How I Work

Latest Episodes:

My Favourite Tip: Turia Pitt's simple yet impactful gratitude practice Feb 08, 2021

Show notes

Want to transform your day by creating a more resilient and positive mindset?

Engineer, athlete and burns survivor Turia Pitt has quick gratitude techniques that offer an easy way to take control so you’re not at the mercy of a bad mood.

In the morning, think of three things you are grateful for. It’s that simple.

For Turia, she likes to think about her son, or how nicely her new surfboard rides.

You can find the full interview here: Turia Pitt’s Next Tuesday rule, hacks for dramatically improving self-talk, and how to be useful when someone is going through a rough time

Connect with Turia: Turiapitt.com/letter

Subscribe to my new podcast How To Date in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Making the Four Day Week work for your organisation - a CEO's perspective (Part 2) Feb 03, 2021

Show notes

What would you do if your boss suggested that you cut your working hours down to just four normal length days but said to you, I'll still pay you for five? Would you pinch yourself to check you weren't dreaming? Well this is what happened last April at Inventium. Our CEO, Michelle Le Poidevin, suggested to the team that we should try out the Four Day week. This lead to us running a six-month experiment where the team all worked four days per week and had Friday off. As a participant in this experiment, I can tell you it was bloody awesome. And today, we are going to learn exactly why Mish even suggested this idea and how she manages to be a CEO in just four normal length working days a week.

Now you might have heard my chat with Inventium's Head of Learning, Charlotte Rush, last week where we got into the nitty gritty details of how our four day week experiment worked, what we measured and we also addressed what some of the skeptics might be thinking. So go back and listen to that show if you're keen to go deep into the four day week concept.

In my chat with Mish today, we talk about how on earth do you lead a business where people only work four days but we pay them for five, how we balance the need to collaborate with also working super efficiently, and what the biggest challenges have been in making the four day week work.

Connect with Mish on Linkedin and at michelle@inventium.com.au

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Favourite Tip: Coca-Cola Amatil's Managing Director Alison Watkins on how to receive negative feedback Feb 01, 2021

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Coca-Cola Amatil's Managing Director Alison Watkins was on how to receive negative feedback.

You can find the full interview here: Coca-Cola Amatil’s Group Managing Director Alison Watkins on why doing great work isn’t enough to get ahead in your career

Connect with Alison on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to my new podcast How To Date in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Making the Four Day Week work for your organisation (Part 1) Jan 27, 2021

Show notes

Imagine it's 6am on a Friday morning. You wake up, about to get ready for work, but then you remember - you don't have to go to work. Instead, you have a blissful three day weekend ahead. Now imagine that you get to experience this feeling every single Friday morning. Yet, you're still on a full-time salary.

This is what life is now like at my consultancy Inventium. Back in July last year, we ran an experiment to see if we could improve our productivity and fit our work into four normal, eight-hour days - yet still get paid for five. Seven months on, the experiment has been a huge success. And on today's episode, and also on next Thursday's episode, I'm unpacking how on earth we have managed to make this work.

On today's show, I speak to Inventium's Head of Learning and Organisational Psychologist Charlotte Rush. Char lead Inventium's approach to implementing the four day work week. Inventium is definitely not the first company to do this, and we are still one of only a handful globally. So how did this idea for having a four day week even come up? How did we make it happen? And how did Char manage to fit all her work into just four days? We cover all these questions and more. And on next week's show, I'll be speaking to Inventium's CEO to uncover how you run a business when staff only work four standard days yet we pay them for five.

Check out:

Four Day Week pioneer Andrew Barnes on How I Work
Peakon (employee engagement software)
Inbox when ready (software to help with batch checking your email.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Favourite Tip: SEEK's Managing Director, Kendra Banks, on how her executive team make their biggest decisions Jan 25, 2021

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with SEEK's Managing Director, Kendra Banks, was on how her executive team make their biggest decisions.

You can find the full interview here: Managing Director of SEEK, Kendra Banks, on how her leadership team make their most important decisions

Connect with Kendra at kbanks@seek.com.au and on Linkedin.

Subscribe to my new podcast How To Date in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BEST OF: GitLab's Head of Remote, Darren Murph, on how to create corporate culture when no one works from the office Jan 20, 2021

Show notes

***BEST OF HOW I WORK***

I'm currently taking a few weeks off, so today's episode is a Best Of episode. I've gone back through the archives of the last 2.5 years of hosting How I Work and picked out my absolute favourite episodes!

