Speaker 1: When you're a parent, there are so many big decisions
Speaker 1: to make, but also a lot of small decisions that
Speaker 1: may or may not have a big impact on your
Speaker 1: child's life. So when you ask a doctor if it's
Speaker 1: okay to maintain your four cups a day coffee addiction
Speaker 1: during pregnancy and their response is two cups should be okay,
Speaker 1: you might not feel like that's enough information to make
Speaker 1: one of many decisions coming your way. And that is
Speaker 1: exactly how Brown University economics professor Emily Osta felt during
Speaker 1: her pregnancy. So she did what any good economist would do,
Speaker 1: and she went to the numbers. Three books later, and
Speaker 1: she has not only broken down all the data that
Speaker 1: parents need to make decisions, but she's worked out how
Speaker 1: we can all be making better decisions. So what are
Speaker 1: the economics frameworks that Emily uses to improve her own
Speaker 1: life and the decisions that she makes. Why is optimizing
Speaker 1: on the margins so important for hour by our productivity?
Speaker 1: And why does Emily use email to make some of
Speaker 1: her biggest decisions with her husband. My name is doctor
Speaker 1: Amathe Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of
Speaker 1: behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work
Speaker 1: a show about how to help you do your best work.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to start my chat with Emily by
Speaker 1: understanding how can economics help us make better decisions in
Speaker 1: our lives.
Speaker 2: So I think the big picture in economic decision making
Speaker 2: is the idea of weighing costs and benefits.
Speaker 3: And that any choice that you make you should.
Speaker 2: Make thoughtfully by thinking about what with the benefits of
Speaker 2: this choice being with the and what would the cast be.
Speaker 2: But I think it's also the case that under a
Speaker 2: lineying that there are a lot of smaller principles that
Speaker 2: can help us do that better. So one that I
Speaker 2: like a lot as an example, is opportunity costs is
Speaker 2: the idea that.
Speaker 3: Effectively my time is valuable.
Speaker 2: And that I should when I make choices about whether
Speaker 2: I should hire somebody to help me clean my house,
Speaker 2: I should be thinking about the opportunity costs of that time.
Speaker 2: I should be thinking about what else I could be
Speaker 2: doing with that time, and explicitly acknowledging that in some
Speaker 2: of the choices that I make.
Speaker 1: Interesting So, how do you make decisions at work?
Speaker 2: A lot of the decisions that I make at work
Speaker 2: have to do with how I'm going to prioritize different
Speaker 2: pieces of my professional life. So I do a fair
Speaker 2: amount of writing. I'm also an academic, so I write
Speaker 2: some academic papers, and then I do a fair amount
Speaker 2: of administrative work. And I try to make sort of
Speaker 2: both big picture and then smaller picture decisions, So sort
Speaker 2: of big picture decisions about kind of how do I
Speaker 2: want the balance of those things to work over the
Speaker 2: course of a year, So do I want to be
Speaker 2: investing a lot of administration and less in the other things,
Speaker 2: recognizing that there's a trade off. I can't do one
Speaker 2: hundred percent of everything. And then I try to also
Speaker 2: make decisions about kind of smaller pieces of time, So
Speaker 2: how much time do I want to spend in this
Speaker 2: week on these different things. So for me, a lot
Speaker 2: of the work decisions are really around prioritizing certain parts
Speaker 2: of my professional life and then within them having the
Speaker 2: same kinds of discussions about individual projects. But the big
Speaker 2: picture is probably the most important.
Speaker 1: Right, And so like, what are some of the frameworks
Speaker 1: or tools from economics that you're consciously using or maybe
Speaker 1: unconsciously using now when I'm making those big pigure decisions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think it's almost all unconscious at this point.
Speaker 2: My parents were also economists, and so my kind of whole.
