How I Work

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.

You've read the books. You've locked the phone in a drawer. You've set a hard cut-off at 8 PM. And none of it has lasted more than two weeks. 

That's exactly where Shaun found himself. By day he's a senior corporate strategy leader at Bupa, and by night he's the volunteer operations manager for a junior footy club responsible for 450 kids across eight teams. The systems he runs at work are tight. The systems he runs at home? Nowhere to be seen. 

In this Work Edit, I sit down with Shaun to figure out why the productivity habits that protect him in his corporate role have never made it home, and what it would actually take to change that. We get into AI knowledge agents, ghost mode, setting expectations as an act of generosity, and a specific gratitude practice I think is worth trying even if you find most of them a bit naff. 

If you've ever been brilliant at boundary-setting for everyone else and terrible at it for yourself, this one's for you. 

Shaun and I discuss: 

• Why Shaun's corporate productivity systems work flawlessly at Bupa but have never crossed over into his volunteer role or home life 

• The AI knowledge agent idea: how building a self-serve FAQ for 450 families could cut the stream of evening messages and remove Shaun as the constant bottleneck 

• Staying in your lane: why context switching between work mode and parent mode leaves you doing neither well, and the simple question that helps you catch yourself doing it 

• Ghost mode: the difference between locking your phone away and actually choosing to be fully present, and why that reframe matters 

• Setting expectations as an act of generosity: how a simple autoresponder or comms window can relieve the guilt of not responding instantly, without making you seem rigid 

• Three good things: a specific gratitude practice, grounded in research, that quiets a busy work brain at night, and why doing it with your kids makes it even more powerful 

More from How I Work 

If you related to Shaun's struggle with an always-on role that never quite lets you clock off, I think you'll love my conversation with Katie. She's 18 months into a consulting portfolio career, and saying no is a muscle she's still building. Requests were multiplying faster than she could field them, which is honestly just the same problem wearing a different outfit. 

Listen to Katie's 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.

Most people treat AI like a vending machine: you show up, you ask, you wait. But what if there's another way to use it, one where the work gets done before you've even thought to ask for it. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I explore scheduled prompts: what they are, why they're worth setting up, and how to actually write one that works. 

What you'll learn: 

• What a scheduled prompt is and how it differs from a regular AI conversation 
• When it makes sense to run a prompt in the background rather than in real time 
• The kinds of recurring tasks that are well suited to scheduling 
• How to know when a scheduled prompt has actually run 
• Neo's trick for writing a prompt worth scheduling again and again 
• 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.

Hiring someone is one of the highest-stakes decisions a founder makes. Get it wrong and you can lose time, money, and momentum. And after 16 years of building Showpo from her parents' garage into a nine-figure business, Jane Lu is the first to admit they still do not always get it right. 

But across all those hires, she has landed on one single biggest red flag she screens for, and it is probably not what you would expect. 

In this episode, I sit down with Jane Lu, founder of Showpo, to talk about what that red flag is, how she structures interviews to surface it, why she has built her whole leadership philosophy around being a lazy CEO, and the distinction between dopamine tasks and dividend tasks that explains why so many of us feel busy but stuck. 

Jane and I discuss: 

• How Jane treats her calendar as her external brain, scheduling everything from supplements to podcast links to make good habits frictionless 

• The difference between dopamine tasks (inbox zero, Slack notifications) and dividend tasks (the work that compounds but offers no immediate reward) and how to stop letting the former crowd out the latter 

• Jane's content creation workflow and how she gradually built a small team of offshore editors to take the process off her plate 

• What 16 years of hiring has taught her about misaligned values and ego as the biggest red flags to screen for, and the specific interview questions she uses to uncover them 

• The accidental lesson in delegation that came from leaving her business to go to a music festival, and how it revealed what systems and a trusted team can do when the founder steps back 
• The case for being a lazy CEO: building the right culture, setting up strong systems, recruiting well, and then genuinely getting out of the way 

Key quotes 

"Being lazy is setting up the right systems and processes and really trusting your team." 

