How I Work

The more AI tools you use, the more productive you get. Right? 

Not exactly. Boston Consulting Group leader Gabriella Rosen Kellerman studied what actually happens to people who are using AI intensively at work, and what she found is that beyond a certain point, something breaks. Not burnout. Something different, something the existing research wasn't equipped to explain, and something that organisations are currently making worse without realising it. 

In this episode, I sit down with Gabriella to unpack AI Brain Fry: what it is, who is most at risk, and why the sweet spot for productivity might be far fewer tools than you think. We also get into what managers are doing, often unknowingly, that adds 15% more mental fatigue to their teams, and the one cultural message that does more to protect employees than any AI policy. 

If you have ever ended the day feeling strangely depleted despite not having done anything physically tiring, this episode will name what's happening and tell you what to do about it. 

Gabriella and I discuss: 

• What AI Brain Fry is and why it sits outside the existing burnout literature 

• Which roles are showing the highest rates of brain fry and what that signals about AI oversight work more broadly 

• The productivity cliff: why two to three AI tools is the sweet spot, and what happens to output beyond that 

• What the most sophisticated AI users do differently to the people with 25 browser tabs open 

• The two manager behaviours that either cut mental fatigue by 15% or actually increase it 

• Why some common organisational messages about AI are making employees more vulnerable to fatigue, not less 

• The 10/20/70 rule that most organisations are skipping entirely in their AI rollouts 

• How to do an informal audit of whether your team is currently suffering from brain fry 

Key quotes 

"The goal is to develop acute self-awareness of our own intelligence as we come to meet this new alien intelligence." 

"AI is completely changing the psychology and behaviour of work. Brain Fry is a proof point of that." 

Connect with Gabriella Rosen Kellerman on LinkedIn and her website, and check out her research and writing at Harvard Business Review. 

If you enjoyed this chat with Gabriella, I think you'd also love the first time she came on How I Work, where we talked all about thriving in times of uncertainty. You can find that episode here. 

My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. 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-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.

Every time you open a new AI chat, you're starting from scratch. You type out the background, explain your role, describe the project. Then you do it again tomorrow. And the day after.

There's a better way, and it takes about 15 minutes over a cup of coffee.

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through the briefing document - a single context file that gives AI everything it needs to understand your world before you've typed a single word.

Neo and I cover:

• Why context now matters more than a well-crafted prompt, and why even a clever prompt without background will give you a great average response rather than something targeted
• What a briefing document is and why recreating that context in every new chat leads to lazy, generic results
• How to use AI's advanced voice mode to interview you about your job so the briefing document gets built conversationally, not typed from scratch
• The exact interview prompt we give Inventium AI workshop participants
• Real examples from Neo's setup, including documents for Inventium's products and services, his AI programs, and a current client project
• Real examples from Amantha's setup, including documents for managing her team, the How I Work and How I AI podcasts, and her upcoming book
• Two ways to store and deploy briefing documents

The prompt for creating a briefing document:

“Run a short, adaptive interview that captures only what matters about my role, context, stakeholders, and how I work, then produce a single structured briefing that covers all information.

Be efficient, inquisitive rather than prescriptive, and tailor the depth and questions to my role and signals.”

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 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: Martin Imber

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're in sales. Even if your job title has nothing to do with sales, you are selling every single day. Ideas, proposals, budget requests, buy-in. The only question is whether you're any good at it.

In part two of our chat, I sit down with Sabri Suby, founder of King Kong and a shark on the most recent season of Shark Tank Australia, to get into the skills that have helped him close over $300 million in deals. We cover how he trained himself to communicate with clarity and authority, why he believes the video sales letter is the single most powerful tool any business can have, and the negotiation mistakes that cost people deals before they've even started.

Whether you're pitching to a client, selling an idea to your leadership team, or trying to get your team bought into a new direction, this episode will change how you think about communication.

Sabri and I discuss:

• How Sabri built his communication skills from scratch, starting at 16 in a Byron Bay call centre
• The "game tape" method: why watching and listening back to yourself is the fastest way to improve
• How to eliminate filler words and why pausing is more powerful than filling the silence
• What a video sales letter is and why Sabri believes it's the most leveraged tool in any business
• How to apply the VSL approach inside a corporate setting, from pitching ideas to running internal meetings
• Why the deal is closed in the discovery, not the close
• The one mistake almost everyone makes going into a negotiation
• Why you should always negotiate price and terms separately

Key quotes

"Communication is the number one superpower that you can ever get."

"Whether you like it or not, you're in sales. Everything that you want is a commission."

Connect with Sabri Suby on Instagram and LinkedIn and check out KingKong.

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.

You are almost certainly doing most of your computer work the slow way.

Think about the last time you sat down to write an email, rename a file, or work through a tricky problem at your desk. Chances are, your fingers went straight to the keyboard. And you are not alone — when Neo and I ask audiences how much of their computer time is spent typing versus talking, almost everyone is close to 100% typing.

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I make the case for voice as a core part of your workflow, not just a novelty. We cover when talking beats typing, how the different voice modes in your AI tools actually work, and the specific software we both rely on day to day.

Neo and I cover:

• Why talking is faster than typing for most people
• The science behind why voice unlocks better ideas
• When talking is clearly better
• When typing still wins
• The difference between dictation mode and advanced voice mode in tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini, and which to use for different purposes.
• wisprflow.ai, Amantha's go-to dictation software
• Other dictation tools worth knowing about
• How to combine voice and typing in a one-two punch

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 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: Martin Imber

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if the secret to getting more done was to stop doing things?