Speaker 2: My husband is an economy so it's all that sort
Speaker 2: of steeped in there. But I think a lot of
Speaker 2: this is this idea of trade offs, of kind of
Speaker 2: if you're doing this thing, you can't be doing this
Speaker 2: other thing, and so just recognizing the kind of weight
Speaker 2: of value across those things. I think the other tool
Speaker 2: that I spend a lot of time thinking to sort
Speaker 2: of in that factors a lot in these decisions is
Speaker 2: the idea of what we call optimizing on the margin,
Speaker 2: So thinking about choosing.
Speaker 3: Activities not based on how important they.
Speaker 2: Are overall on average, but thinking about what is the
Speaker 2: best use of this next hour. So there may be
Speaker 2: a situation in which you know there's one broad area
Speaker 2: of work or one broad project that's in aggregate much
Speaker 2: more important.
Speaker 3: Than another one.
Speaker 2: But when I think about how much progress would be
Speaker 2: made in the next hour, or what would be the
Speaker 2: best use of this next hour, it is best used
Speaker 2: on the smaller project or the sort of aggregate less
Speaker 2: valuable project, because the marginal.
Speaker 3: Value of that hour is higher.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's that actually ends up influencing
Speaker 2: a lot of how I organize my time in a
Speaker 2: smaller way.
Speaker 4: Which is to say, I need to make every hour
Speaker 4: as productive as possible, and that means allocating them in
Speaker 4: this marginal way where it's what is the best use
Speaker 4: of that particular hour, given where I am on everything else,
Speaker 4: rather than saying all the time should be spent on
Speaker 4: this big project because it is on average most important.
Speaker 3: Well, no, maybe the marginal hour is not as important.
Speaker 1: Okay, interesting, I'm thinking of how would I apply that
Speaker 1: to my own life. At the moment, I've got my
Speaker 1: big project is I'm writing a book, and I'm on deadline.
Speaker 1: October is when I have to submit the first draft,
Speaker 1: and so that, like, I feel like that occupies every
Speaker 1: spare hour that I've got at the moment. But then
Speaker 1: I've got other tasks that I do, like writing articles,
Speaker 1: or doing knote speeches, or doing business development activities or
Speaker 1: sort of bits and pieces of administration. So what advice
Speaker 1: would you give me in terms of applying that principle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that I would encourage you to
Speaker 2: think about the kind of diminishing marginal value of time
Speaker 2: on your books. So, so I'm going to assume that
Speaker 2: you write books like I do, which means if you
Speaker 2: sat down at the beginning of an eight hour day
Speaker 2: to write that, the kind of first couple of hours,
Speaker 2: you've had your coffee, you're like, really, you're focused in,
Speaker 2: you're dialed in, You've thought in the.
Speaker 3: Shower about what you're going to say. You're like, really,
Speaker 3: you're doing it.
Speaker 2: And by our four things that are sort of decay, and
Speaker 2: by our a you're basically fried, like you can't or
Speaker 2: maybe by our four you're fried. That would be a
Speaker 2: begin me that's right, yeah, yeah, But there's a temptation
Speaker 2: to be like, okay, just because it is so important,
Speaker 2: I just got to push through, push through, push through,
Speaker 2: because this.
Speaker 3: Is this is the big project.
Speaker 2: But actually that fifth hour, like you're that fifth hour
Speaker 2: is not that productive, Like you're not getting that much done.
Speaker 2: And you might at that point be able to get
Speaker 2: more sort of total work life points, whatever it is,
Speaker 2: by spending some of that time on article writing or
Speaker 2: something different, or administrative tasks or catching up on email
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, because.
Speaker 3: You're going to need to do that time sometime.
Speaker 2: That's going to have to happen, and if you do
Speaker 2: it in that hour, that would otherwise be the sort
Speaker 2: of less least productive of the book hours. If you
Speaker 2: instead slot in something else, it may be that that's
Speaker 2: actually sort of an aggregate time saver or productivity saver,
Speaker 2: because you've optimally used the hours rather than just like
Speaker 2: digging your head into the thing that you know is
Speaker 2: the sort of average most important because of the sort
Speaker 2: of diminishing value of time on any given project.
