How I Work

By Amantha Imber

Education Business Careers

What's How I Work about?

Have you ever wondered if the worlds’ leading entrepreneurs, writers, musicians and business people construct their day differently to you? How I Work delves into the working days of some of the world’s most successful innovators. We discuss tactics, rituals and tricks they use to achieve so much more than the average person, despite having the same number of hours in the day.

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LAST EPISODE

Improve Your Sleep with the...

11.22.2023

Are you struggling to get a good night's sleep? In today's episode, I explore a fascinating and science-backed strategy called the pre-sleep task dump. Today’s episode is an extract from my new book The Health Habit, which comes out on ...

How I Work episodes:

11.22.2023 Improve Your Sleep with the Pre-Sleep Task Dump: A Key to Productivity and Well-being Are you struggling to get a good night's sleep? In today's episode, I explore a fascinating and science-backed strategy called the pre-sleep task dump. Today’s episode is an extract from my new book The Health Habit, which comes out on ...
11.15.2023 BEST OF: Hugh Van Cuylenburg on how to build rapport quickly What does it take to make someone give up on their dream? Which straw breaks the camel’s back? For Hugh Van Cuylenburg, a simple but critical mistake in his calendar almost spelt the end of The Resilience Project before it’d ...
11.08.2023 BEST OF: Tim Urban on seeing the bigger picture and beating procrastination You think you’ve got a procrastination problem? TIm Urban, the man behind the sensationally popular blog Wait But Why reckons he might have you covered. He’s so well-acquainted with procrastination, in fact, that he gave a TED talk on the ...
11.01.2023 BEST OF: Matthew Dicks teaches you to think and write like a master storyteller BEST OF If there’s anything I don’t miss about my school days, it’s homework - and I’ll bet you feel the same. So when my new favourite book on storytelling told me I needed to do “homework for life,” I ...
10.25.2023 BONUS: Have we got work all wrong? Modern work principles with Almanac CEO Adam Nathan The way we work has never changed quite as much as it did during the pandemic. Sure, you probably knew a couple of people with home offices or flexible hours, but after lockdowns, remote work went from a rarity to ...
10.18.2023 Why Adam Alter’s to-do list system is so simple Adam Alter might just have the simplest productivity system of anyone I’ve interviewed. He uses a to-do list app, but it’s barely more advanced than a piece of paper. He values deep work, but he doesn’t build his life around ...
10.11.2023 What if you turned into a different person overnight? Interviewing my dad, Martin Imber Despite living in Australia for his entire life, my dad speaks with a Polish accent. But that’s not all that’s different about him since he suffered a stroke in 2009… Martin Imber always considered himself a logical, “right-brained” person - ...
10.04.2023 Susan Carland on simplicity, discipline and the power of play If you’re into productivity or life-hacking, you’ve probably come across some pretty unusual tips and tools recently: we’re talking automatic ice baths, full-scale saunas, magic mushroom teas, and a whole lot of multi-hour morning routines. While I love a wild ...
09.27.2023 Tom Boyd on life after AFL, making better decisions and working for a purpose No two careers will ever look exactly the same, but few of them look anything like a professional sporting career. Former AFL player Tom Boyd is the prime example: he’d worked towards the same goal since his early childhood, and ...
09.20.2023 Katy Milkman wants to leave things better than she found them What matters most when pursuing a goal? Discipline? Routine? Accountability? All of those are important, sure, but how come nobody ever mentions fun? Economist and Wharton professor Katy Milkman wants to change that: according to research out of the Univeristy ...
09.13.2023 My Favourite Tip: Matthew Dicks - How to craft a great story The greatest stories inspire, terrify, inform and change us. They might change our lives, or simply help us get through the day. But if we know how central stories are to the human experience, why don’t more of us learn ...
09.06.2023 My Favourite Tip: Nigel Marsh - Identity after 60 When he reached 60, Nigel Marsh realised his most ‘conventionally’ successful days might be behind him… But what does that actually mean? After a long and lucrative career in the commercial sector, Nigel knew the day would come when he’d ...
08.30.2023 My Favourite Tip: Wil Anderson - What separates the professionals from the hobbyists Wil Anderson knows you think your mates are funnier than him, but that doesn’t bother him. After more than two decades dominating the Australian comedy scene, Wil’s learned that his job isn’t just to be funny: his job is to ...
08.23.2023 My Favourite Tip: Tim Urban - Does a picture really speak a thousand words? On his enormously popular blog, Wait But Why, Tim Urban writes about some pretty heavy topics. He’s covered North Korea, the state of American politics and culture, and Elon Musk’s rise to fame, to name just a few. So you ...
08.16.2023 My Favourite Tip: Nick McKenzie - An unusual ice breaker Among great thinkers, the long walk or run is nothing new. Philosophers, artists, novelists and world leaders have long espoused the value of solitude for working through thorny problems. Award-winning investigative journalist Nick McKenzie is no different. Whether he’s stuck ...
