Speaker 1: If you're a regular listener of this show, you will
Speaker 1: be very aware of the fact that I wrote a book.
Speaker 1: It's my third one, and it's called time Wise, and
Speaker 1: it's out now.
Speaker 2: I've had so.
Speaker 1: Many questions from listeners and readers about the book. So
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, I sat down with one
Speaker 1: of my teammates, fellow organizational psychologist, Charlotte Rush in a
Speaker 1: live virtual event, where we went through a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of questions that people submitted. We shouted about the writing process,
Speaker 1: my favorite tips from the book, and also my favorite
Speaker 1: tips that didn't make it into the book. My name
Speaker 1: is doctor Amanthea Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the
Speaker 1: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how
Speaker 1: I work a show about how to help you do
Speaker 1: your best work.
Speaker 3: I know that when you first came up with this
Speaker 3: idea to write this book, you didn't have the titles
Speaker 3: in mind, and I think the title really does tell
Speaker 3: us a lot about the book, but I wouldn't really
Speaker 3: want to know what is it that you first thought
Speaker 3: of when you were really thinking about writing this book,
Speaker 3: and now that you see it in front of you,
Speaker 3: has what you've created really been an accurate representation of
Speaker 3: what you originally intended to do.
Speaker 1: I think it probably did change because when I thought
Speaker 1: about the book, and it had been something that i'd like,
Speaker 1: I'd had in the back of my mind for probably
Speaker 1: a year or so before I actually wrote the book.
Speaker 1: Proposal is I we was thinking about the podcast, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people like podcasts. I think, I don't know,
Speaker 1: something like thirty percent of Australians listened to a podcast
Speaker 1: once a month, which is actually not huge when we
Speaker 1: think about the total population. But you know, there's so
Speaker 1: many great tips I hear on how I work, and
Speaker 1: in order to access all those tips, that's hundreds of
Speaker 1: hours of your life life just gone. And even if
Speaker 1: you're listening to the podcast, you might hear a tip
Speaker 1: and go that's really cool, but then forget about it,
Speaker 1: as I often do when I'm listening to the podcasts
Speaker 1: that are in the business and self development kind of genre.
Speaker 2: And I just thought, functionally.
Speaker 1: That would make a lot of sense if I collected
Speaker 1: my favorite tips and strategies that I've heard on how
Speaker 1: I work and put them all in a book like
Speaker 1: that would just be handy. That would be a resource
Speaker 1: that I, you know, wish that my favorite podcasts would
Speaker 1: you know, would create. So that was the idea, and
Speaker 1: also from a marketing point of view, because the podcast
Speaker 1: does does well.
Speaker 2: It's got a lot of listeners.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's recently clopped over three and
Speaker 1: a half million downloads.
Speaker 2: From a marketing.
Speaker 1: Perspective, that's, you know, that's a that's a good angle
Speaker 1: for a publisher that there's a successful podcast behind and
Speaker 1: the book. Because my lesson in the world of publishing.
Speaker 1: So this is my third book, it's my first through Penguin,
Speaker 1: and a few years ago I had this other concept
Speaker 1: for a book, which was kord of in the productivity genre,
Speaker 1: and I got taken on by this big US agent
Speaker 1: who was fantastic. Tried to sell the book to US publishers,
Speaker 1: but couldn't get it over the line because I didn't
Speaker 1: have a big enough profile in the US. And what
Speaker 1: I learned from that process is that for a business book,
Speaker 1: it's kind of different for fiction, but certainly for a
Speaker 1: business book. To secure a book deal with a major publisher,
Speaker 1: and it's about I think four or five major publishers
Speaker 1: in the world, of which Penguin Random house is won.
Speaker 1: You need a good idea, like a unique idea, but
Speaker 1: you also need a big platform sort of and then
Speaker 1: kind of the multiplier of that is how good it
Speaker 1: do you will get? And that was interesting and so
Speaker 1: I thought about that when I was putting together the
Speaker 1: book proposal. And for people that are like, what's a
Speaker 1: book proposal, it's kind of like a business plan for
Speaker 1: a book. So it goes through what's the premise of
Speaker 1: the book, what's the structure of the book, what's the
Speaker 1: competitive landscape, like who, like, what ore the books of
Speaker 1: these people buying? And why is yours better and different?
Speaker 1: It goes through a marketing plan and then obviously like
Speaker 1: about the author. So I don't know if that answered
Speaker 1: your question, but that's kind of but it did evolve, Sorry,
Speaker 1: it did evolve into not just being a straight productivity
Speaker 1: book with lots of tips and hacks, but it did
Speaker 1: evolve into going I think that this book is really
Speaker 1: not about like doing things quicker, better, faster, although there
Speaker 1: is one chapter about efficiency. It is about how we
Speaker 1: can think more deliberately, more consciously about.
Speaker 2: How we use the hours in the day that we
Speaker 2: all have the same of.
Speaker 3: That's definitely what I got out of reading it. I
Speaker 3: kind of on the front of the book, it says
Speaker 3: powerful habits more tigraded joy, And that's the real sentiment
Speaker 3: that I got from it, is around greater joy and
Speaker 3: really thinking about being more intentional with how we use
Speaker 3: our time so that we can get more joy out
Speaker 3: of our lives. And I think that was a surprise
Speaker 3: for me, you know, thinking obviously and being part of
Speaker 3: that journey as well in kind of seeing the plan
Speaker 3: at the start and seeing you go through the process.