Speaker 1: In your latest book, The Family Firm, you lay out
Speaker 1: a framework for decision making called the floor ifs, and
Speaker 1: you apply it to parenting decisions, which I do want
Speaker 1: to talk about, but I want to start by asking
Speaker 1: with that framework, what are the other sorts of decisions
Speaker 1: that we can be applying that to.
Speaker 2: I tend to find I think this is applicable and
Speaker 2: a wide variety of settings. So you know, the kind
Speaker 2: of four f framework has the idea that you're going
Speaker 2: to start by framing a question. Then you're going to
Speaker 2: collect some data, some evidence information I call that fact finding,
Speaker 2: that you will then make a final decision and then
Speaker 2: there will be some sort of period of follow up.
Speaker 1: So let's get into this framework. Can you talk us
Speaker 1: through the four ifs?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that you want to imagine that you have
Speaker 2: a kind of big decision to make in some area
Speaker 2: of your life. And the first f is called frame
Speaker 2: the question. It may seem sort of fasciled to say
Speaker 2: you have to ask the question, but actually I think
Speaker 2: people are not always great at this. So we can
Speaker 2: take the should I get a new job question as
Speaker 2: an example. People often as well, you know, should should
Speaker 2: I change jobs or not? Okay, so you know the
Speaker 2: job that you have now, But by saying should I
Speaker 2: change jobs or or not, you don't know what the
Speaker 2: other choice is. So that in a lot of these
Speaker 2: settings it is really beneficial to actually write a question
Speaker 2: or think of a question in a way that's a
Speaker 2: trade off between two distinct things, not a trade off
Speaker 2: between do this or do something else, where something else
Speaker 2: is a sort of imaginary thing in the in the ether,
Speaker 2: And so that's really the first step is to say, okay, well,
Speaker 2: let me try to be as concrete as possible about
Speaker 2: what the sort of two choices or three choices are.
Speaker 2: Then there is a fact finding portion where you say,
Speaker 2: all right, in order to make this decision, I need
Speaker 2: to know some information. And the book is really about
Speaker 2: it's about a book about parenting, and so there's a
Speaker 2: fair amount of data in around a lot of questions
Speaker 2: that come up in parenting, and so that's a piece
Speaker 2: of this fact finding there. But in all, in any choice,
Speaker 2: there are going to be going to be facts that
Speaker 2: are not just data. There are going to be things
Speaker 2: about schedules, or things about finances, or things about other
Speaker 2: trade offs that you face the like, things that you
Speaker 2: need to know about exactly what these two different choices
Speaker 2: or three different choices are.
Speaker 3: Going to look like. And then there's the third step.
Speaker 2: Which is a final decision step, which is to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: once you have all that information, you actually should just
Speaker 2: plan a time to sit down and make the decision.
Speaker 3: Because I think we often let.
Speaker 2: Big choices sort of parkolate and parcolate, and we think
Speaker 2: about them a little here and a little there, and
Speaker 2: kind of in the shower, and we talk to our
Speaker 2: partner about them a little bit, we talk again. You know,
Speaker 2: we only have three minutes. We're falling asleep, and we
Speaker 2: never get to the end because we haven't said, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is the end of this decision.
Speaker 3: You know, I am am I going to switch jobs
Speaker 3: or not.
Speaker 2: Here's the time at which I'm going to decide that
Speaker 2: I'm going to have a meeting or whatever it is
Speaker 2: and a final decision, and then we will have made
Speaker 2: the decision.
Speaker 3: And we can kind of move forward. But then the
Speaker 3: last F is follow up.
Speaker 2: Is just noting that, you know, we often for big decisions,
Speaker 2: we tend to think about them as like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: going to make this decision and then that's it. This
Speaker 2: decision will be forever. And of course, for some decisions
Speaker 2: that's true, but for many of the decisions that we make,
Speaker 2: it may not be forever. You may have the opportunity
Speaker 2: to re up that decision at some other time, and
Speaker 2: we don't always take advantage of that. So I sort
Speaker 2: of urge people to say, hey, like you should articulate,
Speaker 2: you should plan a time they're going to follow up
Speaker 2: on the decision sometime later to make sure that X
Speaker 2: post it turned out to be the right decision and
Speaker 2: there isn't something that you want to change.