08.09.2023 My Favourite Tip: Matthew Dicks - The most critical ingredient of a great story Matthew Dicks is a master storyteller, and he’s just as committed to understanding great stories as he is to crafting them himself. The author, school teacher and writing coach has spent years studying stories, trying to figure out why they ...
08.02.2023 Mel Silva shares leadership lessons from inside Google What does it take to lead one of the world’s most creative and innovative companies? Mel Silva’s been with Google for over 16 years, and now as the Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand, she’s a pivotal part of ...
07.26.2023 My Favourite Tip: Ann Handley - Train your writing muscles every day You’ve heard it a million times - improving your writing will make you better at just about any job you can think of. But how do you actually improve? How do you hone the craft? Marketing expert and bestselling author ...
07.19.2023 My Favourite Tip: Melissa Doyle - We are all vital “We’re all cogs in a wheel,” Melissa Doyle tells her kids. “But we’re all vital…” As one of Australia’s favourite TV presenters, you won’t be surprised to learn Melissa fields a lot of requests for career advice. But at the ...
07.12.2023 My Favourite Tip: Nigel Marsh - Great coaches ask great questions Nigel Marsh doesn’t suffer fools - even when they pay him! After an enormously successful career in the commercial sector, Nigel’s now a bestselling author, and the host of the hit podcast, Five of My Life, and a highly sought-after ...
07.09.2023 HAPPY FAMILIES CROSSOVER: Practical ways to instantly remove stress from your life Feeling overwhelmed? You’re not alone. In this episode of the Happy Families crossover series you’ll learn some low-effort and high-impact ways to remove reoccurring stressors in your life. Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin Twitter Instagram If you’re looking ...
07.05.2023 My Favourite Tip: Elise McCann - A different kind of perfect pitch Workers in the modern age are already changing careers far more frequently than previous generations - but that doesn’t make transitioning any easier, especially when you’re moving into an entirely different field. Elise McCann can confirm: the actor, singer and ...
07.02.2023 HAPPY FAMILIES CROSSOVER: Easy ways to make exercise fit into your busy life Staying healthy doesn’t need to be a pain. In this episode of the Happy Families crossover series you’ll hear some tips and tricks to get exercise into your life in a meaningful way – no matter how busy your home ...
06.28.2023 BONUS: How does the Four Day Week actually work? Ask Me Anything If you’ve listened to How I Work for a while, you’ve definitely heard me talk about the Four Day Week, and how much we love it at Inventium. But if you want to implement the practice at your own organisation, ...
06.25.2023 HAPPY FAMILIES CROSSOVER: How to achieve the elusive work-life balance In this episode of the Happy Families crossover series we cover all things work life balance. Is it even possible in 2023? Yes, but you have to set some strong guidelines and keep them enforced. You’ll get actionable tips to ...
06.21.2023 Mason Cox isn’t your average athlete, and he doesn’t want to be In case you weren’t already aware - artificial intelligence is well and truly everywhere now. Even professional athletes are speeding up their online interactions with the help of ChatGPT! Or maybe that’s just American-Australian AFL player Mason Cox, who calls ...
06.18.2023 HAPPY FAMILIES CROSSOVER: How to get a great night's sleep Who doesn’t love a collaboration? This is the first episode in a four-week crossover series with the popular podcast Happy Families all about how to improve health and wellbeing in your home life. In this episode we talk about why ...
06.14.2023 Do therapists take their own advice? Interviewing my mum, Doris Brett We psychologists tend to lean more on science and statistics when thinking about how best to live our lives… but sometimes numbers and statistics don’t give us the whole, human picture. Sometimes, even the professionals need a good old-fashioned chat ...
06.07.2023 Lucy Durack won’t wait for happiness to just happen Lucy Durack is on the edge of a nervous breakdown… Or at least, that’s how it can sometimes feel on opening night of a new play or musical. If she lets her focus lie on all the production notes, line ...
05.31.2023 Mel Schilling shares the advice that changed her career forever When the smash-hit reality TV show Married At First Sight started airing in Australia, Mel Schilling wasn’t one of its relationship experts - but she was one of its biggest fans. Her husband noticed, and understood why: it was right ...
05.24.2023 Christian O’Connell’s mission is to live in the moment After more than twenty years dominating the radio waves in both the UK and Australia, Christian O’Connell has talked to just about everyone, and they’ve covered just about everything. In order to keep his show exciting and engaging after so ...
05.17.2023 Writer and podcaster Jessie Stephens is learning how to switch off If you’ve been anywhere near the internet in the last few years, you’ve almost definitely come across something made by Jessie Stephens. If you’re a podcast junkie, you’ll have heard her on Mamamia Out Loud, or Cancelled. If you’re more ...
05.15.2023 My Favourite Tip: Leo Babauta - Write like a software engineer As the founder of the hugely popular blog, Zen Habits, Leo Babauta’s built a reputation for seeking simplicity in work and in life. So it might be surprising to hear that he often looks to the tech world for inspiration… ...