Speaker 3: And that was a nice surprise and something that I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed about the book. We did have some presmitted
Speaker 3: questions about the book writing process, and one of them
Speaker 3: was did you have a detailed outline when you started
Speaker 3: writing or did you just start with a high level
Speaker 3: outline and it took shape as you put words to page.
Speaker 1: I had an outline because of book proposal needs one,
Speaker 1: but I.
Speaker 2: But I didn't stick to it.
Speaker 1: So how that worked is that I to write the book,
Speaker 1: I spent quite a while thinking what are the like
Speaker 1: what are the best and most impactful and most novel
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to include sort of just you know,
Speaker 1: productivity strategies and time management strategies that you hear everywhere else.
Speaker 1: I thought, what are the most novel and impactful things
Speaker 1: that I've heard on How I Work? And I had
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of those, like probably I cut it
Speaker 1: down to about one hundred, so it's about a hundred
Speaker 1: or so strategies in the book. And then I spent many,
Speaker 1: many hours, like on my big kitchen table with all
Speaker 1: the strategies cut out in little sheets of paper, going Okay, thematically,
Speaker 1: what makes sense here? Because it is really hard structuring
Speaker 1: a book. And yeah, I remember when I interviewed Dan
Speaker 1: Pink the first time I had him on How I Work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was talking about like because I read his books,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh my god, he's so good at
Speaker 1: structuring books. But I remember with his most recent book,
Speaker 1: or second most recent book, when I think he said
Speaker 1: he had like about twenty different structures before he landed
Speaker 1: on the one that he did. And I feel like
Speaker 1: I went through that very painful process of literally just
Speaker 1: kind of playing tetris with all these different strategies and
Speaker 1: going what.
Speaker 2: Are the themes that make sense?
Speaker 1: And then you know, you kind of want a theme
Speaker 1: to be benefit driven, and then you kind of want
Speaker 1: a roughly equal amount within each section, So the seven
Speaker 1: sections of the book, you know, for those that have
Speaker 1: read it or when you do read it, just know
Speaker 1: that a lot of thought and time went into going
Speaker 1: how does this all come together?
Speaker 3: And there was another question around what are the some
Speaker 3: of the steps that you need to take to write
Speaker 3: a great book? And I think you've already shared some
Speaker 3: of that around especially that inside around having that great
Speaker 3: platform as well, especially if you want to get some
Speaker 3: of the great publishers in Australia. Anything else you want
Speaker 3: to add there in terms of the steps need to
Speaker 3: take to turn a great idea into a book, like
Speaker 3: practically or even just like that creative process as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like the other thing, I feel like
Speaker 1: when I shared this with people, they're like, oh what
Speaker 1: so authors Like, it's really hard to make a living
Speaker 1: from being an author. So when you think about the
Speaker 1: process of writing a book, unless you're I don't know,
Speaker 1: like Leanne Moriarty or someone like that, not that she's
Speaker 1: even a business writer, it's not like you can just
Speaker 1: take a year off work and go I'm just going
Speaker 1: to be indulgent and.
Speaker 2: Write a book, because that's a job that will get
Speaker 2: me a salary.
Speaker 1: It's generally not for for most authors. So, like, the
Speaker 1: biggest challenge I think when you work in a full
Speaker 1: time job, although we do a four day week.
Speaker 2: Is finding time to write a book.
Speaker 1: So the book is I think it's a little over
Speaker 1: seventy thousand words. I think it ended up being like
Speaker 1: seventy two thousand words, and that's quite a lot of
Speaker 1: words to produce, and plus you've contracted to do it
Speaker 1: in a certain amount of time. Granted, like I chose
Speaker 1: that amount of time, I'm like six months, that feels fine.
Speaker 1: I think that was quite short. I ended up getting
Speaker 1: it done in about five and a half months because
Speaker 1: I wanted to be on brand and submit early obviously,
Speaker 1: which I did. But what I found is just the
Speaker 1: discipline of having a writing ritual. So it was the
Speaker 1: very first thing that I would do every morning before
Speaker 1: I did any other kind of work, and any kind
Speaker 1: of inventing in work as well. So I would write
Speaker 1: for typically a couple of hours in the morning, and
Speaker 1: I I would have and I got this advice from
Speaker 1: Greg McEwan, who wrote Essentialism and Effortless. I had like
Speaker 1: upper and lower bounds, so on, like my lower bound
Speaker 1: was I had to write at least five hundred words,
Speaker 1: and my upper bound was about it was three three chapters,
Speaker 1: so the chapters are quite short. They are about seven
Speaker 1: hundred words, so an upper bound of about two thousand words.
Speaker 1: So that I found really helpful in going I hit
Speaker 1: my target. And then also I did that thing that
Speaker 1: Jerry Seinfeld is quite famous for doing where he has
Speaker 1: a calendar and he writes, he writes every day and
Speaker 1: he does a cross on his calendar if he does
Speaker 1: his writing, and then he builds up a streak, and
Speaker 1: then the longier streak is, the more compelling it is
Speaker 1: to keep that streak going.