Speaker 1: I love that it makes decision making complex decision making
Speaker 1: sound like it could be much simpler. Now, could you
Speaker 1: maybe help me apply that framework to one decision that's
Speaker 1: abound truitment. We know we're need a new junior consultant,
Speaker 1: but there's one person that we like, but they're not
Speaker 1: available for six months, and there's also no guarantee that
Speaker 1: I mean, their life could have completely changed in six
Speaker 1: months and they might have some other job offer at
Speaker 1: the end of the year, so it's not like they're guaranteed,
Speaker 1: but we know that they're really good. Then the other
Speaker 1: option is that we just go, Okay, let's not wait
Speaker 1: six months for someone that we know is good, and
Speaker 1: instead let's invest some time, which would be a lot
Speaker 1: of time going to market and seeing what's out there,
Speaker 1: which is very, very time consuming, but it would hopefully
Speaker 1: get us someone sooner. So that's the decision. Do we
Speaker 1: go to market now or do we wait six months
Speaker 1: and cross our fingers that this good person that we
Speaker 1: like and they like us is still available.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's start with so the question.
Speaker 2: You've framed the question as do we go to market
Speaker 2: now or do we wait for this for this guy?
Speaker 2: And so I think one's those are concrete choices.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 2: I think the one thing that I would add to
Speaker 2: your first question asking is to note that you may
Speaker 2: have to go to market in both of these situations.
Speaker 2: So option one is go to market now. Option two
Speaker 2: is wait, with some probability to hire this person that
Speaker 2: you like, and with some probability have to do this
Speaker 2: market thing in December?
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yes? Exactly?
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, so you got these new choice Yeah.
Speaker 1: And ideally we donate someone now that there is this
Speaker 1: good person that's six months away, which is why it's
Speaker 1: so tricky.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So it seems to me like the most important information
Speaker 2: you need is, like, is some version of how you
Speaker 2: know how expensive? You know how costly it is to
Speaker 2: go to the market, you know how much time that's
Speaker 2: going to take. Presumably, Yes, it seems like the key
Speaker 2: piece of information is how likely this person is to
Speaker 2: be interested and how unusual they are? Hmmm yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: So I don't know if there's a way, like I
Speaker 2: think what I would say is in whatever is this
Speaker 2: sort of second phase of this, I think that those are.
Speaker 3: Two things that you would ideally learn.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you could probably learn something about how
Speaker 2: likely they are. I mean they're going to overstate their likelihood, yes,
Speaker 2: but you know you can bias it down. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: then and then this question of like, I like, do
Speaker 2: you know enough to know if this person is is
Speaker 2: really unusual or maybe is there a way to dip
Speaker 2: in just a little to see, you know, is there
Speaker 2: somebody Uh is this likely? Maybe this person isn't the
Speaker 2: unicorn that you think that they're Hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are. They're really good questions to ask, and
Speaker 1: I think that's so true. Like if we with the
Speaker 1: first question in terms of how interested is this person,
Speaker 1: they're definitely going to overstate that they're definitely interested. But
Speaker 1: also that earlier on in the career, so they could,
Speaker 1: you know, quite foreseeably be lord to go to another firm.
Speaker 1: So that's a tricky one. In terms of how unique
Speaker 1: they are, they're pretty unique. But then I'd say everyone
Speaker 1: we employed Inventium is unique, and that's why recruitment is
Speaker 1: such a hard process because we're typically you know, getting
Speaker 1: from like one hundred or two hundred applications down to
Speaker 1: one person, and sometimes we don't even find the one
Speaker 1: person that we're looking for. So yeah, that's how it
Speaker 1: answered those questions at the moment with sort of the
Speaker 1: knowledge that I've got.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think then the thing is like just
Speaker 2: to dig into whether there's a fast way.
Speaker 3: To learn to learn more than what you know.