05.10.2023 Libby Trickett applies the athlete’s mindset to life after the Olympics It’s hard to imagine a more disciplined and demanding lifestyle than that of a professional athlete. Whether it’s the countless hours of training, the highly regimented eating, or the mounting mental pressure of upcoming competitions, athletes leave little to chance. ...
05.08.2023 My Favourite Tip: Patrick Lightbody - Insider tips for mastering your calendar If you want something done right, do it yourself. Or at least, that’s the approach Patrick Lightbody takes. After years of wrestling with different physical planners and calendar apps, Patrick decided to make his own. So how does someone who ...
05.01.2023 My Favourite Tip: Wil Anderson - How to make anything funny There’s an old story about an aspiring comedian meeting Jerry Seinfeld, and asking his advice on success in the entertainment industry. Seinfeld told the budding comic that great comedy is nothing more than great jokes, so the aim is to ...
04.24.2023 My Favourite Tip: Matt Jones - Design frameworks to foster better decision-making Why would Four Pillars Gin turn down the opportunity to open another distillery? That’s an important question, because the answer isn’t necessarily obvious. After all, more must be better, right? That depends, and to avoid falling into a never-ending cycle ...
04.17.2023 My Favourite Tip: Hugh Van Cuylenburg - Vulnerability is a speed-boost for connecting with others Hugh Van Cuylenburg was not having a great time, to say the least. He was already unpopular with his then-pregnant wife for being out of town while she and their children all had COVID (and fair enough, he says!), when ...
04.10.2023 My Favourite Tip: Leo Babauta - Simplicity is a process, not a goal We all want to simplify our lives, and especially our work lives, and that’s hardly surprising: the modern age is defined by distraction and excess. But Leo Babauta, the founder of Zen Habits, worries that our culture’s desire for simplicity ...
04.03.2023 My Favourite Tip: Sarah Wilson - Harness the magic of hiking for mental clarity Since publishing her beloved book about anxiety, Sarah Wilson’s been bombarded with questions about its opposite: calm. And her answer is almost always the same - go for a hike! The combination of sustained but not too intense physical activity ...
03.27.2023 My Favourite Tip: Daniel Flynn - Make time for blue-sky thinking “What the? Thirty companies? I can barely run one!” Daniel Flynn couldn’t believe what he was hearing. As co-founder and managing director of thankyou, Daniel was struggling to keep a cool head, and asked a mentor for some advice. That ...
03.20.2023 My Favourite Tip: Tim Urban - Beat procrastination for good, not just for now Are you actually solving your procrastination problem, or are you just putting duct-tape over it and hoping you’ll stay afloat? Tim Urban, the writer behind the hugely popular blog, Wait But Why, is a self-described master procrastinator. He even delivered ...
03.13.2023 My Favourite Tip: The Listies - Better decision-making for business partners How do you break stalemate with your business partner? If you work alone, everything’s up to you, and if you’ve got three people at the helm, there’s always a decisive vote. But if it’s just you and one other person, ...
03.06.2023 My Favourite Tip: Patrick Lightbody - How the calendar experts manage their time You’ve probably heard the old adage, “what gets measured gets managed”, and when it comes to your time, it absolutely holds true. Knowing this, Patrick Lightbody co-founded Reclaim.ai to regain control over his own time, and to help others do ...
02.27.2023 My Favourite Tip: Ada Nicodemou - Switching off is serious work Ada Nicodemou has just wrapped filming for the day on Home & Away, and she’s feeling anything but relaxed as she gets in the car to drive home. After crying her eyes out in front of her colleagues over and ...
02.22.2023 Charlotte Rush breaks down Inventium’s culture experiments Have you heard of the Hybrid Paradox? Since the pandemic, a huge portion of knowledge workers have moved to some form of hybrid working arrangement, whether it’s working from home one day a week, or almost all the time. And ...
02.20.2023 My Favourite Tip: Eddie Perfect - Build procrastination into the process I have some bad news: no matter what you’re working on, you’re going to procrastinate at some point. Even if it’s a passion project, nobody can work without breaks forever. So… why not build procrastination into the process right from ...
02.15.2023 Award-winning journalist Nick McKenzie on death threats, confirmation bias and the power of insecurity What if your insecurity was actually your superpower? While confidence is critical in almost any career, it can be a secret killer for journalists. Nick McKenzie is Australia’s most decorated journalist, and he’s adamant that his natural insecurities are a ...
02.13.2023 My Favourite Tip: Richard Wiseman - What are you giving your audience when you perform? Why doesn’t psychologist and magician Richard Wiseman perform magic tricks for his friends? Richard says the ‘social contract’ he has with his live audiences is different to the one he has with his friends. A healthy dose of deception is ...
02.08.2023 Matthew Dicks teaches you to think and write like a master storyteller If there’s anything I don’t miss about my school days, it’s homework - and I’ll bet you feel the same. So when my new favourite book on storytelling told me I needed to do “homework for life,” I wasn’t exactly ...

