Speaker 1: We wake the kids up about ten or fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: before they need to be awake. And what that does
Speaker 1: is it creates two things. First of all, connection, because
Speaker 1: when we wake them up, we walk into the room
Speaker 1: gently and softly and sit with them and give them
Speaker 1: a hug and talk to them about the dream that
Speaker 1: we've wokened them from or what they're looking forward to
Speaker 1: in the day. We just have two or three minutes
Speaker 1: with each of them. It doesn't take long, but they
Speaker 1: wake up feeling connection.
Speaker 2: Hosting How I Work has taught me so much about
Speaker 2: working more effectively, but it's also helped me as a parent.
Speaker 2: It turns out that a lot of what makes people
Speaker 2: super successful in the workplace can also make live smoother
Speaker 2: at home. This parallel became especially clear when I spoke
Speaker 2: to parenting expert Justin Coolson, who suggested a technique for
Speaker 2: getting through those hectic school mornings with a little less fuss,
Speaker 2: and his advice was almost identical to what Laura May
Speaker 2: Martin tells her coaching clients in Google's executive Suite. My
Speaker 2: name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and
Speaker 2: the founder of Behavioral Science Consultancy invent him and this
Speaker 2: is how I work a show about how to help
Speaker 2: you do your best work. Welcome to your Favorite Tips
Speaker 2: across ten bite size episodes. I'll be sharing tips from
Speaker 2: some of the world's best thinkers that you, the listeners,
Speaker 2: have found the most useful. We're covering everything from creating
Speaker 2: better to do lists to setting more effective boundaries around
Speaker 2: your time, and you'll be hearing from people like best
Speaker 2: selling author Sally Hepworth, Corona Cast host and journalist Norman Swan,
Speaker 2: and Google's executive productivity advisor Laura May Martin. Today's favorite
Speaker 2: tip comes from Tracy and she writes, my favorite tip
Speaker 2: was with doctor Justin Coulson Making Morning's Magic and his
Speaker 2: four morning rules to keep the flow. So here is
Speaker 2: parenting expert and host of the Happy Families podcast talking
Speaker 2: about his strategy to make mornings magic when you are
Speaker 2: a parent, and especially a working one.
Speaker 1: The short answer, though, is we've got a couple of
Speaker 1: things that we do. One of the things is what
Speaker 1: we call our Making Morning's Magic system, and that's comprised
Speaker 1: of four elements. Element number one, the morning begins the
Speaker 1: night before, so that means that we get the kids
Speaker 1: lunchboxes organized, or at least have them out and ready
Speaker 1: for the next day. They've got their uniforms, is it
Speaker 1: library days? At sports day? Do we know where their
Speaker 1: shoes are? Has a rogue sock been left under the
Speaker 1: seat in the car as their swimming gear ready.
Speaker 2: For the next day?
Speaker 1: All that sort of stuff. Morning begins the night before.
Speaker 1: We have found that that is one of the most
Speaker 1: incredibly useful things to make sure that we have smooth mornings.
Speaker 1: We even sort of pull out the stuff for breakfast
Speaker 1: and stick it on the kitchen bench so it's ready.
Speaker 1: That's the first thing. The second part of the four
Speaker 1: part process is that we wake the kids up about
Speaker 1: tan or fifteen minutes before they need to be awake.
Speaker 1: And what that does is it creates two things. First
Speaker 1: of all, connection because when we wake them up, we
Speaker 1: walk into the room gently and softly and sit with
Speaker 1: them and give them a hug and talk to them
Speaker 1: about the dream that we've wokened them from or what
Speaker 1: they're looking forward to in the day. We just have
Speaker 1: two or three minutes with each of them. It doesn't
Speaker 1: take long, but they wake up feeling connection before we
Speaker 1: move it to the next room. And then a Mantha
Speaker 1: the critical thing. It also creates margin because no one's
Speaker 1: rushing because we've got an extra tunnel fifteen minutes because
Speaker 1: everyone's getting up a little bit early. The third thing
Speaker 1: that we do is we actually have kind of like
Speaker 1: a breakfast and lunch system. The kids put in their
Speaker 1: breakfast order and their lunch order by you know, when
Speaker 1: you go to a motel, usually a cheap motel on
Speaker 1: the side of a highway, you can do a quick
Speaker 1: tick and flick for room service breakfast the next day,
Speaker 1: and you order those two pieces of thin white bread
Speaker 1: with a couple of fried eggs that usually arrive cold
Speaker 1: and a little bit too hard. Not running it off,
Speaker 1: but you've got that tick inflict process. So we actually
Speaker 1: us we don't do it anymore because the kids have
Speaker 1: got the system nailed. But to start it off, we
Speaker 1: would get the kids to fill in their menu for
Speaker 1: breakfast and lunch the night before, which means that when
Speaker 1: they walk out into the kitchen, the list of what
Speaker 1: they need to do is already there. What they're going
Speaker 1: to eat, what they're going to prepare, how it's going
Speaker 1: to work. And I can't tell you how amazing that is.