Speaker 2: So if my husband were here, because he likes to
Speaker 2: put people on the spot. He would say, why don't
Speaker 2: you tell this person, they like, ask this person to
Speaker 2: sign something, just because when people sign that, and it
Speaker 2: probably isn't going to be something binding because of course
Speaker 2: you know, there's no like you could always get out
Speaker 2: of things, but that people don't like to do that
Speaker 2: unless they're serious.
Speaker 3: They feel like it's uh.
Speaker 2: It's and if you come and you say, hey, can
Speaker 2: you sign this early commitment and they say no, I
Speaker 2: think that's a pretty bad sign. It is, yes, but
Speaker 2: I think that the sort of Okay, so there's like
Speaker 2: some things you need to.
Speaker 3: I think that you could go learn.
Speaker 2: And I guess the sort of last piece of this
Speaker 2: is to say, the longer you wait on doing this,
Speaker 2: in some sense, the worse it is, or the like
Speaker 2: you could just wait and wait and wait and now
Speaker 2: make this decision and then find out that the person
Speaker 2: doesn't want it, and then you've sort of spent your
Speaker 2: six your six months kind of on not on purpose.
Speaker 2: So I would say, try to find these things out
Speaker 2: now and say, okay, in two weeks we're going to.
Speaker 3: Either pull the trigger on this thing or decide to wait.
Speaker 1: Okay, That is very helpful Emily will be back soon
Speaker 1: talking about why she makes her most important decisions with
Speaker 1: her husband using it email. But before we head to that,
Speaker 1: I wanted to say, if you are not connected with
Speaker 1: me on the social media channels, then you might want
Speaker 1: to do that because I share a lot of content
Speaker 1: during the week that you might find helpful. So find
Speaker 1: me on LinkedIn, just search for Amantha Imba and you
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Amantha or on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Amantha I and just shoot me a note telling
Speaker 1: me that you found me via how I work, because
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. When you were starting
Speaker 1: a family, I know something you did is you turned
Speaker 1: away from a lot of the parenting books that so
Speaker 1: many expecting parents read, and for you it was all
Speaker 1: about the data. Can you tell me about why you
Speaker 1: did turn away from a lot of the very popular
Speaker 1: parenting books and go towards the data.
Speaker 2: When I came into the parenting space when I was
Speaker 2: first pregnant with my daughter, I found there was sort
Speaker 2: of like two classes of books. There were the books
Speaker 2: that were just like, here is what happens during pregnancy,
Speaker 2: which we were useful but tended to make the same
Speaker 2: kinds of blanket pronouncements that my obi, my doctor was
Speaker 2: making around the rule, the pregnancy rules as we as
Speaker 2: we call them. And then there were other books which
Speaker 2: sometimes got sort of would give different recommendations but never
Speaker 2: said why so you'd get you know, there was a
Speaker 2: book called that I remember called The Panic Free Pregnancy,
Speaker 2: which actually gave a lot of in some ways a
Speaker 2: lot of the same advice that I ended up writing
Speaker 2: in or that I ended up effectively supporting and expecting better,
Speaker 2: but there was no like why behind it.
Speaker 3: It was just like, well, I'm an expert.
Speaker 2: It's fine to have a cup of coffee, uh, and
Speaker 2: and that was not.
Speaker 3: Sufficient for me.
Speaker 1: And something else I was curious about because doctors have
Speaker 1: access to data, but for you, as an economist, you
Speaker 1: can often get to like a different insight with the data.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me how how I guess an economist
Speaker 1: can look data and how you can end up with
Speaker 1: something different from what the medical profession is saying.
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, first of all, it's sort
Speaker 2: of worth noting that actually, in a lot of cases
Speaker 2: I wasn't saying necessarily something different, and some of this
Speaker 2: was just interpreting for people why they were being told
Speaker 2: what they were being told. But I think, you know,
Speaker 2: there are places where I differed, obviously, and I think
Speaker 2: some of that is, you know, my training is really
Speaker 2: in how we learn causality from data, how we figure out,
Speaker 2: you know, is the relationship between this variable and this
Speaker 2: other variable is causal? Is like, is there really a
Speaker 2: relationship there or is it just what we call it correlation?
