Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 1: used by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 1: much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imba.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day.
Speaker 1: In today's show, I've been mentioning that I'm looking for
Speaker 1: listener questions and I've been getting some really awesome ones.
Speaker 1: So today's show is dedicated to answering a listener question
Speaker 1: that comes from Rosie. Rosie is clearly someone that is
Speaker 1: very passionate about her work, and her question to me
Speaker 1: was how do you approach yourself when you get too
Speaker 1: excited about work? So, Rosie and maybe other people that
Speaker 1: might have this challenge, I want to share with you
Speaker 1: how I think about work and boundaries and also trying
Speaker 1: to have time to chill as well. So firstly, and
Speaker 1: this is probably obvious to regular listeners of the show,
Speaker 1: I find it really hard to switch off. So something
Speaker 1: I talk about on the show and with clients is
Speaker 1: having boot up and shut down rituals. So having a
Speaker 1: boot up ritual to start your day something that kind
Speaker 1: of gets your brain into gear and for me kind
Speaker 1: of gets me on a deep work sprint, starts my
Speaker 1: day productively and proactively rather than reactively checking emails. And
Speaker 1: then I also talk a lot about having a shutdown ritual,
Speaker 1: and these are two really important things, particularly for those
Speaker 1: of you that are working from home where it's really
Speaker 1: easy for the boundaries to blur. So for me personally,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good with my morning routine. Typically what that
Speaker 1: looks like is, well, the very first thing I do
Speaker 1: is I will generally do a workout in my home gym,
Speaker 1: and then if I've got my daughter Frankie with me,
Speaker 1: we will do a few fun things in the morning
Speaker 1: until school of virtual school starts. And if I don't
Speaker 1: have Frankie, I'll typically start work a little bit earlier.
Speaker 1: So I make myself a hot beverage, which might be
Speaker 1: a decaf or a caffeinated coffee, and I will look
Speaker 1: at my calendar because I time box my deep work,
Speaker 1: so I literally make meetings with myself in terms of
Speaker 1: what are the deep work tasks that I'm going to do,
Speaker 1: and I simply get on with it. So that is
Speaker 1: typically my boot up routine in terms of shutting down
Speaker 1: my day. I sometimes do this. I sometimes do a
Speaker 1: couple of minute exercise where I reflect on what if
Speaker 1: I made progress on and what are the biggest things
Speaker 1: that I want to focus on the next day. But
Speaker 1: often I'm a little bit messy in my shutdown, and
Speaker 1: I don't shut down, and I kind of work on
Speaker 1: and off because there is always something to do, so
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily reckon mend it, but that is just
Speaker 1: what I tend to do now. Something that I found
Speaker 1: really helpful to balancing me out is that Inventium are
Speaker 1: currently trialing a four day week where basically we call
Speaker 1: it Gift of the Fifth. So if we can get
Speaker 1: our work done in four normal workdays, we get the
Speaker 1: gift of time on Friday and we take Friday off,
Speaker 1: which has been really useful for me in having four
Speaker 1: really focused and productive days from Monday to Thursday and
Speaker 1: kind of forcing myself to decompress on Friday. So how
Speaker 1: that works for me in practice is I do often
Speaker 1: do a little bit of work on Friday, to be honest,
Speaker 1: but it's generally deep work and work that I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about. So I try to limit that though, to
Speaker 1: one or two hours and it's generally worked for the podcast,
Speaker 1: I find because it tends to get pushed to the
Speaker 1: side during the week when I'm focusing on inventing and
Speaker 1: work and client work. But what I also found when
Speaker 1: I started having Fridays off is I was just keen
Speaker 1: to sync my teeth into something else. So I created
Speaker 1: a passion project with my closest girlfriend, Monique, and we
Speaker 1: launched a podcast called How to Date, which is, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, a super fun podcast that goes into very
Speaker 1: practical advice on how to get better at dating, which
Speaker 1: is something that I'm doing in my early forties because
Speaker 1: I am a bit over a year out of my marriage.
Speaker 1: So we interview all sorts of experts from around the
Speaker 1: world to get really interesting advice. So if you are
Speaker 1: single and looking for advice, you might want to check
Speaker 1: out How to Date. But I find that I will
Speaker 1: work on my passion project on for Fridays. Now. Another
Speaker 1: thing I think about is I have my daughter Frankie
Speaker 1: with me fifty percent of the time, and I try
Speaker 1: to be really strict about not working on weekends when
Speaker 1: I have Frankie with me. It's just sort of a
Speaker 1: bit of a rule that I have if there is
Speaker 1: something like an exception to that rule, like I have
Speaker 1: to do a podcast edit because I'm on a deadline.
Speaker 1: I try to involve her. Not that she's particularly interested
Speaker 1: in how I work content, but she's somewhat interested in
Speaker 1: hearing her mother talk I'm all. Also, the final thing
Speaker 1: is I'm very fussy in how I spend my downtime.
Speaker 1: I try to do quality things, and I try to
Speaker 1: schedule things. So in my friendship group, I am the
Speaker 1: one that plans and organizes and proactively suggests things and
Speaker 1: put things in the diary, even phone chats, because I
Speaker 1: find my friends are busy, even though where a lot
Speaker 1: of us are in lockdown, although slowly emerging out of it.
Speaker 1: I'll even book in phone chats in the evening because
Speaker 1: that is something that I find very very enriching, connecting
Speaker 1: with my friends and doing other things for downtime. So, Rosie,
Speaker 1: I hope that has provided some kind of a useful
Speaker 1: answer to your question. Thank you so much for sending
Speaker 1: that in. If you list and you have a question
Speaker 1: for me that you'd like to get my perspective on,
Speaker 1: or for some questions, I will certainly dig into the
Speaker 1: research as well. Please send that through to Amantha at
Speaker 1: Inbentium dot com dot au, and my email address is
Speaker 1: always in the show notes as well. So thank you
Speaker 1: for listening if you found it useful. If you know
Speaker 1: someone who maybe is having a bit of trouble switching off,
Speaker 1: maybe share this episode with them if you think they'd
Speaker 1: find it useful. And if you're enjoying how I work,
Speaker 1: I'd love you to leave a review in Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: And thank you to all the super awesome and amazing
Speaker 1: brilliant people who have done that over the two years
Speaker 1: that this show has been around. That is it for
Speaker 1: today and I will see you next time.