Speaker 1: As a listener of how I work.
Speaker 2: You've hopefully picked up a few tips on this show
Speaker 2: to help you work better?
Speaker 1: But do you want more?
Speaker 2: And maybe in a book form, because let's face it,
Speaker 2: books are the most awesome thing on the planet. Well,
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Speaker 2: with the world's greatest thinkers, including Adam Grant, Dan Pink,
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Speaker 2: Wise is launching on July five, but you can pre
Speaker 2: order it now from Amantha dot com. And if you
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Speaker 2: top twenty favorite apps and software for being time wise
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Speaker 2: I'm running on June twenty nine, where I will be
Speaker 2: sharing the tactics from time Wise that I use most often,
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Speaker 2: com to pre order. Now do you remember the olden
Speaker 2: days when you had maybe one or two social media
Speaker 2: accounts instead of eight, when you use the internet to
Speaker 2: read blogs for half an hour every once in a while,
Speaker 2: when your resume was your calling card and you didn't
Speaker 2: have to build your online presence into a kind of
Speaker 2: personal brand. Now that the Internet is a crucial part
Speaker 2: of almost every business and every job on the market,
Speaker 2: you're expected to be almost everywhere. Exactly which platforms are
Speaker 2: important for your industry might differ, but everyone's using multiple
Speaker 2: apps and networks to sell their products, off of their
Speaker 2: services or distribute their content. But when you need to
Speaker 2: be everywhere, how do you get there? You've probably seen
Speaker 2: Linktree in the bios of your favorite people on Instagram,
Speaker 2: whether they're musicians, entrepreneurs, or podcasters. Co founder Anthony Zachariah
Speaker 2: wanted people to be able to create a digital homepage
Speaker 2: for themselves in an increasingly complex online world, and the
Speaker 2: link Tree has absolutely exploded since then, and recently hit
Speaker 2: Unicorn status, which means the company is worth over one
Speaker 2: billion dollars. So how does Anthony stay on top? Of
Speaker 2: things as his company multiplies and expands into different time zones.
Speaker 2: How does he stay sane when most of his workday
Speaker 2: is spent in meetings, And how does he do it
Speaker 2: all now that he's got twin toddlers. My name is
Speaker 2: doctor Amantha Imbert. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder
Speaker 2: of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I
Speaker 2: work a show about how to help you do your
Speaker 2: best work. Now, given this conversation is with the co
Speaker 2: founder of link Tree, I thought that a good place
Speaker 2: to start was to understand exactly what link tree is.
Speaker 1: Straight from the horse's mouth.
Speaker 3: For those who haven't come across the linktree before. The
Speaker 3: simplest way to explain it is it is one link
Speaker 3: to how's your entire digital ecosystem? Everywhere you curate content,
Speaker 3: create content, wherever you monetize.
Speaker 4: Where we're trying to drive an audience to.
Speaker 3: Link allows you to house that in one simple link,
Speaker 3: and that produces another list of links beyond that that
Speaker 3: drives your audience. So whatever your audience is living is
Speaker 3: where you'll share your link tree, and then you drive
Speaker 3: them to those places. So we are the category creator
Speaker 3: in what is known as the linking bio market now
Speaker 3: or linking biotools. We started the business about six years
Speaker 3: ag when we're running a digital marketing agency, and it's
Speaker 3: grown very significantly now. It was a side hustle to
Speaker 3: the agency back then, we're trying to solve a problem
Speaker 3: for ourselves and our clients.
Speaker 4: But you fast forward.
Speaker 3: Now there's twenty four million people using it around the world,
Speaker 3: about one point two billion visits a month on link
Speaker 3: tree profiles, and we're a team of about two hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty globally.
Speaker 2: And how do you use link tree yourself being what
Speaker 2: are the people that created it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's on my Twitter profile and my LinkedIn
Speaker 3: as well. And for me, it's just like sharing resources
Speaker 3: and new things for link tree, So embedding a tweet
Speaker 3: for a new feature we've released, or a certain video,
Speaker 3: showcasing a playlist that I'm listening to, often showcasing things
Speaker 3: we're doing for our employees. So when we release our
Speaker 3: parential leaf policy or our benefits policy, the press around that,
Speaker 3: link to press articles, they're probably the main things.
Speaker 4: I use it for.
Speaker 3: So if you're coming to my link tree, you just
Speaker 3: gett a bit of a glance of like the things,
Speaker 3: the things I think you should know most about from
Speaker 3: a link tree perspective, things are most proud of right.
Speaker 2: Now and like a lot of the I guess the
Speaker 2: power users for link tree are traditionally creators and influencers
Speaker 2: for people who are kind of not in that realm,
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe they're just they're like your typical
Speaker 2: knowledge worker that you know is doing their thing and
Speaker 2: there may be on two or three different social media channels.