Speaker 1: To remove the decision making process from a tired, sleepy
Speaker 1: child's mind. They just have to look at the piece
Speaker 1: of paper and make that. And we've spent the time
Speaker 1: to teach them to make it, which means that step
Speaker 1: number four is that we don't tell them what to
Speaker 1: do what we do instead, as we say, hey, how
Speaker 1: are you going with the five things that need to
Speaker 1: be done this morning? What's next? How can I help?
Speaker 1: That is so good.
Speaker 2: I'm taking copious notes as you're talking, justin I'm loving this.
Speaker 1: We found that it's made an enormous difference, and in fact,
Speaker 1: it was so popular that the New York Times picked
Speaker 1: up an article that I wrote and they published it.
Speaker 1: So if people want more, you could probably just link
Speaker 1: to the Making Morning's Magic New York Times piece that
Speaker 1: I wrote, and it outlines precisely what those steps are
Speaker 1: and also how it taps in with basic psychological needs
Speaker 1: that kids have. And this is why it works because
Speaker 1: it fulfills the need for connection. They're getting lots of
Speaker 1: that when we wake them up nice and early and
Speaker 1: spend time with them, but also as we say, hey,
Speaker 1: how are you going? What help do you need? Which
Speaker 1: is connection rather than where are your shoes? Why haven't
Speaker 1: you done this, hurry up, we're going to be late,
Speaker 1: which is correction and direction. So it meets that need
Speaker 1: for connection. It satisfies the need for autonomy because they're
Speaker 1: making lots of choices about what they're going to eat
Speaker 1: or what they're going to do to make the morning work.
Speaker 1: And it also satisfies a basic psychological need for what
Speaker 1: research is called competence because they do it themselves. We
Speaker 1: spend the time teaching them how to make their breakfasts,
Speaker 1: how to scramble their eggs, how to pour milk onto
Speaker 1: their week bics, and how to get their lunch organized,
Speaker 1: which means that by the time they're about sort of
Speaker 1: eight or nine years old, they're doing it all on
Speaker 1: their own, which is just bliss for a parent who
Speaker 1: is busy and tired and probably stayed up till late
Speaker 1: the night before watching Netflix instead of remembering that their
Speaker 1: morning began the night before as well.
Speaker 2: I loved Justin's parenting advice, especially the tick and flick
Speaker 2: process for my daughter. I remember I tried this for
Speaker 2: a while and it worked like a dream. If you'd
Speaker 2: like to dive deeper into Justin's Making Morning's Magic system,
Speaker 2: follow the link in the show Notes to find his
Speaker 2: New York Times article. And if you want to find
Speaker 2: out how planning your day the night before can help
Speaker 2: you in the office, listen to the previous episode of
Speaker 2: this mini series with Laura May Martin as the listener
Speaker 2: of How I Work. You've hopefully picked up a few
Speaker 2: tips on this show to help you work better, But
Speaker 2: do you want more? And maybe in a book form,
Speaker 2: because let's face it, books are the most awesome thing
Speaker 2: on the planet. Well, now you can. In my new book,
Speaker 2: time Wise, I uncover a wealth of proven strategies that
Speaker 2: anyone can use to improve their productivity, work, and lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Time Wise brings together all of the gems that I've
Speaker 2: learned from conversations with the world's greatest thinkers, including Adam Grant,
Speaker 2: Dan Pink, Mia Friedman, and Turia Pitt and many many others.
Speaker 2: Time Wise is launching on July five, but you can
Speaker 2: preorder it now from Amantha dot com. And if you
Speaker 2: pre order time Wise, I have a couple of bonuses.
Speaker 2: View First, you'll receive an ebook that details my top
Speaker 2: twenty favorite absence software for being time Wise with email, calendar, passwords, reading,
Speaker 2: cooking ideas and more. You will also get a complementary
Speaker 2: spot in a webinar that I'm running on June twenty nine,
Speaker 2: where I will be sharing the tactics from time Wise
Speaker 2: that I use most often, and also some bonus ones
Speaker 2: that are not in the book that I use and love.
Speaker 2: Hop onto a man dot com to pre order now.
Speaker 2: How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support
Speaker 2: from Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Matt Nimma
Speaker 2: who does the audio mix for every episode and makes
Speaker 2: everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 2: See you next time.