will be met with resistance.
Speaker 1: So what's drive your boss's views. Do they just have
Speaker 1: a kind of old school mentality? Do they not like change?
Speaker 1: Do they think that you will perform better in the office.
Speaker 1: Do they need to see you to believe that you
Speaker 1: are working. I'm not sure, but have a think about
Speaker 1: what's driving their point of view or what's motivating them,
Speaker 1: because you'll be a better placed to think about, how
Speaker 1: do you therefore frame the conversation and I guess, for
Speaker 1: want of a better phrase.
Speaker 2: Argue your point.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that is important when going
Speaker 1: into these conversations is that people like to feel like
Speaker 1: they have a choice. So rather than just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: can I continue working from home? I would recommend giving
Speaker 1: your boss a choice and painting that picture. So, for example, boss,
Speaker 1: would you like me to continue working from home where
Speaker 1: I will perform better and here's the evidence and I'll
Speaker 1: be happier, and here's the evidence, and why or do
Speaker 1: you want me to come back into the office. But
Speaker 1: what I think is reasonable to expect is that it
Speaker 1: will impact my performance this way or that way, And
Speaker 1: certainly with taking video calls, I'm actually going to feel
Speaker 1: really self conscious doing that in an open plan space.
Speaker 1: So really painting the picture of these two different options
Speaker 1: for your boss in a way that is hopefully compelling
Speaker 1: and speaks to their motivations.
Speaker 2: I think that this as a general.
Speaker 1: Rule is helpful to use for all conversations with bosses.
Speaker 1: A question that I do get asked when we work
Speaker 1: with our clients at inventing them around, teaching them about
Speaker 1: deep work and shallow work. And the difference is that
Speaker 1: people will often say, yeah, but my boss expects me
Speaker 1: to be responsive to email. If I don't respond to email,
Speaker 1: you know, within thirty minutes, I'll think that I'm not working.
Speaker 1: And so in that sense, I think it's also a
Speaker 1: really valuable conversation to have with your boss around deep
Speaker 1: work and shallow work. And the advice that I give
Speaker 1: is to say, look, I'm happy to keep being responsive,
Speaker 1: but what it means is that I'm never really going
Speaker 1: to be able to get into the flow and do deep,
Speaker 1: sort of focused, undistracted kind of work if you also
Speaker 1: expect me to be checking my emails constantly throughout the day.
Speaker 1: So what is it that you pay me to do? Essentially,
Speaker 1: where is the most value that I can add? Is
Speaker 1: it in doing significant uninterrupted blocks of deep work, which
Speaker 1: means I will be less responsive to email, particularly during
Speaker 1: the time allocated that.
Speaker 2: I'm doing deep work.
Speaker 1: Or would you prefer me to spend less time in
Speaker 1: deep work and have less chunks of uninterrupted focused time
Speaker 1: so that I can be more responsive to your email?
Speaker 1: And generally, when you frame it like that, it will
Speaker 1: hopefully open up your boss's eyes to kind of going. Actually,
Speaker 1: I've probably overestimated how important it is for you to
Speaker 1: respond to emails quickly and obviously try to have these
Speaker 1: conversations in as unfacetious a way as you can, so
Speaker 1: hopefully that helps in terms of having these kinds of
Speaker 1: conversations about how you work with your manager.
Speaker 2: So that is it for today's show.
Speaker 1: If you know someone else that you know is maybe
Speaker 1: struggling with the same challenge, why not share this episode
Speaker 1: with them and hopefully they will benefit too. And if
Speaker 1: you're enjoying how I work, I'd love you to leave
Speaker 1: a review an Apple podcast. It might be a star
Speaker 1: rating or a few words, and thank you to the
Speaker 1: hundreds of people that have done that.
Speaker 2: It's greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: So that is it for today's show, and I will
Speaker 1: see you next time.