Speaker 1: You're about to listen to My Favorite Tip episode, where
Speaker 1: I select one of my favorite tips that I've heard
Speaker 1: on this show. But I want to know what your
Speaker 1: favorite tip has been that you've heard on How I Work,
Speaker 1: because I'm putting together a short series of listeners favorite
Speaker 1: tips that I'll be releasing next month. To submit a tip,
Speaker 1: email me a voice memo or a note to Amantha
Speaker 1: at inventium dot com dot au. That's Amantha at inventium
Speaker 1: dot com dot au and you can get my email
Speaker 1: from the show notes. You might even want to mention
Speaker 1: how you've applied the tip in your own life. Lisa
Speaker 1: Leong is the host of the hit ABC podcast This
Speaker 1: Working Life, and therefore you might not be surprised to
Speaker 1: find out that Lisa has a color coded calendar. But
Speaker 1: what might surprise you is how her attention to diaristic
Speaker 1: detail helps her when she's not at work. Her ABC
Speaker 1: work is orange, and the sessions working on her new
Speaker 1: book were read. But she also blocks out her e
Speaker 1: byte commutes and social activities. So how does her rainbow
Speaker 1: colored diary help her live a better life. My name
Speaker 1: is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the
Speaker 1: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, And this is how
Speaker 1: I work, a show about how to help you do
Speaker 1: your best work. On today is my favorite Tip episode,
Speaker 1: we go back to an interview from the past and
Speaker 1: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In
Speaker 1: today's show, I speak with Lisa Leon about color coding
Speaker 1: her calendar.
Speaker 2: So if you look at my calendar, you could be
Speaker 2: frightened because every hour is accounted for, so looks scary. However,
Speaker 2: the color codes make it okay. So blue is actually
Speaker 2: on a space in my calendar, but because I've scheduled
Speaker 2: it in, it's just got a block of space. And
Speaker 2: so the block of space could be transit and I
Speaker 2: commute by e bike, so all of those beautiful blue
Speaker 2: blocks in my diary are actually me enjoying my bike
Speaker 2: ride as I'm going between events or between activities. So
Speaker 2: that's blue. There's a lot of blue in my calendar.
Speaker 2: Actually there's a lot of other things. And then ABC,
Speaker 2: so that's orange, so you know, I'll know, okay, I've
Speaker 2: got these interviews, and so my eye is now accustomed
Speaker 2: to knowing, you know, where the interviews are in my
Speaker 2: diary because it's orange and then the book was red,
Speaker 2: so you know I had red there. And then yellow
Speaker 2: is like social activities. So there was not a lot
Speaker 2: of yellow in my diary at one point, but now
Speaker 2: there's more yellow. And then sometimes there's too much yellow, Amantha,
Speaker 2: so Lisa needs to tone it down. So that's an example,
Speaker 2: and then different projects might have different colors. Orthough I
Speaker 2: am running out of colors in my Google calendar, I
Speaker 2: must say I have a few duplicates.
Speaker 1: That's funny. I use color coding so I time block,
Speaker 1: but not as extreme as you. But I do love
Speaker 1: using colors just so I can look at the week
Speaker 1: and get a sense as to am I like putting
Speaker 1: enough energy into the things that matter to me? So
Speaker 1: I use it as a bit of a check for that,
Speaker 1: and also just thinking about what kind of energy am
Speaker 1: I going to need for the day. So the main
Speaker 1: activities that don't go to the default color, which is
Speaker 1: a sort of a soft pastor purple. Yeah, is podcast interviews,
Speaker 1: so they are in blue. And what I call delivery,
Speaker 1: which generally is keynote speaking, whether that be virtual or
Speaker 1: starting to get back into face to face, which cris
Speaker 1: a different kind of energy. And then also sales meeting.
Speaker 1: So part of my job is sales or business development,
Speaker 1: and I like to know that I'm just doing regular
Speaker 1: activity with that because that obviously feeds into inventory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's proactive. So they're the things that I color code
Speaker 1: at the moment, and I find that really very useful.
Speaker 1: Like given given, I am a time blocker or a
Speaker 1: time boxer like you, but I like what you've done
Speaker 1: in terms of color coding non work activities to see
Speaker 1: if you're almost having enough time for replenishment and rejuvenation
Speaker 1: and those sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So and it means that meetings don't go in there
Speaker 2: over the top of a space that I really need yes,
Speaker 2: yes for other And it's about how do you prioritize
Speaker 2: things as well. So let's say you've decided, okay, so
Speaker 2: I really do you know health is the most important thing,
Speaker 2: family is the most important thing. Then I will go
Speaker 2: into my diary and make sure that they go in first,
Speaker 2: and then everything actually goes around that. So in my
Speaker 2: anti rotting phase, I you know, doctor appointments are really
Speaker 2: important and don't they just get you know, delayed when
Speaker 2: you're not prioritizing health. So they go in first and
Speaker 2: then around that you know, then I'll start scheduling other
Speaker 2: things because I mean I can because I have control
Speaker 2: over my diary. So there is an autonomy thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: one of my questions is, you know how much autonomy
Speaker 2: do you have? And I still believe, and this is
Speaker 2: what I call a compassionate challenge, that you probably have
Speaker 2: more autonomy than you think. So this idea of job crafting,
Speaker 2: so you can cognitively craft, you can relationship craft, and
Speaker 2: you can task craft. If you look at those dimensions
Speaker 2: and you think, actually, how much budge do I have?
Speaker 2: And you know, do I need to have a common
Speaker 2: with my manager around it? I think that you might
Speaker 2: have a little bit more sway than you think if
Speaker 2: you can align it to the greater goals and the objectives.
Speaker 1: Especially I hope that after listening to Lisa, you are
Speaker 1: up for taking her compassionate challenge. Maybe you might schedule
Speaker 1: a conversation with your boss this week to take back
Speaker 1: some more control over your diary and insure that your
Speaker 1: calendar aligns with what matters most to you. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for more tips to improve the way that you work,
Speaker 1: I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool
Speaker 1: things that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging
Speaker 1: from software and gadgets that I'm loving through to interesting
Speaker 1: research findings. You can sign up for that at Howiwork
Speaker 1: dot code That's how I Work dot co. How I
Speaker 1: Work is produced by Inventing with production support from Dead
Speaker 1: Set Studios, and thank you to Matt Nimba who does
Speaker 1: the audio mixed for every episode and makes everything sound
Speaker 1: so much better than it would have otherwise. See you
Speaker 1: next time.