Speaker 2: What do you feel is like the optimum way to
Speaker 2: use link.
Speaker 3: Tree, So to your point of say a knowledge worker,
Speaker 3: where they may want to use it as their essentially
Speaker 3: they've formed a new form of digital identity or a
Speaker 3: digital business card, and it's a great way just to
Speaker 3: list out. Put it on your email signature, your LinkedIn,
Speaker 3: or your Twitter. He's Playarlys, I'm listening to. Maybe he's
Speaker 3: a video of what's recently. He's my LinkedIn in, my
Speaker 3: Twitter or other social handles. You know. Ultimately, most knowledge
Speaker 3: work have probably got more than five social media accounts
Speaker 3: of some sort, and so where they might link to
Speaker 3: those platforms they want to share that. We're seeing a
Speaker 3: big rise in that as well.
Speaker 2: Now late last year I interviewed Phil Libban, who you're
Speaker 2: probably aware is the co founder of ever Note, and
Speaker 2: one of the things that he shared with me is
Speaker 2: that something that he learned that served him really well
Speaker 2: in leading companies that grew to be very, very big,
Speaker 2: is that breaking points tend to happen at the numbers
Speaker 2: three and ten. So like, for example, when you hit
Speaker 2: ten people or thirty people, or one hundred people or
Speaker 2: three hundred people, and that's when all the kind of
Speaker 2: processes and systems tend to collapse and break and you
Speaker 2: need to build new ones. And so back in March
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, link Tree, I believe had seven employees, and
Speaker 2: now you're getting close to three hundred globally. I'd love
Speaker 2: to know what have been the hardest kind of breaking
Speaker 2: points for you in managing that growth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. I think we've that's a
Speaker 3: really good insight. In the three and ten, I would
Speaker 3: say it's pretty accurate. And if we've thought about it
Speaker 3: in those numbers specifically, I think we've We've had other
Speaker 3: people who have gone through their growth tell us about
Speaker 3: you know, every fifty or one hundred, you know, fifty
Speaker 3: and then one hundred and then two hundred and then
Speaker 3: five hundred. I would say that it's very true. We've
Speaker 3: been very I think we've had a couple of different
Speaker 3: reorganizations throughout in the last two years of how we
Speaker 3: structure the teams and where we put leaders, and how
Speaker 3: we organize that, how we organize squads. We work in
Speaker 3: a cross functional squad model, so that's been that's changed
Speaker 3: a few times. I'd say definitely the fifty person mark,
Speaker 3: particularly as we're growing globally where most of our team
Speaker 3: are in Australia. We were quite a few, you know,
Speaker 3: in the US and spread out across times into in
Speaker 3: Australia and New Zealand as well, and so the the
Speaker 3: fifty and the hundred mark has broken. I think what's
Speaker 3: also is like our ways of working has had to
Speaker 3: evolve a few times as well, and also just the
Speaker 3: reiteration of like, you know, we're not a jacket on
Speaker 3: the back of a chair, culture that you have to
Speaker 3: always be online during certain hours, or like even though
Speaker 3: we're remote. First that concept of like, well, I don't
Speaker 3: worry about the office, my jackets on the chair even
Speaker 3: though it might not be here, and that trying to
Speaker 3: embed that culture of like working asynchronously and you know,
Speaker 3: have to reiterate ways of working quite a few different times.
Speaker 3: And we're going through a new process at the moment
Speaker 3: of that, because as we've grown, there's all different tools
Speaker 3: and systems we've been trying to use to make things
Speaker 3: more efficient and friendly and inclusive for a global team
Speaker 3: that's working remotely. But then with that sometimes some feedback
Speaker 3: is like I don't know what to use for what anymore.
Speaker 3: Guys like, you've got a few different tools we're working with,
Speaker 3: where do I start? And so like, yeah, that's also fair.
Speaker 3: We've tried to go too deep on efficiency and optimization
Speaker 3: with certain tools and systems, like let's bring it back
Speaker 3: to some basics. So, yeah, there's a process happening right now.
Speaker 3: And then as we approach three hundred people to just
Speaker 3: hone in a little more.
Speaker 2: So at that fifty and one hundred person mark, what
Speaker 2: was some of the best things that you look back
Speaker 2: at now that you put in place to help.
Speaker 1: To help rebuild what had been broken?
