How I Work

Around 80% of us will avoid conflict if given the chance, and Tim Duggan was firmly in that camp. 

In this episode, I sit down with Tim, author of Clear In Tension: How to Get Better at Conflict, to explore how we can all handle conflict with more skill and less dread. Tim spent 15 years running the media company Junkie Media, mediating other people’s disputes, all while dreading conflict himself.  

We walk through his five-step CLEAR framework, two listening techniques you can use in your very next tough conversation, and what the four symbols tattooed on Amanda Knox’s arm can teach us about finding common ground with anyone. We also talk about why some conflicts will never be solved, and why that is okay. 

If you have a hard conversation looming, this episode will leave you feeling calmer and far better prepared. 

** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **

Tim and I discuss: 

• What Tim learned from becoming an accredited mediator, and why the only way to get comfortable with conflict is to practise it 

• Box breathing as a discreet way to calm your nervous system mid-argument 

• The CLEAR framework: clarify what matters, listen generously, explore what’s underneath, align on a shared direction, and reset your story 

• Mirroring and looping, two simple listening techniques that make the other person feel genuinely heard 

• The difference between positions and interests, and why uncovering someone’s hopes, fears and concerns can solve the problem 

• The four symbols Amanda Knox has tattooed on her arm as her recipe for a difficult conversation 

• Why “agree to disagree” is not a failure, and when walking away is the healthiest option 

• How to rehearse your first line before delivering bad news, a tip I used myself when I had to let people go in 2024 

• The research on conflict avoiders, the Gottmans’ ratio of positive to negative interactions, and the one word that changes the tone of any disagreement 

Key quotes 

“The best stuff happens in tension.” 
“Sometimes walking away is actually the best thing you can do.” 

Connect with Tim Duggan on Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn and his website. Check out his latest book Clear In Tension: How to Get Better at Conflict. 

More from How I Work 

If you want to get better at difficult conversations and giving hard feedback, I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of my favourite How I Work episodes on exactly that. You can listen here. 

And if this episode resonated, a great companion listen is my chat with ex-Atlassian work futurist Dom Price. We get into the two things you might be doing that make difficult conversations harder, how Dom prepares for the tough ones, and how to approach a conversation when you don’t feel safe. Listen here. 

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M 

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) 

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) 

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/ 

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

Get in touch at [email protected] 

Credits: 
Host: Amantha Imber 
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you still have a prompt formula saved somewhere, maybe an acronym from an Instagram reel that promised better answers from AI? You paste it in, swap a few words, hit send, and what comes back still misses the mark. 

Years of typing a few keywords into a search box have shaped how we talk to AI, and that habit might be costing you time and patience. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I look at why prompt formulas took off, what has changed since, and how to brief AI so you get better work back with far less back and forth. 

What you’ll learn: 

• Why prompt formulas became so popular, and why they matter far less now 

• What AI memory changes about the way you brief it 

• The old search habit that quietly works against you 

• A better way to give AI the background it needs 

• How to get AI to question your idea, not just your draft 

• Practical AI tools for productivity and focus 

• Real-world AI workflows used by high performers 

• How to use AI at work without burning out 

• Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load 

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.  

Find out more about Inventium AI’s training programs at inventium.ai 

How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. 

Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. 

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/  

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

Get in touch at [email protected]  

Credits:  

Host: Amantha Imber  

Sound Engineer: Martin Imber 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**REPLAY**

Do you ever get the sense that no matter how much you do, you’re still running out of time? Like there’s something you should be doing, but you can’t quite figure out what it is? 

In this episode of How I Work, we sit down with New York Times bestselling author Chris Guillebeau to talk about a feeling so many of us carry but rarely name: time anxiety. From guilt over unread emails to the pressure to leave a legacy, Chris shares the practical strategies that helped him stop chasing time - and start living with more calm and clarity. 

** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **

In this episode: 

• What time anxiety is—and why so many of us feel it without even realising 

• How Chris let go of the pressure to leave a legacy 

• A weekly “time decluttering” ritual that can clear your calendar 

• Why “just prioritise better” is the worst advice 

• The bold email strategy Chris swears by (even if it ruffles a few feathers) 

• Why leaving 10–15 minutes of buffer time between commitments can change everything 

Key Quotes: 
“You have to decide for yourself what is enough.” 

 “It’s not about being an email ninja - it’s about understanding what matters.” 

Connect with Chris on Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn and his website, Listen to his podcast Side Hustle School, and check out his latest book Time Anxiety. 

More from How I Work

If drawing clearer lines between work and the rest of your life is something you want to go deeper on, I have put together a Spotify playlist of my favourite How I Work episodes on exactly that. Listen to the playlist here.

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M 

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) 

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) 

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/ 

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

Get in touch at [email protected] 

Credits: 
Host: Amantha Imber 
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some prompts have been with you for a year or more. They open with a grand persona for the AI, add a few rules in capital letters, and finish with a request to think it all through. They worked well once, and lately the results feel slightly off. 

The AI models have changed, and a few of the habits we picked up in 2024 and 2025 now work against us. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through five ways good prompting has changed as of October 2026. You will come away with a simple way to tighten up the prompts you rely on most. 

What you’ll learn: 

• What a persona really changes in an AI response 

• When a goal and a finished example beat step-by-step instructions 

• Why asking AI to think through its answer can backfire 

• How to add emphasis without boxing the AI in 

• What a good checklist looks like before AI hands work back 

• Practical AI tools for productivity and focus 

• Real-world AI workflows used by high performers 

• How to use AI at work without burning out 

• Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load 

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.  

Find out more about Inventium AI’s training programs at inventium.ai 

How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. 

Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. 

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/  

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

Get in touch at [email protected]  

Credits:  

Host: Amantha Imber  

Sound Engineer: Martin Imber 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**REPLAY**

What would you do with four extra hours a day? Probably say you don't have them. But according to Laura Vanderkam, one of the world's leading thinkers on time, they're already there. You're just not seeing them. 

Laura has tracked her own time for 11 years. She's run large-scale time-tracking studies with hundreds of participants. And what she keeps finding is the same thing: the stories we tell ourselves about our time are almost always wrong. The tasks we dread feel longer than they are. The free time we insist we don't have keeps showing up in the data. 

In this How I Work episode, I sit down with Laura to dig into what 11 years of time diaries actually reveal, why tracking your time for just one week can make you feel dramatically better about your life, and how to reclaim those post-dinner hours that most of us write off as dead time. Laura is a bestselling author of many books on time and productivity, and her latest, Big Time, is one of the most practical and perspective-shifting reads I've come across in a long time. 

If you've ever ended a weekend convinced you had no time to yourself, this conversation will change how you see the week ahead. 

** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **

In this episode, Laura and I discuss:

• Why tracking your time for a single week raises time satisfaction scores by nearly 18%, and what's actually driving that shift 

• The gap between how people think they spend their time and how they actually do, particularly for those who work flexibly or check email on weekends 

• The concept of "golden hours" and why the four to five hours between dinner and bedtime are far more valuable than most of us treat them 

• How to tell the difference between a complex life and a chaotic one, and the circus metaphor that reframes what a well-run household actually looks like 

• The weekly planning ritual Laura swears by, including the three rings of the circus she reviews every Thursday morning 
• Three surprisingly small changes that can make your workday feel genuinely better, without changing jobs 

Key quotes 

"Four to five hours is a lot of time to just write off as unusable. The day is not over after dinner." 

"Complexity and chaos are not the same thing. We're aiming for controlled complexity." 

Connect with Laura Vanderkam on Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn and her website, and check out her latest book Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance wherever you get good books. 

More from How I Work

And if this episode resonated, I recommend my conversation with Oliver Burkeman on how to make time for the things that actually count. Check that out here. 