My guest today is Darren Murph who is GitLab’s Head of Remote. If you have never heard of GitLab, it's the world’s largest all-remote company, with over 1,300 team members in 67+ countries with no company-owned offices. Darren has spent his career leading remote teams and charting remote transformations and authored GitLab’s Remote Playbook. Darren also holds a Guinness World Record as the planet's most prolific professional blogger, having published 10 million words.

In this chat, we cover:

How crisis-induced remote work is different from true remote work
Darren’s favourite tips from Gitlab’s Remote Working handbook
Why companies need to change their default to asynchronous communication
How to create a corporate culture in a remote working environment
The importance that values play in company culture
How to recruit for people who are suited to remote work
The key software that you need to make remote work, work
How to design for serendipitous moments when everyone works remote
How to replace water cooler conversations in the remote environment
How to have effective meetings - and more importantly - deciding when NOT to meet
Darren’s one page operating manual
Darren’s favourite gadgets
Companies that he looks to for remote working inspiration.

Connect with Darren on Linkedin and Twitter. Check out Darren’s personal operating manual, GitLab’s remote playbook, and Darren’s book Living the Remote Dream.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Favourite Tip: Rice University Professor Scott Sonenshein on how to dramatically improve meetings Jan 18, 2021

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Rice University Professor Scott Sonenshein was on to dramatically improve meetings.

You can find the full interview here: Rice University Professor Scott Sonenshein on how to clean up your meetings, decisions and inbox

Learn more about Scott right here.

Subscribe to my new podcast How To Date in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BEST OF: Cal Newport on why you need to change your workflow, not your habits, when it comes to boosting productivity Jan 13, 2021

Show notes

***BEST OF HOW I WORK***

My guest today is Cal Newport. Cal is a computer science professor at Georgetown University. Cal is the author of six books, including, most recently, the New York Times bestseller, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. Cal’s work has been published in over 20 languages and has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, Washington Post, and the Economist.

It’s probably an understatement to say I was excited for this chat because I am a complete and utter fan girl of Cal’s and it’s fair to say that his work has had an enormous impact on how I work. We cover a bunch of different aspects of the way Cal approaches his work including:

Cal’s different Deep Work rituals and why he recommends having different rituals for different types of Deep Work
How to know if you are actually doing Deep Work
Strategies to break your Shallow Work habit
The critical conversation to have with your manager to get them supporting you doing more Deep Work
Cal’s ritual for "shutting down” his work day
Why Cal rejects the idea that we need to have a phone on us at all times
How Cal deliberately builds solitude into his day
Why changing workflows is more effective than changing habits when trying to increase productivity
The workflow Cal designed while on his book tour to minimise back and forth communication
Why giving your time a job is better than using a to-do list
How Cal uses weekly and daily time blocking to use his time effectively
How to take a “Deep Break"
The two key elements of Cal’s email system to minimise communication
The topic Cal is exploring for his next book

You can find Cal at http://calnewport.com/ and grab his books Deep Work and Digital Minimalism.

Visit amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Favourite Tip: Shameless' Michelle and Zara on how they make tough business decisions Jan 11, 2021

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Shameless' Michelle and Zara was on how they make tough business decisions.

You can find the full interview here: Shameless' Michelle and Zara on their process for making one of the most popular podcasts in Australia

Grab your copy of Michelle and Zara’s book The Space In-between, follow Shameless on Instagram, join the Shameless Book Club, and listen to the Shameless podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe to my new podcast How To Date in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BEST OF: Dan Pink on coming up with great titles for projects, how he structures his working days, and why he doesn’t believe in willpower Jan 06, 2021

Show notes

***BEST OF HOW I WORK***

My guest today is Dan Pink. Dan is the author of six bestselling books, including Drive, A Whole New Mind, and his latest book "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing", which has spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list. You might also be familiar with Dan through his TED talk about the surprising science of motivation, which has been viewed over 20 million times.

I am a big Dan Pink fan so I was very excited to be able to chat with him. I think he has such a knack for dissecting complex science and finding a way to make it not just accessible, but memorable and impactful for his readers.

We cover a bunch of things during this chat, including:

How Dan works out whether an idea is great or whether it stinks
How the idea behind his latest book "When" came to be
The importance of the structure of a book, and Dan’s approach to mapping out a book’s structure
Dan’s process for coming up with the title for a book or project
How he came up with the title for Adam Grant’s bestselling book Give and Take
Why Dan structures his work day into three distinct sections
Why Dan isn’t a big believer in willpower
How Dan constructs his working environment to make it easy to stay off digital distractions
Dan’s approach to radically reducing the amount of emails he receives
How Dan decides what to say yes to and what to say no to
Dan’s approach for saying no politely
Dan’s process for translating a book into a keynote speech
Why Dan asks his wife to read his books out loud to him during the editing process