Speaker 2: And so I did exactly that. So I had a paper.
Speaker 1: Calendar that I printed out and stuck it on the whiteboard,
Speaker 1: and I'd do a cross, you know, every day that
Speaker 1: I hit my goal and I didn't want to break
Speaker 1: the streak, so they were I found those quite useful.
Speaker 3: I love the streak. I've got the streak in due
Speaker 3: Lingo with my Spanish, and so I'm up to like
Speaker 3: day thirty five. Now. Luckily, if you miss a day,
Speaker 3: they sometimes freeze your streak, which is quite a nice
Speaker 3: little thing. If something happens so that you don't lose
Speaker 3: your streak, which is nice. Okay, so obviously you have
Speaker 3: You were already a really productive person before you started
Speaker 3: this book, but I'm sure you've probably learned a lot
Speaker 3: more through writing the book and obviously through all your interviews,
Speaker 3: and I think a lot of people know that you
Speaker 3: are a very productive person. I think I said to
Speaker 3: my dad that you had a third book coming out,
Speaker 3: and he said to me, isamanthis kind of energizer bunny
Speaker 3: or something like? It was just like, should just get
Speaker 3: so much stuff done? But having said that, I'm sure
Speaker 3: there are days when you feel not your productive self
Speaker 3: and not particularly time wise. So what does that look
Speaker 3: like for you? And when you're having those challenging days,
Speaker 3: what strategies do you use to really pull yourself out
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because I don't see myself as an
Speaker 1: energizer bunny, and I don't see myself as someone who's like, like,
Speaker 1: I'd say, yes, I'm above average productivity because I think
Speaker 1: about it and I write about it a lot, and
Speaker 1: I apply the strategies. But I like, yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like probably maybe people's perception of how I work is
Speaker 1: quite different from the reality, I feel like I'm like
Speaker 1: relatively normal, maybe a bit above above average.
Speaker 2: Maybe. So what do I do if I'm having a
Speaker 2: bad day?
Speaker 1: I you know what I'm tending to do at the
Speaker 1: moment if I'm finding myself quite unfocused and I'm quite
Speaker 1: aware of when I'm feeling that pool to check email
Speaker 1: too many times a day or do something that you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't know. Because I was doing this campaign
Speaker 1: for LinkedIn for the last nine months, I've been much
Speaker 1: more active on social media than I used to be.
Speaker 1: And also with the book out now, my agent has
Speaker 1: said you need to be on Instagram more. So I've
Speaker 1: got bloody Instagram on my phone again, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I have to.
Speaker 2: I don't like having.
Speaker 1: It on my phone, but it's really tedious and annoying
Speaker 1: to post like from your desktop, which I sometimes do
Speaker 1: when I'm doing content for social media.
Speaker 2: But I would say.
Speaker 1: I will just go, okay, I'm either going to take
Speaker 1: a break and I'm going to be easy on myself,
Speaker 1: or I will just make some progress on shallow work,
Speaker 1: like work that is fairly easy to do that I
Speaker 1: can just kind of do in bursts of five or
Speaker 1: ten minutes and kind of feel like I'm making some
Speaker 1: progress on not shallow work that doesn't matter, but shallow
Speaker 1: work that actually does need to get done. But I
Speaker 1: sort of feel like I can at least mentally feel
Speaker 1: like I'm having an okay day if I can tick
Speaker 1: off a.
Speaker 2: Few things that do actually need to get done but
Speaker 2: don't require too much brain power and just go easy
Speaker 2: on myself.
Speaker 3: One of the presummitted questions someone sent through was they
Speaker 3: wanted to know what are the kind of behaviors that
Speaker 3: you found most challenging to change, Like what's like your
Speaker 3: kryptonide or something that you've just tried to change but
Speaker 3: keep coming back to.
Speaker 2: Definitely my email.
Speaker 1: I feel like my inbox still is a struggle for me.
Speaker 1: It's not a struggle in the morning, but it's a
Speaker 1: struggle I would say after I'm out of doing deep work,
Speaker 1: which is typically about eleven am thereabout. Sometimes I'll start
Speaker 1: quite early, so it's more like ten am or sometimes earlier.
Speaker 2: But but that's still a struggle.
Speaker 1: And there are a few strategies about email, and one
Speaker 1: of the most useful ones I have received, and this
Speaker 1: was from Laura may Martin, who you mentioned before.
Speaker 2: Google's executive Productivity Advisor.
Speaker 1: And she I feel like she told me this on
Speaker 1: like she was I invited her back on the show recently,
Speaker 1: so that episode maybe was from a couple of months ago, and.
Speaker 2: She said, just make sure you close your.
Speaker 1: Email a couple of times a day, because most productivity
Speaker 1: people will say keep like, only check your email three
Speaker 1: times a day. And for most people, but particularly most
Speaker 1: people that have requests being made on them by different
Speaker 1: different people in their company or clients or wherever, they
Speaker 1: they said, that's just that's not realistic. And I totally
Speaker 1: get that, but I I find it hard to just
Speaker 1: check email three times a day, even though I know
Speaker 1: that leads to greater happiness and greater productivity according to research.
Speaker 2: So I find though.