Speaker 3: I would say things like notion and just being very
Speaker 3: open and transparent. We grew to fifty pretty quickly, and
Speaker 3: that the need to be having the projects people working
Speaker 3: on be open, so someone being like how do I
Speaker 3: find how someone in product might be asking someone in
Speaker 3: marketing like how do I find what your marketing plan
Speaker 3: is going to look like? Or vice versa like guys,
Speaker 3: what are you building? They need to think about from
Speaker 3: a go to micro perspective from now and there's a
Speaker 3: notion link. We use notion as are wiki what everyone
Speaker 3: everyone's working on after meetings, everything is documented so anybody
Speaker 3: can look at each other's projects and you know where
Speaker 3: to go for that.
Speaker 4: So here, here's your notion look at everything in there.
Speaker 3: As we do any questions afterwards, or that person may
Speaker 3: actually record a LOOM video to talk them through it
Speaker 3: for five minutes and you get full context verbally so
Speaker 3: much quicker than sometimes just you know, reading it out
Speaker 3: or typing it all out. So they implemented a few
Speaker 3: of those things and encouraged a lot of that open
Speaker 3: collaboration and even even just with our weekly all hands meeting,
Speaker 3: being very transparent about a lot of things so that
Speaker 3: everybody has full context. That became we realized that pretty
Speaker 3: quickly early on that we needed to have that dialogue.
Speaker 3: I think that's helped everybody have visibility and have also
Speaker 3: just like the buying from a whole team to feel
Speaker 3: like we're all on the journey together. That was one
Speaker 3: thing at the fifty person mark we noticed have a
Speaker 3: big impact. The other would be just some rules around meetings.
Speaker 3: Previously it'd be a need of like, oh, we should
Speaker 3: talk about this. Let's just invite anybody that we think
Speaker 3: is relevant to a meeting and just put in their calendar.
Speaker 3: And you know, you have to be very intentional about meetings,
Speaker 3: particularly with global workforce and time zones, and the rules
Speaker 3: around meetings we implemented pretty early on have helped help
Speaker 3: that as well, and not to be able to have
Speaker 3: to remind people though about it as new folks coming
Speaker 3: to the business, just our ways of working reminders, so
Speaker 3: things like, you know, the first rule, first principle for
Speaker 3: great meetings is doesn't need to be a meeting. Just
Speaker 3: actually asked that doesn't need to be a meeting. Can
Speaker 3: I just put an update on an asynchron's channel. Can
Speaker 3: I record a video of somebody talking about it and
Speaker 3: to get feedback?
Speaker 4: Does it link?
Speaker 3: Literally need to be a meeting because we need to
Speaker 3: get to a decision together within a period of time.
Speaker 3: So little things like that have helped I think another
Speaker 3: part on the meeting thing as well, is you know,
Speaker 3: beyond just doesn't need to be a meeting, is any
Speaker 3: pre context? Like if we think the last few weeks
Speaker 3: have actually ramped this forcefulness up, I would say, is
Speaker 3: like we get to a meeting and there's ten people
Speaker 3: on the call, and somebody's about to present a deck
Speaker 3: and spend the whole thirty minutes and presenting. It's we
Speaker 3: cancel the meeting because it's wasting ten people's time presenting.
Speaker 3: So that person who has to record a loom video
Speaker 3: in advance and send it to everybody seven's got context
Speaker 3: and the meeting's about discussion of Q and A are
Speaker 3: getting to a decision place.
Speaker 2: Hey, God, so you cancel the meeting that started within
Speaker 2: the meeting.
Speaker 3: If we're going to if it's going to waste ten
Speaker 3: people's time present unless it's absolutely the only way to
Speaker 3: get through it, will will we will. It's only hapen
Speaker 3: a few times so far, but we're starting to do
Speaker 3: it because ten people in a meeting is not only expensive,
Speaker 3: it's also just like you then're going to have to
Speaker 3: have another meeting to have a discussion, So share a
Speaker 3: five minute video in advance of what you want to present,
Speaker 3: and then the full menu can be on discussion, Q
Speaker 3: and A get into a resolve place so you can
Speaker 3: then move on with that decision to get to the
Speaker 3: next place.
Speaker 1: Wow, what's been the reaction from people?
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever been in a meeting, although
Speaker 2: having said that, I'm pretty strict on the meetings that
Speaker 2: I set in a ten but I've never been in
Speaker 2: a meeting that it's been about to start and someone said, no,
Speaker 2: we're going to cancel this meeting.
Speaker 1: What if people do?
Speaker 3: I think it's first is a bit of shock, but
Speaker 3: then it's a realization of like, oh, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: If we're going to spend this whole time just listening
Speaker 3: to a presentation that we could have watched. You know
Speaker 3: a great thing about loom You can watch a video
Speaker 3: in advance on one point five or two speed, So
Speaker 3: what might be a ten minute chat could be watching
Speaker 3: five minutes. You get the context, you're ready to go,
Speaker 3: So it doesn't have to happen all the time.
