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Speaker 1: Alumanak CEO Adam Nathan believes in the value of deep work.

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Speaker 1: He's seen how effective it is and knows firsthand how

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Speaker 1: satisfying it can be. But in recent years he's learned

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Speaker 1: that this doesn't automatically make shallow work the greatest enemy

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Speaker 1: to productivity or job satisfaction. Instead, he's discovered that most

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Speaker 1: professionals consider their time well spent if they're able to

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Speaker 1: check everything off there to do lists, even if some

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Speaker 1: of that work is shallow. What really matters is simply

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Speaker 1: getting stuff done. And the real enemy of getting stuff

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Speaker 1: done is unexpected interruptions. And the key lies in being

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Speaker 1: able to learn from these unexpected interruptions or fire drills

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Speaker 1: as they're called at Almanac, when they do occur. My

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Speaker 1: name is doctor amanthe Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and

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Speaker 1: the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is

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Speaker 1: how I work a show about how to help you

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Speaker 1: do your best work. On today's quick Win episode, we

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Speaker 1: go back to an interview from the past and I

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Speaker 1: pick out a quick win that you can apply today.

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Speaker 1: In today's show, I speak with Adam Nathan on his

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Speaker 1: approach to dealing with unexpected interruptions.

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Speaker 2: When we started this work, I used to think that

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Speaker 2: people got satisfaction from work, from spending time on deep work.

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Speaker 2: There's whole books that are really great written about this,

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Speaker 2: and I thought it was all about flow and focus

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Speaker 2: and that's where people find meaning. And when we talked

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Speaker 2: to these amazing professionals, what people evaluated whether a week

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Speaker 2: was effective based on if they got stuff done on

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Speaker 2: their to do list. And the enemy of getting stuff

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Speaker 2: done is a fire drill, and so what people hated

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Speaker 2: them most wasn't that they sometimes are just processing past,

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Speaker 2: but it's when something got in the way of them

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Speaker 2: being able to cross stuff off there to do list.

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Speaker 2: So it shifted our thinking from how do we enable

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Speaker 2: through our tool time for people to do deep creative work,

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Speaker 2: to how do we help people just get through their

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Speaker 2: to do list faster so that they can and get

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Speaker 2: done with their days get back to other things that

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Speaker 2: might matter them. Because everybody hated ending a week feeling

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Speaker 2: like they weren't able to get important work done for

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Speaker 2: with themselves and their teams, and so this idea of

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Speaker 2: minimizing fire drills became an important principle to this end

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Speaker 2: because it's not just about something that makes the team faster,

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Speaker 2: but it's also directly correlated to people feeling like their

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Speaker 2: week was a success and getting meaning and value from work.

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Speaker 2: The second idea to your point is that we love

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Speaker 2: the slogan from the US Marines. Slow means smooth and

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Speaker 2: smooth means fast. Where a lot of teams go wrong

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Speaker 2: isn't that they had to respond quickly to a new

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Speaker 2: event that they've never seen before. It's that they don't

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Speaker 2: stop afterwards, take a breath and say, like, what just happened,

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Speaker 2: how did it go? How do we make sure that

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Speaker 2: the next time this happens that we have some smoothness

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Speaker 2: in how we respond. Because this, when you have calmness

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Speaker 2: and order and structure, it's not just a more enjoyable experience,

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Speaker 2: that actually increases business and team velocity, and so you

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Speaker 2: can actually go faster while it feels like everybody is

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Speaker 2: moving at a sustainable pace. If you look at paddling races,

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Speaker 2: what you'll see is that the teams that win aren't

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Speaker 2: the teams with the strongest men. They're the teams that

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Speaker 2: are putting their paddles into the water at exactly the

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Speaker 2: same time. Because when everybody is moving together you get

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Speaker 2: more momentum behind the boat, and that's much more important

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Speaker 2: than just like chaotic strength throwing stuff into the water

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Speaker 2: that actually ends up working at cross purposes. And so

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Speaker 2: what's critical is that a team is working together with

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Speaker 2: some structure, with some transparency, so that in the end

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Speaker 2: everybody feels like if they're doing work that's sustainable for them,

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Speaker 2: but the whole boat is moving faster as a result.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this little quick win episode today.

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Speaker 1: If you would like to listen to the full interview,

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Speaker 1: you can find a link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: If you're looking for more tips to improve the way

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Speaker 1: that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that

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Speaker 1: contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me

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Speaker 1: work better, ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving

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Speaker 1: through the interesting research findings. You can sign up for

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Speaker 1: that at Howiwork dot com. That's how I Work dot co.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing part of your day with me

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Speaker 1: by listening to How I Work. If you're keen for

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Speaker 1: more tips on how to work better, connect with me

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Speaker 1: via LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm very easy to find. Just

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Speaker 1: search for Amantha Imba. How I work was recorded on

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Speaker 1: the traditional land of the Warrangery people, part of the

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Speaker 1: cool And Nation. I'm so grateful for being able to

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Speaker 1: work and live on this beautiful land and i want

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Speaker 1: to pay my respects to elders, past, present and emerging.

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Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventium and hosted by

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Speaker 1: me Amantha Imba and a big thank you to Martin

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Speaker 1: Imba who did the audio mix and makes everything sound

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Speaker 1: better than it would have otherwise.