Speaker 1: I use Superhuman as my email client, which is so
Speaker 1: it's different software, so it's not like Gmail, where you're
Speaker 1: typically opening a new tab on your browser, and most
Speaker 1: people have their browser open all day. But I like
Speaker 1: the idea of just closing software for at least a
Speaker 1: couple of hours during the day and then I'm out
Speaker 1: of it because it's annoying to have to click on Superhuman,
Speaker 1: wait a few seconds for it to open, wait a
Speaker 1: few more for a few more seconds for emails to load,
Speaker 1: and you know that's not quite instant gratification because you're
Speaker 1: waiting probably ten seconds for that hit.
Speaker 2: So that helps me a lot.
Speaker 3: Now. One thing that, as I said at started really
Speaker 3: surprising about the book was the real focus on happiness
Speaker 3: and joy and finding more meaning in your life. So
Speaker 3: it's not just a book about getting more stuff done.
Speaker 3: It's really about enjoying the process of life and finding
Speaker 3: more joy as well. And one thing that I particularly
Speaker 3: enjoyed reading was the chapter about reminding yourself that you
Speaker 3: will die. So what do you knew that is that
Speaker 3: are curious about that? Amantha? Can you share this strategy
Speaker 3: and also anything else that really stood out for you
Speaker 3: as strategies to really improve the quality of your life
Speaker 3: and finding more joy both at work but also not
Speaker 3: at work.
Speaker 2: So the death strategy.
Speaker 1: So this came from a couple of people, actually, so
Speaker 1: it came from French Besta, who is a big tech entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: and also Ci who's a maid of mind, Cyan Taid,
Speaker 1: who's co founder of Invato, which is a unicorn, a
Speaker 1: billion dollar tech company, and both of them said the
Speaker 1: same thing.
Speaker 2: They both have reminders that they will die.
Speaker 1: SI stopped hers though, so she download did an app
Speaker 1: and I think the names of the apps in the
Speaker 1: book that there, I think death clock might be one maybe,
Speaker 1: And Sy said her app reminded her that she was
Speaker 1: going to die five times a day, and basically, why
Speaker 1: you would do that is so that you can be
Speaker 1: more grateful and appreciative and present, knowing that you know
Speaker 1: our time is short. Life can be short, and so
Speaker 1: it sort of just reminded her to stay present.
Speaker 2: But then I think one of her kids.
Speaker 1: Saw the death app and they were like, Mom, why
Speaker 1: why are you reminding yourself you'll die? And then she
Speaker 1: just thought, I think I just need to delete this app.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not a parent friendly app. In terms
Speaker 1: of joy.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, there's some hot.
Speaker 1: This is something I do try to think about because
Speaker 1: I feel like often I will feel like I'm in
Speaker 1: a rush, and I really really hate being late, even
Speaker 1: one or two minutes. Running one or two minutes late
Speaker 1: for something, whether that be a virtual meeting or a
Speaker 1: face to face meeting, makes me feel disproportionately stressed.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that we could link that back to my
Speaker 2: childhood somehow, but I really like the advice that I
Speaker 2: got from Michelle Laurie.
Speaker 1: The comedian, and this is Buddhist thinking, and something she
Speaker 1: reminds herself to do is to let others go first.
Speaker 1: And she lives her day with that in mind, you know,
Speaker 1: not every minute of the day, but she tries to
Speaker 1: remember that just as a general principle, let others go first. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're stuck in traffic is probably where
Speaker 1: I think about it most, because I feel like when
Speaker 1: I'm in traffic, I feel like I'm racing against Google
Speaker 1: Maps to see if i can outdo the time that
Speaker 1: it's predicted.
Speaker 2: To to get me too the location, which is terrible.
Speaker 2: It's so bad. I shouldn't be doing this. But then
Speaker 2: I remember let others go first, which might be if
Speaker 2: someone wants to get in front of me, you know,
Speaker 2: in a lane, then just let them go first. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. So I find that I do. Actually, I
Speaker 2: think about that definitely on a weekly basis.
Speaker 3: Now, for anyone that's done writing, like whether you are
Speaker 3: someone that writes articles, maybe you're someone that has written
Speaker 3: the book, you probably know that writing is a separate
Speaker 3: process to editing. And I can only imagine that when
Speaker 3: most kind of we're writing, is Amantha, You probably had
Speaker 3: to go through a lot of editing, and even when
Speaker 3: you were kind of putting all the strategy down on
Speaker 3: the table, I'm sure there were lots that you had
Speaker 3: to check out because you know, you could only put
Speaker 3: a hundred strategies in this book. But I guess I
Speaker 3: want to know which one is like one of your
Speaker 3: favorite strategies that you knew you absolutely had to include
Speaker 3: in the book. But also if you can't this, potentially
Speaker 3: was there anything that you didn't include that was still
Speaker 3: super valuable that you could share with the audience who's
Speaker 3: with us now live as well?
Speaker 1: You know what, maybe if I just share a couple
Speaker 1: that weren't in the book. And it's like one of
Speaker 1: my pet hates actually when I hear authors being interviewed
Speaker 1: is that they only talk about the stuff that's in
Speaker 1: the book. And even when I'm interviewing authors on how
Speaker 1: I work, I'm desperately trying to find a way in
Speaker 1: to get them to talk about things that are not
Speaker 1: in the book, because that's what they're talking about in.