Speaker 4: But it's just happened a few times.
Speaker 3: Mainly, I wouldn't say, look, it's not to prove a point,
Speaker 3: it's not to be a hard ass about it. It's
Speaker 3: not our intention at all. It is just like, guys,
Speaker 3: is half an hour right here, we could all be
Speaker 3: doing better things. Let's recap later once we've watched and
Speaker 3: read the content. So first a bit of shock. It's
Speaker 3: only happened once or twice, and it's out of more
Speaker 3: out of respect everyone's time, versus like trying to put
Speaker 3: anybody down.
Speaker 4: That's more the thing. Everyone's very mindful of.
Speaker 3: It, even when when like, oh we've got we've finished everything,
Speaker 3: need to talk about coolly. Everyone gets him in the
Speaker 3: day back. We don't need to do the labor on
Speaker 3: points for any longer. Like everyone's busy. So that's more
Speaker 3: what it's about.
Speaker 1: How do you make those rules for meetings.
Speaker 2: Actually stick throughout a company that employs several hundred people.
Speaker 3: It's often we need to probably do some reminders, so
Speaker 3: leading by example, so the people running meetings, all the
Speaker 3: things we kind of touched on before around like having
Speaker 3: purpose and agendas and action items and you know, also
Speaker 3: you know, not just like some people actually free to
Speaker 3: meet to just spot something in their calendars, but then
Speaker 3: it's reminders with the leadership team and even even people managers.
Speaker 3: Is hey, guys, just remind on how we want to
Speaker 3: run meetings here to be efficient effective. Here's the notion
Speaker 3: page with how it all works. We might when we
Speaker 3: have a people manager's meeting, it might literally be that
Speaker 3: like just a reminder, here's our meeting etiquette, here's how
Speaker 3: we roll it out. Any other feedback you think we
Speaker 3: should be tweaking or welcome, but these are the six
Speaker 3: principles from now that we work with and just remind
Speaker 3: many people. Because the team's growing, stuff happens all the time,
Speaker 3: you need to keep reiterating ways of working and just
Speaker 3: pulling people up on things.
Speaker 4: It's not being about being told off.
Speaker 3: It's just like this is for the better, you know,
Speaker 3: best best for everybody. Kind of kind of similar to
Speaker 3: how when you're talking about the why behind why you're
Speaker 3: making decisions and product releases, and even though you think
Speaker 3: you've said it or like, hey, it lives in notion,
Speaker 3: people should just read it. It's like people are busy
Speaker 3: with their days and got stuff to do, so that
Speaker 3: constant beat of communication is required.
Speaker 2: Now I've heard that you don't take meetings on Mondays.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me about what led to that decision
Speaker 2: and also what do you do on Mondays if you've
Speaker 2: got no meetings to go to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been it's been a new thing we've been
Speaker 3: doing for maybe the last three or four months. And
Speaker 3: the reason it came about because we through the last
Speaker 3: a couple of years of growing so far asked meetings
Speaker 3: was kind of dropped in wherever, and so as a
Speaker 3: leadership team, we're trying to structure what day certain meetings
Speaker 3: are on. And it's still not perfect. But the thing
Speaker 3: that was everyone was struggling with the most was like,
Speaker 3: I've got meetings spread out all through the week and
Speaker 3: I can't get into any deep work or get back
Speaker 3: to people properly or quickly enough.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 3: You know, Mondays are great to not have meetings to
Speaker 3: get deep work done because the US will come online
Speaker 3: on a Tuesday, and so we're meetings from Tuesday to
Speaker 3: Friday with US team, and so that means anything from
Speaker 3: the last week, we haven't gotten to any prep work
Speaker 3: we need to do for the rest of the team
Speaker 3: for the week. Anything like that can just be all
Speaker 3: done on a Monday, and you get ahead, you actually
Speaker 3: get deep work done and get get into the zone.
Speaker 3: So there's still some meetings that might creep in if
Speaker 3: need be, because you know, you might make a decision
Speaker 3: on something, or maybe there's an interview that needs to happen.
Speaker 3: Because because we're getting we're getting towards the end of
Speaker 3: a process, so those might creep in. But the most part,
Speaker 3: we try and have a meeting free day, particularly leadership
Speaker 3: team level, so that you know the team can get
Speaker 3: what they need from us. But also you know, we've
Speaker 3: we've got such a flexible work culture linktree where we
Speaker 3: have the flex Benefits program. Everyone get six thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a year to spend on things that matter to them,
Speaker 3: as opposed to this like global you know, hey, we're
Speaker 3: going to give everyone a health program or everyone gets
Speaker 3: a gym membership, or just dictating what we think people want.