Speaker 2: Is it just that they're sort of moving together, but
Speaker 2: not that they're not that they're moving together because.
Speaker 3: One is causing the other one.
Speaker 2: So I spent all of my professional life doing that,
Speaker 2: and so when I go and read some of these papers,
Speaker 2: in some cases I have a pretty different sense of
Speaker 2: what are the good papers and what are the less
Speaker 2: good papers, because I I kind of dug into what
Speaker 2: is the sort of evidence underlying this?
Speaker 3: And doctors have a lot.
Speaker 2: Of kinds of training, but actually they don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of training and statistics. And so the training that
Speaker 2: I had as an economist actually in many ways much
Speaker 2: better suited for those kinds of analyzes than the training
Speaker 2: that you would get in medical school.
Speaker 1: Now, i'd love to hear about some of the decisions
Speaker 1: that you've made as a parent for your kids and
Speaker 1: I'd love it if he could talk me through maybe
Speaker 1: one of the top of decisions to make and your
Speaker 1: process to making that decision.
Speaker 2: One kind of big decision that we made a few
Speaker 2: years ago surrounded my what to do about school for
Speaker 2: my for my youngest. So so he was in like
Speaker 2: a preschool daycare environment that he that he liked a lot,
Speaker 2: that we liked a lot, but there was an opportunity
Speaker 2: to move him sort of because he had gotten to
Speaker 2: be the right age into.
Speaker 3: The school with our that our daughter was in.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't a super easy choice because you know,
Speaker 2: he was very happy. So we sort of approach that
Speaker 2: and kind of more or less this way, so asking
Speaker 2: the question, which in that case amounted to should we
Speaker 2: leave him in this school for another two years and
Speaker 2: then move him or should we move him now? And
Speaker 2: that like already was actually I think until we had
Speaker 2: talked about it was not. We hadn't fully recognized the
Speaker 2: importance of that particular question. But of course we eventually
Speaker 2: were going to have to move him, and so it
Speaker 2: made the decision in many ways much easier because of course,
Speaker 2: eventually we're going to have to do it, and so
Speaker 2: it was not do we never move him. It was
Speaker 2: do we move him now or do we move him
Speaker 2: move him later?
Speaker 3: You know, And then we spent a bunch of time.
Speaker 2: Visiting the two options, trying to figure out which teachers
Speaker 2: would be in different places, and were there any changes
Speaker 2: that had happened to the curriculum since their daughter had
Speaker 2: been in there, and just really trying to understand what
Speaker 2: would these two environments look like for him. And then
Speaker 2: you know, that was the keys in which the decision
Speaker 2: timing was like eventually you have to apply for you
Speaker 2: have to apply for the for the school or an
Speaker 2: apply for the school, and so we we've eventually had
Speaker 2: a time that we had to make a final decision.
Speaker 2: And then you know, there there's an obvious follow up
Speaker 2: which we have every year, which is, you know, at
Speaker 2: some point my kids school asked for re enrollments, and
Speaker 2: you know, we do always sit down and say, okay,
Speaker 2: like let's just check. We really like the school, but
Speaker 2: let's just like check and make sure that this is
Speaker 2: you know, this is still working for us, still working
Speaker 2: for our kids, that we don't necessarily have to default
Speaker 2: into this just because it's the thing that we've been
Speaker 2: doing before.
Speaker 1: A decision that I know that I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to make for my daughter is where to send her
Speaker 1: to high school? And she's at a primary school at
Speaker 1: the moment. And I will add that, you know, I
Speaker 1: do have an ex husband that we will have to
Speaker 1: make the decision together. But she's in grade two at
Speaker 1: the moment in primary school, and the decision is four
Speaker 1: years away. But I feel like those four years are
Speaker 1: going to go very quickly. So what advice would you
Speaker 1: give me in terms of making that decision of where
Speaker 1: to send my daughter for her high school years?