Speaker 2: Every other interview. So I feel like I'll be more
Speaker 2: useful if I talk about some that are not in
Speaker 2: the book.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad because I didn't want to put the
Speaker 3: pressure on you know, you know, because if everyone's listening.
Speaker 3: We didn't pre plan these questions. Amantha didn't know what
Speaker 3: I'll ask you her, So I didn't want to set
Speaker 3: her up for failure. So I kind of wanted to
Speaker 3: give her an out, like, if you can give us
Speaker 3: something that's not in the book.
Speaker 2: Yes, So something that I loved.
Speaker 1: And often the things that didn't make the book were things.
Speaker 2: That I learned low after.
Speaker 1: I think October last year was when I submitted so
Speaker 1: the like the first draft and and it's it's not
Speaker 1: really super cool to put new content in after that,
Speaker 1: and unless you know your editors, like there's like because
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: Actually, I remember when I sent it to my editors
Speaker 1: is He and Clive. I said, hey, you know, here's
Speaker 1: my first draft. It's over the word count because with
Speaker 1: the contract, you're contracted to write a certain amount of words.
Speaker 1: So I was contracted to write sixty to seventy thousand words.
Speaker 1: And I said, look, it's a bit over the word count,
Speaker 1: so there's buffer for you to cut any strategies that
Speaker 1: you think are just not all that good and they
Speaker 1: and so that's where I had a few backups, but
Speaker 1: they said, no, we want to keep them all.
Speaker 2: They're all great.
Speaker 1: So from October, I've learned so much on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and it's either way, it's kind of it's frustrating because
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I wish I could have included that
Speaker 1: tip and that tip anyway to answer your question. One
Speaker 1: tip that I really loved came from Phil Libbon, who's
Speaker 1: the co founder of ever note, which is very popular
Speaker 1: note taking software, and also co founder of presentation software
Speaker 1: that we use it Inventium where you can superimpose yourself
Speaker 1: sort of on top of the slides, which is a
Speaker 1: good visual effect for presentations. And he was talking about
Speaker 1: decision making and something that he differentiates between is when
Speaker 1: he's got a big decision to make, like a decision
Speaker 1: that feels really hard, he asks them himself, does this
Speaker 1: decision feel hard because it's actually a complex decision, or
Speaker 1: does it feel hard because it's an unpleasant decision? So,
Speaker 1: you know, an unpleasant decision sample might be you know,
Speaker 1: leaving a marriage, or if you're a manager, like having
Speaker 1: to fire someone for poor performance. So like those are
Speaker 1: examples of very unpleasant decisions, but you know what the
Speaker 1: right way forward is. Whereas complex decisions, they're tricky, they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's lots to think about. There's no sort
Speaker 1: of straightforward, simple solution or decision, if you like. But
Speaker 1: where people get stuck is that they allocate similar amounts
Speaker 1: of time to both types of decisions. But Phil says,
Speaker 1: if upfront you can just figure out is this an
Speaker 1: unpleasant decision or is this a complex decision, you will
Speaker 1: spend your time much more wisely, essentially because you don't
Speaker 1: need to spend time thinking about the unpleasant decisions. Yes,
Speaker 1: you need to manage your emotions, but you know what
Speaker 1: the right way forward is whereas allocate your time to
Speaker 1: the complex decisions. And that really stuck with me. You know,
Speaker 1: I can think of so many times where I've had
Speaker 1: to make unpleasant decisions and I've just I've stewed on them.
Speaker 1: I've spent so much time thinking about them, but only
Speaker 1: because I was scared to do the thing that I
Speaker 1: knew I had to do.
Speaker 2: So that really stuck with me.
Speaker 1: And a recent one that I think you will have
Speaker 1: heard this from me already, Shah, but it's stuck with me,
Speaker 1: and I love it so much. I recently interviewed Richard Wiseman,
Speaker 1: who's a psychology professor in the UK, and I've just
Speaker 1: been such a fan of his for about a decade,
Speaker 1: and he was telling we're talking about like presentations, and
Speaker 1: he was telling me about a friend of his that
Speaker 1: is a magician, famous magician, and Richard is also a
Speaker 1: magician as well, and he was talking to his magician
Speaker 1: friend about like how he designs his shows, and he says, look,
Speaker 1: I think about what I want people to say to
Speaker 1: me at the end of a performance.
Speaker 2: And a lot of performers and probably a lot of people,
Speaker 2: you know, just normal people to give presentations want people
Speaker 2: to come up to them at the end and go,
Speaker 2: you were great, you were amazing, you were fantastic. But
Speaker 2: this magician is like, I don't want that.
Speaker 1: I want to create an experience so people, And so
Speaker 1: I actually designed a performance thinking that I want people
Speaker 1: to come up to me at the end and say
Speaker 1: thank you, like thank you for what you've given me
Speaker 1: and for me like now that you know, I've been
Speaker 1: working on designing this keynote off the back of the
Speaker 1: time Wise book. I use that as my starting point,
Speaker 1: and I found that really helpful. Thinking what do I
Speaker 1: want people to say to me at the end and
Speaker 1: knowing where I want to get to in such specific
Speaker 1: terms helped make it a lot easier to design. And
Speaker 1: I think, I mean you can use that for micro
Speaker 1: things like a meeting, like what do you want people
Speaker 1: to say at the end of a meet or at
Speaker 1: the end of a workshop that you're designing, or you know,
Speaker 1: most people give presentations as part of their job, what
Speaker 1: do you want people to say at the end of
Speaker 1: that presentation.