Speaker 3: That money goes towards things that matter to them in
Speaker 3: the pillars of like growth or lifestyle or learning, and
Speaker 3: so some people want to spend it on short courses,
Speaker 3: otherwise on exercise programs, and so by encouraging flexible work
Speaker 3: culture and people using their benefits for things that suit them,
Speaker 3: mondays like I might go to a polities class at
Speaker 3: eleven o'clock and that's okay, and I'll put that in
Speaker 3: my calendars. People know, hey, am it polarates between eleven
Speaker 3: and twelve, But I'll get back to you late. I
Speaker 3: even on a third and when I'm going to heap
Speaker 3: of meetings and just having building that culture within the
Speaker 3: team starts from the leadership level and that that's okay
Speaker 3: to do because you're measured on the work and the output.
Speaker 4: So I know that's along. We didn answer to talk about.
Speaker 3: Mondays, but that sort of sets up the rest of
Speaker 3: the week with everything else that we're kind of building
Speaker 3: cultural wise and how we get stuff done.
Speaker 4: It's working.
Speaker 2: So tell me about your Mondays. What would a typical
Speaker 2: Monday look like for you?
Speaker 4: So typical Monday starts like every day.
Speaker 3: I've got nearly two year old twins, so they wake
Speaker 3: at about five thirty in the morning.
Speaker 4: Five five thirty in the morning, So no matter.
Speaker 3: What day it is, that's that's just like that's the
Speaker 3: that's the alarm clock is then waking up, which is awesome.
Speaker 4: In that they're so happy in the mornings if they've
Speaker 4: had a decent sleep.
Speaker 3: So there's getting to you know, hang out and play
Speaker 3: with them. But it's a bit of a bit of
Speaker 3: a scramble sometimes to get to that first meeting, and
Speaker 3: luckily on Monday there is in a first meeting at
Speaker 3: seven to seven thirty, so it's just about getting them
Speaker 3: to daycare on time on so a bit of time
Speaker 3: with them in the mornings, you know, having breakfast with them,
Speaker 3: getting them to daycare. It's a nice way to start
Speaker 3: the week as well, because the rest of the week
Speaker 3: is quite rushed in the morning, so trying to take
Speaker 3: the time to spend with them on Monday morning is
Speaker 3: really nice. And then from there it's I'll actually go
Speaker 3: and take myself and have a coffee somewhere and bring
Speaker 3: my laptop and just to get work from I work
Speaker 3: from home most days of the week, so getting out
Speaker 3: of the house is a key thing no matter what day,
Speaker 3: at least once a day, so I'll just in a
Speaker 3: coffee shop with my laptop and just get on top
Speaker 3: of the week, get on top of some work. And
Speaker 3: that's sort of the start for the first couple of hours,
Speaker 3: which is just sets up nicely. Then you kind of
Speaker 3: come back home and get in the zone on deep work.
Speaker 2: We will be back with Anthony soon talking about his tricks,
Speaker 2: but getting into flow when he does deep work and
Speaker 2: how he has managed to stay present as a dad,
Speaker 2: juggling two year old twins and running a billion dollar
Speaker 2: tech business. If you're looking for more tips to improve
Speaker 2: the way that you work, I write a short fortnightly
Speaker 2: newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered that
Speaker 2: helped me work better, ranging from software and gadgets that
Speaker 2: I'm loving through the interesting research findings. You can sign
Speaker 2: up for that at Howiwork dot code. That's how I
Speaker 2: Work dot co. How do you get into flow when
Speaker 2: you know that you've got some deep work to do.
Speaker 3: This is a hard one because this nature of like
Speaker 3: and trying to pull yourself out of this nature of
Speaker 3: being busy and reactive is productive, which is not and
Speaker 3: you feel productive. He's like, Oh, I'm just replying to
Speaker 3: a sluck, gett into an email, getting back to this thing,
Speaker 3: or like making some comments on something that don't really
Speaker 3: need to but I feel productive because I'm contributing. It's like, actually,
Speaker 3: it's not productive at all. I'm just trying to pull
Speaker 3: yourself out of that is. It's been a really big
Speaker 3: learning of the last couple of year as well, because
Speaker 3: I think previously running early days of Linterin even previously
Speaker 3: running digital agency, you're kind of having to be all
Speaker 3: things to all people and the jack of all trades,
Speaker 3: and now it can be a bit more specialist. So
Speaker 3: that's deep work thing is something we're really trying to
Speaker 3: focus on. For me, it is just writing a list
Speaker 3: of like the three things I might need to do
Speaker 3: today and noise canceling headphones is the biggest thing for
Speaker 3: me Like.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 3: I just find if I'm procrastinating a little bit and
Speaker 3: trying to figure out what do I work on?