"The biggest red flag I personally look for when it comes to the wrong people is ego." 

Connect with Jane Lu on Instagram, LinkedIn and her website. 

More from How I Work 

Check out last week's conversation with Cyril Peupion, a great companion listen for anyone wanting a framework for protecting time for the work that actually matters. Listen here. 

And if you want to get clearer on what deserves your time and get better at saying no to the rest, we have pulled together a Spotify playlist of our favourite How I Work episodes on exactly that. Find it 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.

You've put in the work on your prompts. You know how to give AI the right context, set the right tone, ask the right questions. But then, mid-conversation, something shifts. The AI starts making things up, forgetting what you told it five minutes ago, contradicting itself. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I unpack what is actually happening when AI gets unreliable mid-conversation, including how to read the warning signs that tell you it is time to close a thread and start fresh. 

What you'll learn: 

• Why AI gets unreliable mid-conversation, and what's actually going on 

• What the 60% rule is and why it matters 

• Which file types quietly eat through your context window 

• The warning signs that it's time to close a thread and start fresh 

• 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.

There's a specific kind of exhaustion that comes not from working hard, but from never quite feeling like you've worked on the right things. You finish a full day, maybe a long one, and yet the projects that actually matter haven't moved. The inbox is cleaner, the meetings are done, but the needle hasn't shifted. 

Cyril Peupion has spent two decades coaching executives on exactly this problem, and his diagnosis is consistent: the issue is the gap between where leaders want to go and what they actually spend their time on. 

In this episode, I sit down with Cyril, author of Work Smarter, Live Better and his latest book Less Achieves More, to work through his practical framework for closing that gap. He has trained more than 5,000 people across 19 countries. 

Cyril and I discuss: 

• Why high performers prioritise by impact rather than by deadline, and how to train yourself to do the same 

• The quarterly big rocks process: how to choose two or three genuine priorities and find the courage to subtract everything else 

• The weekly planning ritual Cyril recommends, including why you should look at your big rocks before you ever open your calendar 

• The ideal week exercise that helps leaders reclaim 40% of their time without guilt 

• How to plan for the unplanned by deliberately blocking reactive time in your day 

• The four Ds (delete, decrease, defer, delegate) for handling the urgent stuff without sacrificing what matters most 

Key quotes 

"If you work 10 hours a day, you cannot plan 10 hours per day. It's a recipe for disaster." 

"I'd rather start my planning from the ideal and then adapt it than start my planning from an open sheet and let everything take control." 

Connect with Cyril Peupion on LinkedIn and his website. Check out his latest book Less Achieves More. 

If this episode resonated, I also recommend my conversation with Sabri Suby on the subtraction method, where he shares how he ruthlessly outsources anything that isn't his highest value work. You can 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.

When Dr Catriona Wallace was offered a million dollars to take out her nose ring, she didn’t hesitate. Her response wasn’t defiance - it was clarity. 

In this Quick Win, Catriona shares how she dealt with the sexism and double standards she faced as a tech CEO, from being told to “brush her hair” to being offered a million dollars to look more like the kind of leader investors expected. 

Her story is a reminder that staying true to yourself is sometimes the most strategic move you can make. 

Catriona and I discuss:  

• The moment Catriona was offered $1 million - if she removed her nose ring 

• The everyday misogyny she faced while leading a listed tech company 

• Why she refused to compromise, even when it cost her 

• How staying authentic became her greatest advantage as a leader 

• The ripple effect of saying “no” from self-respect, not rebellion 

KEY QUOTE: 

“The moment you start to compromise and change, more things will compromise and change — and you lose who you are.” 

Connect with Dr Catriona Wallace on Instagram, LinkedIn, and via her website. 
Check out her book Rapid Transformation for more on how to embrace change through technology and leadership. 

Listen to the full conversation with Catriona here 

My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/  

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-imber.ck.page/subscribe  

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.