Speaker 2: I just I love that tip so much. It really resonated.
Speaker 1: We will be back soon talking about how to work
Speaker 1: out what your priorities at work should be. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for more tips to improve the way that you work,
Speaker 1: I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool
Speaker 1: things that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging
Speaker 1: from software and gadgets that I'm loving through to interesting
Speaker 1: research findings. You can sign up for that at Howiwork
Speaker 1: dot code. That's how I Work dot co.
Speaker 3: How often should we take breaks for optimal productivity?
Speaker 2: Well, we should take breaks.
Speaker 1: According to one research study from the University of Colorado,
Speaker 1: they looked at people taking one thirty minute break where
Speaker 1: they went on a walk, versus six five minute breaks
Speaker 1: where they went on short walks, and they found that
Speaker 1: the group that went on the fairly regular but shorter
Speaker 1: walk so six five minute walks spread throughout the day
Speaker 1: felt significantly better in the afternoon in terms of more energy,
Speaker 1: more resilience. And so look, according to that study, take
Speaker 1: regular breaks and try to move during your break, and
Speaker 1: also schedule lunch.
Speaker 2: In your diary.
Speaker 1: I just think that's really important. I tried to do
Speaker 1: that myself, or make sure that there's at least a
Speaker 1: half hour block where I can do that. But something
Speaker 1: I've also started doing is I used to be a
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning exerciser, and now I found
Speaker 1: that late morning my performance is a bit better and
Speaker 1: it's also a nice break. So I'll typically take quite
Speaker 1: a significant break an hour late morning, like typically at
Speaker 1: around eleven am, and that breaks up my day and
Speaker 1: I find gives me quite a lot of energy for
Speaker 1: the next few hours, whereas a lot of people struggle
Speaker 1: with energy in that sort of one to three pm phase.
Speaker 1: So that's that's my vice on breaks.
Speaker 3: I think it's important because that's the whole point of
Speaker 3: taking a break, right is to boost your energy after
Speaker 3: you take the break, and so often we get so
Speaker 3: caught up in you know, you're in flow, you're doing
Speaker 3: really great work, and see like I'm just gonna keep
Speaker 3: going and to push through and so just remembering actually, no,
Speaker 3: it's better off you just take a you know, just
Speaker 3: a short five minute break and then get back into it.
Speaker 3: It's going to help you later today, like the afternoon
Speaker 3: as well. Okay, so what about prioritization? How do you
Speaker 3: prioritize when everything is urgent? And how do you prioritize
Speaker 3: projects in a role that also requires almost instantaneous responses
Speaker 3: to queries?
Speaker 2: Hmmm?
Speaker 1: So yeah, how do you prioritize when everything is urgent?
Speaker 1: I feel like that's one where you sort of you
Speaker 1: need to get to the root cause, which I suspect
Speaker 1: is what your individual goals are in your organization, because
Speaker 1: if everything feels urgent, it probably means that you don't
Speaker 1: have clear goals and a clear priority of those goals. So,
Speaker 1: for example, at Inventium, we use okayrs objectives and key Results,
Speaker 1: which was made famous by Google and Intel, and read
Speaker 1: measure what Matters by John Dora.
Speaker 2: If you want to learn more about.
Speaker 1: That, so we've all got very specific goals like typically
Speaker 1: sort of three to five kind of focus areas, if
Speaker 1: you like, per per six to twelve months. So you know,
Speaker 1: I will often and like I'll often look at mine
Speaker 1: and kind of look at the week and go, what
Speaker 1: am I doing this week that is not really moving
Speaker 1: me closer.
Speaker 2: Or kind of getting thanks Gabs for linking.
Speaker 1: To that book, or yeah, like what's what is not
Speaker 1: going to be a good return on my time investment?
Speaker 1: And so I feel like I'm not overly scared of
Speaker 1: canceling things, whereas I feel like other people will just
Speaker 1: sort of say yes, and once they've said yes, they
Speaker 1: feel like they can't say no and undo that. Yes,
Speaker 1: obviously that's not my ideal of just say no in
Speaker 1: the first place, but yeah, I think it probably comes
Speaker 1: back to looking at what are your goals, and if
Speaker 1: you've got too many goals and too many goals that
Speaker 1: compete with each other, then I said, it's a conversation
Speaker 1: with your manager, I reckon. But I know you've thought
Speaker 1: heaps about prioritization Shart, Like, what advice do you find
Speaker 1: resonates most when you've run workshops on.
Speaker 3: This, well, even when you were just saying the whole
Speaker 3: you know, saying no things. I think something that's really
Speaker 3: resonated with me is that whole like to don't list
Speaker 3: or you know, would you be happy to if it
Speaker 3: was next Tuesday, for example, Like we say yes to
Speaker 3: all these things because we're like, oh that's future self
Speaker 3: like and that'll be fine in the future, and something,
Speaker 3: you know, we we do the four day week, and
Speaker 3: I do coaching on Fridays, and I've found that I've
Speaker 3: kind of reached that point where I'm like, I know
Speaker 3: now the level at which I can't do more coaching.