If you want to get better at prioritising what matters, saying no to things that don't, and making more intentional choices about how you spend your time, I've put together a Spotify playlist of my favourite How I Work episodes on exactly that. Listen to the playlist here.

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M 

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) 

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) 

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/ 

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

Get in touch at [email protected] 

Credits: 

Host: Amantha Imber  

Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who keeps moving my buttons? You know the one. You finally learn where everything lives, and overnight the menu has been rearranged, the feature has a new name, and the thing you spent months perfecting is on a list of things being retired. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I make sense of the latest shake-up: what is replacing GPTs and Gems, when the lights go out on each platform, and how to back up your hard work so none of it vanishes without warning. You'll leave knowing what to save, what to convert, and when. 

What you'll learn: 

• Why GPTs and Gems are being retired 

• What skills are and why they're taking over 

• The deadlines to put in your calendar now 

• The first thing to do before pressing any migration button 

• Practical AI tools for productivity and focus 

• Real-world AI workflows used by high performers 

• How to use AI at work without burning out 

• Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load 

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.  

How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. 

Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. 

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/  

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

Get in touch at [email protected]  

Credits:  

Host: Amantha Imber  

Sound Engineer: Martin Imber 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twenty minutes doesn't sound like much. Multiply it by ten sales calls a week and it adds up to more than three hours spent on a task that someone, or something, else could be doing. 

Now think about how many tasks like that are hiding in your own week, repeated so often that you no longer notice them. 

In this Work Edit, I sit down with Stephen, an organisational transformation advisor with more than 20 years of experience. Stephen uses Claude every day for client research, interview synthesis, first-draft deliverables and thought leadership, but he knows his approach has been sporadic. He wants a deliberate setup without signing up for 12 different tools. 

I share how I'd restructure his projects, how I catch the writing habits that make readers suspect AI wrote the whole thing, and the tools I rely on every day. Then we zoom out to a simple one-week exercise that reveals which tasks AI should be taking off your plate for good. 

If you use AI daily but suspect there's far more value on the table, this conversation will show you where to look. 

Stephen and I discuss: 

• Why very specific projects, GPTs and skills tend to outperform one big, broad project 

• How to train an AI on your voice using your best work, and why a separate anti-AI writing skill adheres better than one long instruction set 

• Why I always write the first draft myself, and how I use AI as an editor afterwards 

• The AI tells that make readers switch off, and why even writers with their own genuine style can get caught by them 

• The tools in my daily stack, including Granola, Whisperflow and Superhuman, and how I handle disclosure when AI is taking notes in a meeting 

• The one-week task log that shows you what to automate, and how a 20-minute pre-call task turned into a skill my EA now runs 

• How recurring tasks, like a weekly actions recap or a daily AI news researcher, can run without you prompting them 

If you would like more tips on getting more value from AI, check out How I AI. Every week, my co-host Neo Aplin and I share practical ways to get more out of whichever AI tool you use. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M 

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) 

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) 

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/ 

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

Get in touch at [email protected] 

Credits: 
Host: Amantha Imber 
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You ask AI for ideas and get a tidy list of ten, each one praised as being brilliant. The tempting move is to grab the first one that looks decent and get on with your day. The catch is that you've handed over the thinking, and what comes back tends to look a lot like what everyone else is getting. 

AI can be a far better brainstorming partner when it sharpens your thinking instead of replacing it. The difference comes down to how you set it up and what you ask it to do. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I unpack how we use AI as a brainstorming buddy at Inventium. You'll leave with a way to brainstorm that produces ideas built around your business, your customers and your goals. 

What you'll learn: 

• Why AI's ideas tend to land close to everyone else's 

• The context AI needs before it can help you brainstorm well 

• Four techniques that keep you doing the ideating 

• How to get AI to put the questions to you 

• The bonus prompt that makes AI ask something of you first 

• Practical AI tools for productivity and focus 

• Real-world AI workflows used by high performers 

• How to use AI at work without burning out 

• Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load 

Download Inventium's Brainstorm Buddy skill here:  

https://amantha-imber.kit.com/brainstormbuddygpt 

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams. 