Speaker 3: Other than this sort of like think about the options.
Speaker 2: Get you know, I think the biggest piece of advice
Speaker 2: there is, I think thinking carefully in advance about how
Speaker 2: involved you want her to be in the decision. So
Speaker 2: I think one of the thing that's hard about this
Speaker 2: stage of parenting is figuring out which pieces of these
Speaker 2: choices do we want to give our kids kind of
Speaker 2: autonomy or participation rights into.
Speaker 3: Right. So maybe that.
Speaker 2: It may not be that you want to give her
Speaker 2: all of the options right.
Speaker 3: You may not want to say, okay, like pick the
Speaker 3: high school.
Speaker 2: I don't exactly know how your schooling system works, but
Speaker 2: it may not be that you want to say, pick
Speaker 2: from all of the possible high schools, because actually you
Speaker 2: may not think that they're all acceptable, or they may
Speaker 2: all be affordable, or they may not all work for
Speaker 2: some other for some other reason. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: you know, with a with an older kid, you probably
Speaker 2: don't want to just say, Okay, here's what you're doing,
Speaker 2: and you know, don't ask any any questions. And so
Speaker 2: part of the balance as kids age here is to
Speaker 2: think about how to engage them in these decisions in
Speaker 2: ways that are that are productive but also you're feasible.
Speaker 1: Now I've had that when you're talking about like different
Speaker 1: matters relating to your kids, you will do quite a
Speaker 1: bit of amail discussion with your husband, Is that right?
Speaker 3: That is right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do a lot of our interaction over email.
Speaker 3: I love a good email.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me why you decide to do that
Speaker 1: via email then some other communication channel like face to
Speaker 1: face at the dinner table.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, the kids are at the dinner table.
Speaker 2: See you forget about that, but I yeah, so I
Speaker 2: think that that that we.
Speaker 3: Try pretty hard to do.
Speaker 2: Yes, to do much of this interaction over email, And
Speaker 2: I think part of you know, or over some like
Speaker 2: to get even more extreme, like in an assana task
Speaker 2: to grow over something like that. And I think that
Speaker 2: the reason is that that you can be much more
Speaker 2: direct and concrete and understanding is just much clearer when
Speaker 2: it is written down and it sets expectations in a
Speaker 2: way that everybody can like can see what is written,
Speaker 2: can see what we agreed on, can sort of like
Speaker 2: see all of the information together. It's also an efficient
Speaker 2: way to be able to go back and back and
Speaker 2: forth between sort of learning something and asking questions and
Speaker 2: learning more.
Speaker 3: So give you an example, there was like.
Speaker 2: A period of time when one of my kids had
Speaker 2: a tick on them, like it's like a bug and
Speaker 2: tick on them, and there's like a question about there's
Speaker 2: a concern about buying disease where I live, which is
Speaker 2: a thing that you can get if you have a
Speaker 2: tick bite. And we had to have a discussion about
Speaker 2: whether we wanted to like pre treat him with antibiotics
Speaker 2: for this. And that is a place where like having
Speaker 2: the interaction about the about that question over email is
Speaker 2: very productive because I can say here are the facts.
Speaker 2: He can say, well, here's the question that I still have,
Speaker 2: and rather than him saying.
Speaker 3: Over the breakfast table.
Speaker 2: Here's the question I still have and me being like, Okay,
Speaker 2: let me try to remember, like look at that later
Speaker 2: and then get back to you about it. I can
Speaker 2: just like see the email, put it aside when I
Speaker 2: have time, come back.
Speaker 3: To it, send it back to him.
Speaker 2: And it's sort of like so sometimes I say, like,
Speaker 2: your computer doesn't get tired of remembering things even though
Speaker 2: you do, and so you've got to give your computer
Speaker 2: a little mental load.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you do, like because of
Speaker 1: your background that helps you like in work all life
Speaker 1: that other people would go, oh, that's really quirky.