Older episodes

How I Work

What's How I Work about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

How I Work episodes:

Improve Your Sleep with the Pre-Sleep Task Dump: A Key to Productivity and Well-being

BEST OF: Hugh Van Cuylenburg on how to build rapport quickly

BEST OF: Tim Urban on seeing the bigger picture and beating procrastination

BEST OF: Matthew Dicks teaches you to think and write like a master storyteller

BONUS: Have we got work all wrong? Modern work principles with Almanac CEO Adam Nathan

Why Adam Alter’s to-do list system is so simple

What if you turned into a different person overnight? Interviewing my dad, Martin Imber

Susan Carland on simplicity, discipline and the power of play

Tom Boyd on life after AFL, making better decisions and working for a purpose

Katy Milkman wants to leave things better than she found them

My Favourite Tip: Matthew Dicks - How to craft a great story

My Favourite Tip: Nigel Marsh - Identity after 60

My Favourite Tip: Wil Anderson - What separates the professionals from the hobbyists

My Favourite Tip: Tim Urban - Does a picture really speak a thousand words?

My Favourite Tip: Nick McKenzie - An unusual ice breaker

My Favourite Tip: Matthew Dicks - The most critical ingredient of a great story

Mel Silva shares leadership lessons from inside Google

My Favourite Tip: Ann Handley - Train your writing muscles every day

My Favourite Tip: Melissa Doyle - We are all vital

My Favourite Tip: Nigel Marsh - Great coaches ask great questions

HAPPY FAMILIES CROSSOVER: Practical ways to instantly remove stress from your life

My Favourite Tip: Elise McCann - A different kind of perfect pitch

HAPPY FAMILIES CROSSOVER: Easy ways to make exercise fit into your busy life

BONUS: How does the Four Day Week actually work? Ask Me Anything

HAPPY FAMILIES CROSSOVER: How to achieve the elusive work-life balance

Mason Cox isn’t your average athlete, and he doesn’t want to be

HAPPY FAMILIES CROSSOVER: How to get a great night's sleep

Do therapists take their own advice? Interviewing my mum, Doris Brett

Lucy Durack won’t wait for happiness to just happen

Mel Schilling shares the advice that changed her career forever

Christian O’Connell’s mission is to live in the moment

Writer and podcaster Jessie Stephens is learning how to switch off

My Favourite Tip: Leo Babauta - Write like a software engineer

Libby Trickett applies the athlete’s mindset to life after the Olympics

My Favourite Tip: Patrick Lightbody - Insider tips for mastering your calendar

My Favourite Tip: Wil Anderson - How to make anything funny

My Favourite Tip: Matt Jones - Design frameworks to foster better decision-making

My Favourite Tip: Hugh Van Cuylenburg - Vulnerability is a speed-boost for connecting with others

My Favourite Tip: Leo Babauta - Simplicity is a process, not a goal

My Favourite Tip: Sarah Wilson - Harness the magic of hiking for mental clarity

My Favourite Tip: Daniel Flynn - Make time for blue-sky thinking

My Favourite Tip: Tim Urban - Beat procrastination for good, not just for now

My Favourite Tip: The Listies - Better decision-making for business partners

My Favourite Tip: Patrick Lightbody - How the calendar experts manage their time

My Favourite Tip: Ada Nicodemou - Switching off is serious work

Charlotte Rush breaks down Inventium’s culture experiments

My Favourite Tip: Eddie Perfect - Build procrastination into the process

Award-winning journalist Nick McKenzie on death threats, confirmation bias and the power of insecurity

My Favourite Tip: Richard Wiseman - What are you giving your audience when you perform?

Matthew Dicks teaches you to think and write like a master storyteller