If this episode got you thinking about how to brainstorm with AI, listen to my interview with the Exploding Kittens CEO about his working-with-AI ritual for generating great ideas. Listen to the full episode here. 

How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.  

Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. 

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M 

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) 

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) 

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/ 

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

Get in touch at [email protected] 

Credits: 
Host: Amantha Imber 
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One surgeon takes his boat out onto a lake, screams until he can't scream anymore, and then cries. It is how he recovers from a job where patients die and he can't fall apart in front of his team. 

That is what emotional rest can look like for one person, and it is only one of seven types of rest that most of us have never thought to separate. Which raises this possibility: you might be resting effectively in one area while a completely different part of you runs on empty. 

In this episode, I sit down with Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith, the doctor behind the seven types of rest framework and author of Sacred Rest, to unpack what each type of rest actually is and how to tell which one you are missing. I share how I scored on her Rest Quiz, and we test the theory against my own life, from a joyful community singing night to nature walks with a friend. 

If you keep waking up tired after a decent night's sleep, this conversation will help you work out what is really missing. 

Saundra and I discuss: 

• The three-question morning energy check-in Saundra uses herself, and how some of her clients set an AI up to ask it for them 

• The seven types of rest 

• Why mental and emotional rest are the two areas where people score highest for depletion, and the gender pattern Saundra sees 

• The signs of a mental rest deficit 

• How suppressing emotions at work drains your energy, and what an emotional rest deficit can look like in everyday life 

• How one activity can restore several types of rest at once, from yoga to a phone-free dinner table 

• Saundra's annual rest retreat weekend with girlfriends 

• How mirror neurons help explain why some people leave you drained 

• Two simple sensory rest snacks you can do today, including one that involves your phone settings 

Key quotes 

"We don't recognize how much energy it takes to suppress emotions." 

"Creative rest at the very heart of it is the rest that helps to awaken awe and wonder inside of us." 

Connect with Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith on Instagram, LinkedIn and her website, take her rest quiz at restquiz.com, and check out her book Sacred Rest. 

More from How I Work 

If managing your energy and burnout is something you want to go deeper on, I have put together a Spotify playlist of my favourite How I Work episodes on exactly that. Listen to the playlist here. 

And if you enjoyed this episode, a great companion listen is my conversation with Shelley Johnson, where we go deep into the science-backed strategies from my book The Energy Game. We cover how to boost your energy in under five minutes, what actually counts as rest versus fake rest, and the protect strategies that stop your energy leaking in the first place. Listen to the episode here. 

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M 

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber) 

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai) 

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/ 

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

Get in touch at [email protected] 

Credits: 
Host: Amantha Imber 
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some of us have a favourite chat thread we keep coming back to, adding a bit more context every time we open it. It feels efficient, like you're building up a work buddy who really knows your stuff. But every extra message quietly chips away at how reliable that thread becomes, and by the time you notice, it's surprisingly hard to pull it back. 

Knowing when to walk away from a chat, and how to take your best thinking with you, is one of the most useful AI habits you can build. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I unpack why long chat threads lose their way and how to move your work into a fresh chat without leaving the good stuff behind. 

What you'll learn: 

• The point in a chat thread where AI becomes more likely to hallucinate 

• How to think about the lifespan of a chat thread 

• The simple way to carry your work into a new chat, and where it falls short 

• What a strong handoff brief includes, and why its opening lines matter 

• The signs it's time to start fresh, even before AI goes off track 

• Practical AI tools for productivity and focus 

• Real-world AI workflows used by high performers 

• How to use AI at work without burning out 

• Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load 

Download Neo's handoff skill here: https://amantha-imber.kit.com/e53f183014 

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.  

How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. 

Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. 

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  

Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/  

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

Get in touch at [email protected]  

Credits:  

Host: Amantha Imber  

Sound Engineer: Martin Imber 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.