Speaker 3: Like I really I wrote down in my diary this week,
Speaker 3: I don't do more than four coaching sessions on Fridays
Speaker 3: because I realized I was saying yesterday's people who would
Speaker 3: then email me and be like, oh, can I book
Speaker 3: you in this Friday, And I'd be like, oh, yes,
Speaker 3: of course, because you know, I want to help. But
Speaker 3: then I'd get to Friday and I'd have like six
Speaker 3: sessions and I just felt like exhausted at the end,
Speaker 3: or I felt like I was going into those coaching
Speaker 3: sessions in the best mindset. So just even saying like
Speaker 3: I don't do that or I created this kind of
Speaker 3: thing in my diary of that's something that I'm just
Speaker 3: going to say no to in advance. Kind of helped
Speaker 3: me get really clear on like my priorities for Fridays.
Speaker 3: And that's also a strategy in the book as well,
Speaker 3: is to create a to don't list, Isn't.
Speaker 2: It it is? It is, yeah, from Rachel Batsman, and
Speaker 2: it reminds me.
Speaker 1: I heard this other strategy that is not in the
Speaker 1: book that I do love from Katie Milkman, who's a
Speaker 1: Wharton professor and wrote How to Change, which is a
Speaker 1: book that we both love, How to Change, and she
Speaker 1: she was reading research by Linda Babcock from Kinnegie Mellon
Speaker 1: University that had found that women are more likely to
Speaker 1: say yes to non promotable tasks. And so non promotable
Speaker 1: tasks are things that you do because they're good citizenship,
Speaker 1: but they're not really that. They're not likely to get
Speaker 1: your promotion or progress you in your career, like you know,
Speaker 1: taking minutes at a meeting or sitting on a volunteer
Speaker 1: committee or organizing the office Christmas party or something like that.
Speaker 1: And then Katie learned that Linda.
Speaker 2: Had started a no club with a couple of other
Speaker 2: women at business schools, and so whenever they get an
Speaker 2: opportunity that they're like, oh, should I say yes or no,
Speaker 2: they will run it by their no club and for a.
Speaker 1: More objective point of view. And then Katie started her
Speaker 1: own no club. So I really like that, Like, if
Speaker 1: you are someone and you don't just have to be
Speaker 1: a woman to use this strategy, but if.
Speaker 2: You're someone that does struggle to say no.
Speaker 1: And maybe you've got a bit of people pleaser in you,
Speaker 1: I feel like a no club could be a really
Speaker 1: practical thing to start with a couple of peers.
Speaker 3: And ultimately you're I mean, if you bring this back
Speaker 3: to the work context, your manager, your leader, they are
Speaker 3: responsible for kind of clarifying your priorities, and ultimately your
Speaker 3: priorities should flow from the top down. So even thinking
Speaker 3: about could you have this conversation with your manager your
Speaker 3: leader where you're like, hey, can we have these regular
Speaker 3: conversations about what I'm taking on and can you be
Speaker 3: my closically can you help me work out what I
Speaker 3: should be saying no to? That's certainly I mean, we
Speaker 3: don't have bosses that invented, but that's certainly how I
Speaker 3: use mish our ceo going to me like is this
Speaker 3: actually something that I should be spending my time on
Speaker 3: and coming back to our goals and okay ours all
Speaker 3: right everyone, I do want to turn to the chat
Speaker 3: box because I've only got like ten minutes left, so
Speaker 3: I need to make sure I get to the group
Speaker 3: that I hear, and so please do open up the
Speaker 3: chat box and send through any questions you have for
Speaker 3: a member. It can be about the podcast, about the book,
Speaker 3: about anything productivity related. Kim already submitted a question and
Speaker 3: that was what is your favorite podcast?
Speaker 2: My favorite podcast?
Speaker 1: My favorite one, which I think I I shared on
Speaker 1: the episode I did this, I love Mama Mia out Loud.
Speaker 1: Like for me podcasts, if I only listen to podcasts
Speaker 1: that were like of the self development learning business kind
Speaker 1: of genre, I I'd probably go insane. For me podcasts,
Speaker 1: I would say the primary purpose is to kind of
Speaker 1: just like pure bliss and enjoyment. I guess kind of
Speaker 1: in the way that people watch TV. Maybe I use
Speaker 1: podcasts for that purpose also learning, but that's probably only
Speaker 1: sort of a third of my podcast airtime.
Speaker 2: So I love Mama Mea out Loud.
Speaker 1: I recently got to interview Mia Jesse and Holly and
Speaker 1: that was quite a highlight. But look, if we're talking
Speaker 1: about work focus things, it's hard to go past Work.
Speaker 2: Life by Adam Grant. I do love it. It's so
Speaker 2: well researched.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, the amount of hours that go into
Speaker 1: producing like a forty minute episode of work Life is
Speaker 1: quite substantial.
Speaker 2: You can just tell. It's such a well produced, well
Speaker 2: researched podcast, and I deeply appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I love it as well. Sentimental in the City as well.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, don't get me sounded so good.
