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Speaker 1: You're about to listen to My Favorite Tip episode, where

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Speaker 1: I select one of my favorite tips that I've heard

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Speaker 1: on this show. But I want to know what your

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Speaker 1: favorite tip has been that you've heard on How I Work,

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Speaker 1: because I'm putting together a short series of listeners favorite

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Speaker 1: tips that I'll be releasing next month. To submit a tip,

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Speaker 1: email me a voice memo or a note to Amantha

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Speaker 1: at inventium dot com dot au. That's Amantha at inventium

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au and you can get my email

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Speaker 1: from the show notes. You might even want to mention

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Speaker 1: how you've applied the tip in your own life. Lisa

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Speaker 1: Leong is the host of the hit ABC podcast This

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Speaker 1: Working Life, and therefore you might not be surprised to

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Speaker 1: find out that Lisa has a color coded calendar. But

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Speaker 1: what might surprise you is how her attention to diaristic

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Speaker 1: detail helps her when she's not at work. Her ABC

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Speaker 1: work is orange, and the sessions working on her new

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Speaker 1: book were read. But she also blocks out her e

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Speaker 1: byte commutes and social activities. So how does her rainbow

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Speaker 1: colored diary help her live a better life. My name

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Speaker 1: is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the

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Speaker 1: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, And this is how

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

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Speaker 1: your best work. On today is my favorite Tip episode,

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

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Speaker 1: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In

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Speaker 1: today's show, I speak with Lisa Leon about color coding

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Speaker 1: her calendar.

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Speaker 2: So if you look at my calendar, you could be

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Speaker 2: frightened because every hour is accounted for, so looks scary. However,

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Speaker 2: the color codes make it okay. So blue is actually

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Speaker 2: on a space in my calendar, but because I've scheduled

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Speaker 2: it in, it's just got a block of space. And

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Speaker 2: so the block of space could be transit and I

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Speaker 2: commute by e bike, so all of those beautiful blue

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Speaker 2: blocks in my diary are actually me enjoying my bike

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Speaker 2: ride as I'm going between events or between activities. So

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Speaker 2: that's blue. There's a lot of blue in my calendar.

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Speaker 2: Actually there's a lot of other things. And then ABC,

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Speaker 2: so that's orange, so you know, I'll know, okay, I've

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Speaker 2: got these interviews, and so my eye is now accustomed

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Speaker 2: to knowing, you know, where the interviews are in my

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Speaker 2: diary because it's orange and then the book was red,

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Speaker 2: so you know I had red there. And then yellow

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Speaker 2: is like social activities. So there was not a lot

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Speaker 2: of yellow in my diary at one point, but now

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Speaker 2: there's more yellow. And then sometimes there's too much yellow, Amantha,

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Speaker 2: so Lisa needs to tone it down. So that's an example,

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Speaker 2: and then different projects might have different colors. Orthough I

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Speaker 2: am running out of colors in my Google calendar, I

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Speaker 2: must say I have a few duplicates.

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Speaker 1: That's funny. I use color coding so I time block,

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Speaker 1: but not as extreme as you. But I do love

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Speaker 1: using colors just so I can look at the week

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Speaker 1: and get a sense as to am I like putting

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Speaker 1: enough energy into the things that matter to me? So

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Speaker 1: I use it as a bit of a check for that,

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Speaker 1: and also just thinking about what kind of energy am

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Speaker 1: I going to need for the day. So the main

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Speaker 1: activities that don't go to the default color, which is

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Speaker 1: a sort of a soft pastor purple. Yeah, is podcast interviews,

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Speaker 1: so they are in blue. And what I call delivery,

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Speaker 1: which generally is keynote speaking, whether that be virtual or

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Speaker 1: starting to get back into face to face, which cris

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Speaker 1: a different kind of energy. And then also sales meeting.

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Speaker 1: So part of my job is sales or business development,

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Speaker 1: and I like to know that I'm just doing regular

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Speaker 1: activity with that because that obviously feeds into inventory. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's proactive. So they're the things that I color code

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Speaker 1: at the moment, and I find that really very useful.

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Speaker 1: Like given given, I am a time blocker or a

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Speaker 1: time boxer like you, but I like what you've done

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Speaker 1: in terms of color coding non work activities to see

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Speaker 1: if you're almost having enough time for replenishment and rejuvenation

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Speaker 1: and those sorts of things.

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Speaker 2: So and it means that meetings don't go in there

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Speaker 2: over the top of a space that I really need yes,

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Speaker 2: yes for other And it's about how do you prioritize

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Speaker 2: things as well. So let's say you've decided, okay, so

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Speaker 2: I really do you know health is the most important thing,

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Speaker 2: family is the most important thing. Then I will go

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Speaker 2: into my diary and make sure that they go in first,

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Speaker 2: and then everything actually goes around that. So in my

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Speaker 2: anti rotting phase, I you know, doctor appointments are really

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Speaker 2: important and don't they just get you know, delayed when

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Speaker 2: you're not prioritizing health. So they go in first and

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Speaker 2: then around that you know, then I'll start scheduling other

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Speaker 2: things because I mean I can because I have control

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Speaker 2: over my diary. So there is an autonomy thing. I mean,

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Speaker 2: one of my questions is, you know how much autonomy

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Speaker 2: do you have? And I still believe, and this is

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Speaker 2: what I call a compassionate challenge, that you probably have

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Speaker 2: more autonomy than you think. So this idea of job crafting,

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Speaker 2: so you can cognitively craft, you can relationship craft, and

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Speaker 2: you can task craft. If you look at those dimensions

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Speaker 2: and you think, actually, how much budge do I have?

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Speaker 2: And you know, do I need to have a common

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Speaker 2: with my manager around it? I think that you might

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Speaker 2: have a little bit more sway than you think if

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Speaker 2: you can align it to the greater goals and the objectives.

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Speaker 1: Especially I hope that after listening to Lisa, you are

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Speaker 1: up for taking her compassionate challenge. Maybe you might schedule

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Speaker 1: a conversation with your boss this week to take back

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Speaker 1: some more control over your diary and insure that your

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Speaker 1: calendar aligns with what matters most to you. If you're

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Speaker 1: looking for more tips to improve the way that you work,

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Speaker 1: I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool

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Speaker 1: things that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging

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Speaker 1: from software and gadgets that I'm loving through to interesting

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Speaker 1: research findings. You can sign up for that at Howiwork

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Speaker 1: dot code That's how I Work dot co. How I

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Speaker 1: Work is produced by Inventing with production support from Dead

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Speaker 1: Set Studios, and thank you to Matt Nimba who does

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Speaker 1: the audio mixed for every episode and makes everything sound

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Speaker 1: so much better than it would have otherwise. See you

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Speaker 1: next time.