How I Work

Latest Episodes:

BEST OF: Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson on productive procrastination, imposter syndrome, and how a dog changed her headspace. Jan 15, 2020

Show notes

**BEST OF 2019**

My guest today is Abbi Jacobson. Abbi is a co-creator, writer, director, executive producer and star of the critically-acclaimed Comedy Central show Broad City, with Ilana Glazer. And that’s how I first became familiar with her work. I am a hard core fan of Broad City and would go so far to say I think it’s the funniest show on TV right now (although it recently wrapped it’s fifth and final season). Seriously, if you have not watched Broad City or have no idea what I am talking about check it out.

Aside from Broad City, Abbi has done a stack of things ranging from voicing the character “Bean” in Netflix’s series Disenchantment by Matt Groenig, hosting the podcast A Piece of Work with WNYC and MoMA, in which she discusses modern and contemporary art.

Oh and she has also written and illustrated a stack of NYT best-selling books, ranging from, I Might Regret This (a memoir style collection of essays), her illustrated book, Carry This Book, and two coloring books called: Color This Book: New York City and Color This Book: San Francisco.

We cover:

Her strategies for keeping herself accountable and meeting deadlines
Abbi’s form of productive procrastination
How Abbi tricks herself into getting work done
Abbi’s strategies for overcoming writer’s block
Abbi’s preference for going analogue rather than digital
How getting a dog has helped Abbi get out of her head
Abbi’s love-hate relationship with social media
Why Abbi still transitions in and out of Imposter Syndrome
Why Abbi and Ilana would shake hands before filming big scenes for Broad City
How Abbi manages her nerves before big events and moments

Find out more about Abbi via her books (I Might Regret This, Carry This Book, Colour This Book), watch her shows (Broad City, Disenchantment), listen to her podcast A Piece of Work, and you can follow Abbi on Instagram.

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

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BEST OF: Envato co-Founder Cyan Ta'eed on spending just 15 minutes a day on her phone Jan 08, 2020

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 Cyan Ta’eed. Cy is one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs, having co-founded Envato in 2006 and growing it to being valued at over $1 billion. Last year she tried her hand at chocolate (why not?!) and Hey Tiger is now one of Australia’s fastest growing purpose-driven brands. Oh, and in her spare time, she recently launched Milkshake.app, which allows users to make a free website for their Instagram profile all on their phone, instantly.

In this chat, we cover:

How Cy went from spending four hours a day on her phone to just 15 minutes
How Cy changed her mobile phone to make it less addictive
The game that Cy’s family play on January 1, every year
The five minute activity that Cy does every morning to set herself up for the day
How Cy manages her energy levels as a self-described introvert who presents as an extravert.
Cy’s approach to constant learning and development
How and where Cy has found great people to work in her businesses.
Cy’s strategies for overcoming Imposter Syndrome
How Cy mentally prepares herself for stressful events
Why Cy had an app on her phone that reminded her she is going to die 5 x per day
Cy’s go-to apps and gadgets
What happened when Cy had an eyesight-threatening ulcer and had to rest in darkness for several weeks.
Balancing sprints with periods of rest

Find Cy on Instagram at @cyantaeed, check out her amazing chocolate social enterprise Hey Tiger and her most recent business Milkshake that allows users to create a webpage from their Instagram account.

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: Chris Guillebeau on how perfectionism gets in the way of success. Dec 18, 2019

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Chris Guillebeau was on how perfectionism gets in the way of success.

You can find the full interview here.

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: Award-winning magician Simon Coronel on paying people to criticise him Dec 16, 2019

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with award-winning magician Simon Coronel was on how he pays people to give him negative feedback.

You can find the full interview here.

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.

Dropbox executive Dean Swan on why the modern way of working is broken Dec 11, 2019

Show notes

My guest on today’s show is Dean Swan. Dean is the Country Manager of Dropbox, where he oversees Dropbox's business operations across Australia and New Zealand. And in case you haven’t heard of Dropbox, it’s one of Silicon Valley’s unicorns, which is a company valued at over $1 billion. Dropbox provides file hosting and I’ve been a customer of Dropbox for many years.

I got connected with Dean as Dropbox Australia have been experimenting with how they work and challenging a lot of the working norms that exist. This has resulted in the launch of Dropbox's ‘Enlightened Summer’, which is a summer-long initiative encouraging workplaces across Australia to reimagine a more enlightened way of working.