Speaker 3: So many of you are not familiar. It's a podcast
Speaker 3: that kind of goes through the seasons of sex and
Speaker 3: City with this like social cultural commentary from very intelligent women.
Speaker 3: Now Natalie has asked, Amantha, do you use any outlining
Speaker 3: software tools for organizing your thoughts for and book writing?
Speaker 2: I do Scrivener.
Speaker 1: Scrivener is software that I would say the vast majority
Speaker 1: of writers use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely nonfiction, but even.
Speaker 1: Like Sally Hepworth, for example, I know that she uses
Speaker 1: it as well, and she writes fiction, so yeah, awesome.
Speaker 3: What about most effective way to manage a to do list?
Speaker 1: I love Motion for this, So I think usemotion dot
Speaker 1: Io is the correct link, because there are.
Speaker 2: Two calendar software things called motion.
Speaker 1: How motion works is you've got your calendar view on
Speaker 1: one side like you would see in traditional calendar software,
Speaker 1: and then you've got a task list in like the
Speaker 1: left hand column. Because I've got a high self for
Speaker 1: you on I don't know whether I'm doing the things
Speaker 1: in the right way because I've got like mirror view anyway, whatever.
Speaker 1: So you have it combined to your task list and
Speaker 1: your calendar, and with your tasks, you can allocate how
Speaker 1: long you think the task will take, and then you
Speaker 1: can sort of drag and drop it into your calendar.
Speaker 2: So then it appears as a meeting with yourself. And
Speaker 2: so I use time blocking where I book meetings with
Speaker 2: myself to do deep work. I find it it was
Speaker 2: a game changer for me.
Speaker 1: So that's like my to do list for work. I
Speaker 1: use things for my personal to do list. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that in combining the calendar game changer.
Speaker 3: What about your favorite productivity app?
Speaker 1: I love Superhuman that would be the one that I
Speaker 1: used most often.
Speaker 2: Superhuman for my email.
Speaker 1: I do love for calendar, and I think email and
Speaker 1: calendar are the two things that we use most often,
Speaker 1: so they would be my two go to and look
Speaker 1: I do for podcast editing and if you're editing any
Speaker 1: kind of sound or video file, if you have to
Speaker 1: do that in your work, or maybe you want to descript.
Speaker 1: Descript is amazing software where it transcribes the recording and
Speaker 1: it's like you're editing a word document to edit a
Speaker 1: sound file or video file. So like if you want
Speaker 1: to delete a phrase, like let's just say I've said
Speaker 1: um a lot, and then I put this audio file
Speaker 1: or video file into descript, I can then just highlight
Speaker 1: those words and delete them I think command X, and
Speaker 1: then they're gone from the video and audio.
Speaker 2: It's quite magical. So I do love that.
Speaker 3: I love that. I mean, I'm not an editor, but
Speaker 3: I can in my mind. I'm always like you would
Speaker 3: have to be listening to it and then have to
Speaker 3: kind of take out the spot your word. That sounds amazing.
Speaker 3: Carolyn's question, what is a good approach to take if
Speaker 3: you're working on good tools for your own personal productivity,
Speaker 3: but working in a context constrained by traditional work approaches.
Speaker 2: It is really challenging.
Speaker 1: I think when you're working in an organization that doesn't
Speaker 1: want to try to challenge work habits and processes that
Speaker 1: are not serving you.
Speaker 2: It can be really, really hard.
Speaker 1: I think awareness is the first step, like bringing that
Speaker 1: to maybe your boss's awareness, to go, hey, we're doing this,
Speaker 1: but it's causing this and maybe we.
Speaker 2: Should therefore rethink this.
Speaker 1: We're always happy to come in to have a chat
Speaker 1: because some people just don't know that there is another
Speaker 1: way of doing things when they've been stuck doing things
Speaker 1: the same way for a very long time.
Speaker 2: But I would say probably awareness is a good place
Speaker 2: to start.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you one final question, Amantha, and
Speaker 3: this comes back back to what you've already shared from
Speaker 3: Richard Wiseman, the psychology professor and magician. So what do
Speaker 3: you want people to say to you after reading the
Speaker 3: book reading time Wise? What would you ideally like people
Speaker 3: to say to you.
Speaker 1: I would love them to say, thank you. You've really
Speaker 1: helped me learn ways to use my time on this
Speaker 1: planet more wisely.
Speaker 2: That's what I would love. So there you have it.
Speaker 4: I hope that that gave you a bit of insight
Speaker 4: into the process that I went through for writing time Wise,
Speaker 4: and some of my personal favorite strategies at the moment now.
Speaker 1: If you haven't got a copy of time Wise, you
Speaker 1: can get your hands on one where all good books
Speaker 1: are sold. And thank you to everybody who has posted
Speaker 1: about their copy of time Wise on social media and given.
Speaker 2: The book a review wherever you bought it from. I
Speaker 2: am deeply, deeply grateful.
Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support
Speaker 1: from Dead Set Studios.
Speaker 2: The producer for this episode was Liam Riordan.
Speaker 1: And thank you to mat Nimba who does the audio
Speaker 1: mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much
Speaker 1: better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 2: See you next time.