Speaker 4: There's so many things. What's the priority? I've got an
Speaker 4: hour to do it.
Speaker 3: I know it's I know other people have this or that,
Speaker 3: but for me, just putting their headphones on, putting noise
Speaker 3: canceling and some music of some sort, I'll just lock
Speaker 3: in and can get through that. If that is just
Speaker 3: replying to some emails, that is just like responding to
Speaker 3: giving feedback on a bunch of stuff that's sitting there
Speaker 3: on a project that I need to feedback on to
Speaker 3: unlock others. I find I can just do that as
Speaker 3: soon as the headphones are on and I've had coffee
Speaker 3: and I've you know, maybe had a bit of a
Speaker 3: morning stretch as well.
Speaker 2: Do you have go to music or do you have
Speaker 2: a song on repeat? What's your approach to music during
Speaker 2: deep work.
Speaker 4: Depends on what I need to get done. If you
Speaker 4: do some reading, then it's no music with no lyrics.
Speaker 3: But and it might be just some electronic music that
Speaker 3: is just pretty, just a nice beat, semi monotonous but
Speaker 3: enough you can just give you a bit of energy.
Speaker 3: But if its stuff I don't need to be reading
Speaker 3: at the same time, I'll probably go I'll probably go
Speaker 3: something else a little more aggressive. It has guitars in it.
Speaker 3: This gets you a bit more amped up. But it
Speaker 3: kind of varies. Like I've been known to put on
Speaker 3: you know, the best of opera soundtracks on Spotify, because
Speaker 3: like some of the like the the builds and the
Speaker 3: momentum in it is like it actually.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's like a bit of movement in the passion of
Speaker 3: it that you go, yes, I'm getting this stuff done,
Speaker 3: and this big opera moment is like so euphorik, I'm
Speaker 3: with this.
Speaker 2: I've definitely heard the music thing from a few guests
Speaker 2: now I know. Matt Mullenweg, co founder of WordPress and Automatic,
Speaker 2: He's big on listening to a song on repeat, as
Speaker 2: is Kevin Kelly, co founder of Wired, and I recently
Speaker 2: interviewed Brian Koppleman, who's the showrunner of Billions, among other things,
Speaker 2: and he was saying how he will always write scenes
Speaker 2: and dialogue to music, and often it will be the
Speaker 2: music that is in the background and is quite instrumental
Speaker 2: to that scene, which I thought, wow, that's quite stunning.
Speaker 2: So it just reminded me of that when you mentioned
Speaker 2: the Best of Opera, which is very interesting. Now, noise
Speaker 2: canceling headphones very important tool. What are some other tools
Speaker 2: that you find really important, whether they be software or
Speaker 2: hardware for being productive?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we've toyed with a few over the years.
Speaker 4: And I used to be a bit more of.
Speaker 3: Like a productivity junkie. You're trying to find the latest
Speaker 3: to do list, task manager every month, you know that
Speaker 3: something came. Now I'm just like I just you know,
Speaker 3: even getting that set up takes a while getting into
Speaker 3: a routine rhythm with it. So it's for me, it's
Speaker 3: it's I use a sigh enough to list all projects
Speaker 3: and project management notion we use we use that collaboratively
Speaker 3: at link Tree as a whole, but I use it
Speaker 3: for some personal stuff as well. The other two would
Speaker 3: be Mirror, the virtual whiteboarding tool. You can build out
Speaker 3: wireframes and all sorts of it's fantastic. We use it
Speaker 3: across the business as well to share you know, brainstorming
Speaker 3: or how things come to life and loom, which is fantastic.
Speaker 3: I think I touched on it before. The video recording tool.
Speaker 3: So Chrome plug in. If I need to send a
Speaker 3: note to somebody, you'll explain something, talk through a presentation,
Speaker 3: you know, hit the Chrome plug in, start talking, spend
Speaker 3: two or three minutes explaining, giving context, share that embedded
Speaker 3: either in a notion, in a slight message, whatever, and
Speaker 3: people can watch or listen to that, you know, onto speed,
Speaker 3: so it gets through it very quickly. And yeah, we
Speaker 3: do that for the I do that personally, but also
Speaker 3: across the business, you know, we do that even when
Speaker 3: we're collaborating with agencies or contractors.
Speaker 4: We'll use that way of working.
Speaker 3: So and then my email, I use Superhuman for email
Speaker 3: as my email tool, which is a great no distractions,
Speaker 3: The send later tools amazing, the shortcuts you be able
Speaker 3: to have to use your mouse with it.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to dig into Superhuman. I'm always curious
Speaker 2: when I meet fellow Superhuman users. I've been such a
Speaker 2: fan of that software for probably a couple of years. Now.