In my chat with Dean, we start by talking about how Dropboxers have changed their approach to work, and we then delve into how Dean has adapted his own working behaviours too. And if you like the sound of what Dropbox is doing, I finish my chat with Dean talking about advice he has for listeners who are trying to influence their boss on changing the working norms. So on that note, over to Dean to hear about how he works.

We cover:

Dropbox’s Enlightened Summer campaign
How Hack Week’s work at Dropbox
The range of productivity techniques that Dropbox Australia have been trialling
Why Dean moved the Dropbox office to the Bondi Surf Life Saving club for a day
Why Dean had to unlearn everything he learned in his corporate life at Microsoft when he moved to being a start-up founder
How being a chef helped Dean think about how he manages his energy during the day
How Dean uses his runs for problem solving
How Dean combined Manager and Maker time when he moved to Dropbox as head of sales for Asia-Pac
Dean’s ideal weekly schedule
How Dean uses walking meetings to change energy levels
The importance of retrospectives at Dropbox
Tips on how to convince your boss that the current way of working is broken and that change needs to happen.

Find out more about Dropbox’s Enlightened Summer campaign and download the toolkit.

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: Marcus Buckingham on why work-life balance is a useless concept Dec 09, 2019

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Marcus Buckingham was about why work-life balance is a useless concept - and how we should think about it instead.

You can find the full interview here.

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.

CommBank board director Wendy Stops on the biggest challenges of sitting on high profile boards Dec 04, 2019

Show notes

My guest today is Wendy Stops. Wendy is a Non Executive Director at the Commonwealth Bank (Australia’s largest bank), Coles Group, and Fitted for Work. Prior to her board career, she spent sixteen years with Accenture, most recently as the Senior Managing Director for Technology in Asia-Pacific.

I was really keen to have Wendy on the show to understand more about what it’s like to have such high profile board positions. If you have ever wondered what it’s like to be a board director, or perhaps you are considering this kind of career for yourself, I think you’ll get a lot out of this interview with Wendy.

We cover:

How to get onto a high profile board
The recruitment process for becoming a board member
How Wendy coped with being on the board of Australia’s biggest bank during the royal commission
Wendy’s surprising approach to managing stress
Wendy’s approach to protecting her personal time
How Wendy makes sure her voice is heard in amongst the other confident, capable and dominant personalities on the boards she sits on
Wendy’s approach to influencing people
The role of intuition versus data in making big decisions
Wendy’s “should we” test for ethical behaviour
Wendy’s experience with Imposter Syndrome, and her approach to overcoming it
The most challenging thing about sitting on a board
Wendy’s top tips for having a great career.

Connect with Wendy on Linkedin.

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: Clinical Psychologist Dr Doris Brett on how stories can help us reframe failure Dec 02, 2019

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Clinical Psychologist Dr Doris Brett was on how stories can help us deal with failure.

You can find the full interview here.

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.

Ultralearner Scott Young on how to dramatically improve the way you learn Nov 27, 2019

Show notes

My guest today is Scott Young. Scott is a writer who undertakes interesting self-education projects, such as attempting to learn MIT's four-year computer science curriculum in twelve months and learning four languages in one year. Both of which he did successfully.

Scott is a fascinating person who has basically dedicated his adult life to hacking learning and challenging a lot of the assumptions and beliefs that are held about how best to learn something. Scott is a science nerd like me and one of the many things I loved about Ultralearning is that it pairs a lot of scientific research with some fascinating real world case studies of ultralearners.

If you have ever wanted to get better at learning something, or if perhaps at this point in your life you are looking at getting better at a new skill or maybe taking up a new project or hobby, I think you will find my chat with Scott incredibly helpful. We unpack quite a few different learning strategies that Scott has applied in his own life, and which after reading Ultralearning, I’ve now been applying to my own life.

We cover:

Why Scott spends time learning skills that he has already mastered
Why retrieval is a critical skill for learning, and how to get better at it
Scott’s approach to reading non-fiction books to optimise learning
The importance of “directness” when it comes to learning a new skill
The big problem with many training programs
The best way to start a learning project
How Scott mastered portrait drawing
The importance of creating procedural memories and how to do this
How Scott has improved his ability to stay focused
Why focus comes down to managing emotions and developing good habits
Scott’s tips to push through difficult tasks when you just want to give up
The keys to giving effective feedback - and why most people who ask for feedback don’t actually want it
How to solicit useful feedback
How Scott decides which feedback to take on and which to ignore