Speaker 2: So we have a lot of these same kinds of
Speaker 2: interactions with our kids where we will sort of interact
Speaker 2: over email with them. And the other day so I
Speaker 2: noticed that they were emailing each other, and you know,
Speaker 2: there's like six and ten. It's like the son opened
Speaker 2: up his computer and he was like emailing with he
Speaker 2: like emailed like I hope you have a good evening.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't even.
Speaker 2: Know where they come up with this, where they come
Speaker 2: up with this stuff, but I think we do, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of lean into the idea that lant kind of
Speaker 2: everybody in the in the household can engage in this
Speaker 2: kind of slightly structured decision making decision making piece. I
Speaker 2: guess the other thing I do that people that is
Speaker 2: probably a much more typical thing is that I get
Speaker 2: up really early in the morning before anybody else is up.
Speaker 2: That's more of a productivity hack than something that's quirky. So,
Speaker 2: how ellie, are we talking like five or a little
Speaker 2: bit before five? And how do you use that time
Speaker 2: before the rest of your family's awake. So I drink
Speaker 2: coffee and I do email, and then I usually exercise,
Speaker 2: So it's sort of but it's I like that time.
Speaker 3: I've always really liked that time because.
Speaker 2: It's good, like sort of deep focused time if I
Speaker 2: have some deep focused thing that I need to do.
Speaker 2: But it's also it feels like it's mine in a
Speaker 2: way that you know, most of the rest of the
Speaker 2: day and it doesn't.
Speaker 3: So most of the rest of my day sort of
Speaker 3: feels like it's it's meetings or it's the kids or
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: Love those things, but it's it's not like my time
Speaker 2: to do whatever I want with. It's not like free
Speaker 2: free moments, and that early morning time kind of is free.
Speaker 1: I've heard that you describe yourself as an aggressive multitask
Speaker 1: AUP is like, what are you doing in terms of
Speaker 1: aggressively multitasking, like where you feel like it's serving you.
Speaker 2: So I think the biggest thing is like how I
Speaker 2: address email, which is that like I try not to
Speaker 2: let it build up, and so I try if I have,
Speaker 2: like if a meeting ends five minutes early, I try
Speaker 2: to like triage what I've got in my email so
Speaker 2: I don't end up at the end of the day
Speaker 2: with like a billion things left over because it just.
Speaker 3: Like it drives me. It drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: Emily, My final question for you is for people that
Speaker 1: want to read and consume more of what you're doing,
Speaker 1: what is the best way for people to do that.
Speaker 2: So I have a newsletter on substack, which is probably
Speaker 2: the easiest way to read the stuff that I'm doing.
Speaker 2: It's called parent Data, but it's just emii astro Do
Speaker 2: at substack dot com. And the new book I think
Speaker 2: will be out in I think I think is out
Speaker 2: in Australia at the same time as it is in
Speaker 2: the US, sin certainly in the UK, which is August third.
Speaker 2: And those are the best ways to find me fantastic
Speaker 2: and I highly recommend the family Firm those that are parents.
Speaker 2: I just really helped improve and change the way I
Speaker 2: look at parenting decisions, which can be.
Speaker 1: Very very challenging. So Emily, it's been awesome chatting to you.
Speaker 1: I'd so appreciate your time and your advice, and I'm
Speaker 1: now going to go speak to my CEO about what
Speaker 1: to do about this recruitment decision as well.
Speaker 3: Good luck with that, and thank you so much for
Speaker 3: having me on.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. Now, if you have
Speaker 1: not hit subscribe or follow where you're listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast from, you might want to do that because next
Speaker 1: week I have comedian Michelle Laurie on the show talking
Speaker 1: about all sorts of things, including why you need to
Speaker 1: let other people go first. So hit subscribe or follow
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to this from. How I Work is
Speaker 1: produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios.
Speaker 1: The producer for this episode was Jenna Koda, and thank
Speaker 1: you to Martin Nimber, who does the audio mix for
Speaker 1: every episode and makes everything sound better than it would
Speaker 1: have otherwise. See you next time.