Speaker 2: What are some of the ways that you use Superhuman?
Speaker 2: You mentioned a couple of things there in terms of
Speaker 2: the send later function where you can write an email
Speaker 2: and then program it to be sent later, and knowing
Speaker 2: the keyboard shortcuts, I find is just good practice for
Speaker 2: every piece of software that you use. And funnily enough,
Speaker 2: when I interviewed Rahul Vora, who's the founder of super Human,
Speaker 2: he said that is one of his biggest productivity hacks,
Speaker 2: just learning keyboard shortcuts because it's far quicker than relying
Speaker 2: on your mouse. So what else do you do in
Speaker 2: Superhuman and how you use email? Because chances are there
Speaker 2: might be a you know, a Gmail or an Outlook equivalent.
Speaker 2: So what else do you do with Superhuman?
Speaker 4: For me, it is the shortcuts to the probably the
Speaker 4: biggest one.
Speaker 3: They've got a I know they've got a like the
Speaker 3: calendar integration is also a great one. Immediately as soon
Speaker 3: as I can just type in Thursday, for example, it'll
Speaker 3: come up with what's tapping on Thursday, and I can
Speaker 3: just see that what is free and what isn't straight
Speaker 3: away is also the biggest thing for me. I think
Speaker 3: I think I use to send later one the most.
Speaker 3: I don't know why. I think it's knowing when I
Speaker 3: want emails to land for people at certain times, particularly
Speaker 3: if I'm working over the weekend, and one I don't
Speaker 3: want I don't want to. You know, teams don't need
Speaker 3: seat on a weekend. Even though you slack for a
Speaker 3: lot of things, somethings are an email if you with
Speaker 3: outside collaborators. I think it's also knowing if you're emailing
Speaker 3: somebody in the US, you wanted to land in their
Speaker 3: morning versus their evening. So at the top of mind,
Speaker 3: I'll use that quite often and I find that quite
Speaker 3: effective and it helps a lot as well.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you have two year old twins. I
Speaker 2: remember I've got an eight year old daughter, and I
Speaker 2: remember when she was three months old, I took her
Speaker 2: to sleep School and there were there was one set
Speaker 2: of twins at sleep School, and I just remember thinking.
Speaker 1: I don't know how that mum is functioning right now.
Speaker 2: And so your twins are two years old. How do
Speaker 2: you balance running such a high growth company where you're
Speaker 2: the chief commercial officer with having two tiny people that
Speaker 2: cannot fend for themselves, yet how do you stay present
Speaker 2: as a dad?
Speaker 4: It has been the biggest.
Speaker 3: Throw yourself in a deepened thing over the last couple
Speaker 3: of years. And I mean, if you talk about faking
Speaker 3: it till you make it, learning how to be a
Speaker 3: dad is probably one thing, a little bit just.
Speaker 4: Figuring it out as you go. It's like, I can
Speaker 4: do this, I can do this. I'm the best dad
Speaker 4: there is. I've got this, But.
Speaker 3: It is it Being present has been like what I've
Speaker 3: been trying to focus on the last few months. I
Speaker 3: think the first year of their life has been was
Speaker 3: very tricky. Firstly, I have the most amazing wife and
Speaker 3: co parent, and you know, we're very much just in
Speaker 3: it together. It is right, who's doing what? How are
Speaker 3: we getting through the morning the day?
Speaker 4: Who's taking them? There's taking them?
Speaker 3: Where? Being twins, especially until they could even walk, you can't.
Speaker 4: You couldn't.
Speaker 3: Really a lot of things involve two people, right. It
Speaker 3: wasn't like you just take them to that spot and
Speaker 3: deal with it. It was like, oh no, taking them
Speaker 3: taking two babies to the car. I can't even walk?
Speaker 3: How do I do this without leaving one in the
Speaker 3: car then or taking money into taking you know, we
Speaker 3: go into the shops without what It's like this whole
Speaker 3: mind band of everything involves two people. So being very
Speaker 3: deliberate about like you know, making time for that for them.
Speaker 3: The morning's a big part of just being focused and present.
Speaker 3: I think now is there's such little sponges that you
Speaker 3: talk about.
Speaker 4: The sleep thing.
Speaker 3: We've gone through so many different versions of sleep training
Speaker 3: and it's still not working.
Speaker 4: And it's like.
Speaker 3: Oh man, it's like I don't know if we're ever
Speaker 3: going to get there. We're just resigned to not you know,
Speaker 3: getting great sleep. But we A big thing was, seriously,
Speaker 3: now that they're they're starting to be chatty and they're
Speaker 3: more present and acknowledging us even more, is this like
Speaker 3: emotional connection thing with them, we really need to make
Speaker 3: sure we've got and so because we know that will
Speaker 3: help through the night and if if we're so like
Speaker 3: some mornings would be so distracted because you know, like
Speaker 3: on a morning when the US is online, sometimes we'd
Speaker 3: wake up both both Katie and I I like cool,
Speaker 3: holy shit, I got this stuff that's just happened overnight
Speaker 3: I've got to deal with it. Can you deal with
Speaker 3: the boys for a second and then I'll take them
Speaker 3: and then you go shower.
Speaker 4: Then I'll do this, and you do that. Who's got it?
Speaker 4: First call this morning?
Speaker 3: Just like chaos when the days start like that, and
Speaker 3: then continue in the evening through dinner time and all
Speaker 3: that stuff that like we're not we're not being the
Speaker 3: best parents for them, we're not showing up, and you
Speaker 3: can just see it just in their behavior. They're rattled,
Speaker 3: they're trying to play up to get our attention and
Speaker 3: ultimately in their sleep, so really being delivered about just
Speaker 3: eye contact. We've even started doing a bit of one
Speaker 3: on one time now so because it's you know, both
Speaker 3: want both of our attention. That on weekend, just started
Speaker 3: doing one of us will take one one of the
Speaker 3: boys each and just go for a coffee, you go
Speaker 3: for a walk with them, so just get really really
Speaker 3: great bonding time.
Speaker 4: And that's we found that to be really helpful as well.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's definitely a dayly challenge, and it's
Speaker 3: when they're when they're being like in the morning, they're
Speaker 3: so amazing. It's such a good remind that just be
Speaker 3: like you know, first thing I uld always do, get
Speaker 3: out my phone, like cord I need to do today?
Speaker 3: Who's responds to stuff overnight?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: And just trying to avoid that and just be present
Speaker 3: with them for the first sort of half hour so
Speaker 3: and then get stuck into it.
Speaker 2: And do you and Katie have any like rituals or
Speaker 2: routines in terms of checking in and checking in about
Speaker 2: you know, how you're going, like balancing parenting with you know,
Speaker 2: running like such, like you know, a growth driven business.
Speaker 4: We are.
Speaker 3: We kind of often joke that will sometimes discover with
Speaker 3: each others the others doing via other people, so we
Speaker 3: might be in in a group conversations like oh I'm
Speaker 3: doing this thing on Sunday's like really.
Speaker 4: What like oh we should we should talk?
Speaker 3: So there's just yeah, we're trying to get better at it,
Speaker 3: but it's often just like everything, so like you know,
Speaker 3: deadline and driven either with work or even sometimes with
Speaker 3: the boys, get them here on time through that and
Speaker 3: you know, you almost crash into bed at nine o'clock
Speaker 3: and then be like, hey, so how you doing, how's
Speaker 3: your day?
Speaker 4: What's what's happened?
Speaker 3: Fairly even spoken to you that hasn't been logistics related,
Speaker 3: So yes, we try to get better that at least,
Speaker 3: you know, a couple of times a week, or having
Speaker 3: a date night at least once a week where it
Speaker 3: is just like a you know, decompress, have a glass
Speaker 3: of wine.
Speaker 2: And finally, Anthony, for people that want to connect with
Speaker 2: you and connect with link Tree, what is the best
Speaker 2: way for people.
Speaker 3: To do that?
Speaker 4: For sure?
Speaker 3: So link Tree just our website for me, it's it's
Speaker 3: my link tree. Hand is link tree slash anzac A
Speaker 3: and zac or my LinkedIn. You can search me on there.
Speaker 1: Fantastic, Anthony.
Speaker 2: I have loved chatting to you as someone that has
Speaker 2: created a product that I use in my own social media.
Speaker 2: So thank you for what you've brought to the world.
Speaker 2: And it's just been so fascinating to learn more about
Speaker 2: how you work.
Speaker 1: So thank you for your time.
Speaker 4: Of course, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Something I found almost encouraging about talking to Anthony is
Speaker 2: that he doesn't claim to have all the answers, and
Speaker 2: despite running a billion dollar business, he's still figuring it out,
Speaker 2: often by trial and error, like the rest of us,
Speaker 2: when it comes to his approach to work, marriage, and parenting.
Speaker 2: How I Work is produced by inventingum with production support
Speaker 2: from Dead Set Studios.
Speaker 1: The producer for this episode was.
Speaker 2: Liam Riordan, and thank you to mat Nimba who does
Speaker 2: the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound
Speaker 2: so much better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: See you next time.