Sabri Suby, founder of King Kong, one of Australia's fastest-growing digital agencies and a shark on the most recent season of Shark Tank Australia, has built his entire work philosophy around subtraction. He audits every hour of his week, limits meetings to two days, and has trained his "fixer" to keep the outside world from ever reaching him.

In part one of our two-part conversation, I sit down with Sabri to get inside the full system, including his Kings Audit process, his deep work routine, and the Dream Day exercise that keeps him from chasing shiny new objects.

Sabri and I discuss:

• The Kings Audit: how to find exactly where your time is going and calculate the true cost of low-value tasks
• Why Sabri only takes meetings on Mondays and Fridays, and how he keeps them to 15-minute increments
• How he trained his "fixer" to act as a gatekeeper, screening requests before they ever reach him
• How to protect your most valuable hours
• How to automate your personal life so your time at home is genuinely high quality
• Shiny object syndrome: why most businesses stall because they chase too many things
• The Dream Day exercise for getting clear on your goals before saying yes to anything
• Why "no" is Sabri's default answer, and the framework he uses for decisions that aren't a clear yes or no

Key quotes

"The way that you focus is through subtraction. It's not by addition."

"New levels have new devils. A lot of the time, to get to that new level, you're gonna have to give away something that you really, really love."

Connect with Sabri Suby on Instagram and LinkedIn and check out KingKong.

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.

There is a moment most people have had in a meeting: the AI bot joins before your guest does, someone has to awkwardly ask if recording is okay, and the whole dynamic shifts. It is enough friction that most people just give up and go back to scribbling notes by hand.

There is a better way, and it does not involve anyone knowing a bot is even in the room.

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I do a deep dive into Granola.ai, the meeting transcription tool that has become non-negotiable for both of us at Inventium. We get into how it works differently to most recording tools, how we handle the privacy conversation with external guests, and why having every internal meeting captured has actually made us better at our jobs.

Neo and I cover:

• Why most AI meeting recorders create more friction than they solve, and why recording is still not the default for most people's meetings.
• How Granola transcribes meetings in the background without joining as a participant, recording no audio or video, making it far less intrusive than most tools.
• The way Granola combines your own real-time notes with its transcript, using what you type as a signal for what mattered most in the conversation.
• Why at Inventium, every internal meeting including one-on-ones is captured in Granola by default, and what that means for psychological safety and team culture.
• The simple line Amantha's EA includes in every external meeting invite to let guests know Granola is running.
• A free, open-source alternative called Hyprnote (hyprnote.app) for those who are budget-constrained or unable to install Granola.

Here are the tools mentioned in this episode:

1. Granola.ai — AI meeting transcription tool that runs in the background without joining as a meeting participant. Integrates with Google and Microsoft.
2. Hyprnote (hyprnote.app) — open-source alternative to Granola, available on Mac and Windows.

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 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: Martin Imber

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Being prepared is one of those things that sounds straightforward until you actually look at a leader's calendar. Back-to-back meetings, a constant stream of reports from different teams, and negotiations that require you to know the full history of a relationship before you've even said hello.

The pressure to be across everything is massive. The time to actually get there rarely is.

In this episode, I sit down with Joseph Lyons, President of ELMO Software, to talk about how he uses AI in genuinely practical, day-to-day ways. From personalised daily briefs for his exec team to turning a six-hour strategy workshop into clear, actionable outputs, Joe shares how AI is reshaping the way he prepares, thinks, and leads.

We also get into how he uses AI to prepare for tough conversations, role play negotiations, and synthesise complex information across teams into something actually useful. If you’re curious about how AI can go beyond simple productivity hacks and genuinely improve the quality of your thinking, this episode is full of practical ideas you can apply straight away.

Joe and I discuss:

• The ELT productivity agent Joe's team built, and how it delivers a personalised daily brief to each exec member every morning via Slack
• Why Zoom's AI summary wasn't enough for a six-hour strategy workshop, and what Joe used instead
• How he prepares for negotiations by feeding customer history, contract details, and commercial positions into AI to map out the game theory before the conversation begins
• Using Claude Voice in the car to think through difficult performance conversations and build a talk track before arriving at the office
• Why giving AI as much context as possible upfront is the key to getting useful output
• How Joe is using AI to synthesise reports from five or six different functions into a single, coherent weekly view with clear recommendations

Key quotes

"It's increasingly becoming my assistant in pretty much everything that I'm doing."

"We were really conscious while we were in the meeting, like no one needing to take notes. We would actively talk to the AI and make sure we were clear on capturing actions."

Connect with Joe Lyons on LinkedIn and check out ELMO Software at elmosoftware.com.au.

Today's podcast was brought to you by ELMO Software. And they have a gift for you.

If you work in HR, this free five-minute assessment is worth your time. ELMO Software's AI Maturity Assessment benchmarks you across two dimensions: whether you have the right foundations in place, and whether AI is actually delivering results. The assessment was built from research with 1,200+ HR leaders across Australia and New Zealand, so you're benchmarking against people navigating the same landscape as you. You'll get a personalised report with where you sit against ANZ peers, your biggest opportunities, and concrete next steps. Basically: it tells you whether your AI investment is paying off (or going nowhere).

Take it 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.

Download Inventium.ai's anti-AI slop prompt here: https://amantha-imber.kit.com/d5f746bd3e

You can always tell when something's been written by AI. The LinkedIn post that opens with "in today's fast-paced world." The article that ends with "it's not about X, it's about Y." Technically fine, but somehow hollow. Like it was written by nobody in particular.

The frustrating part is that this can happen even when you're doing the real thinking. You write the ideas, hand it to AI for a cleanup, and it flattens your voice, packs it with em-dashes, and strips out everything that sounded like you.

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I get into the specific instructions you can give AI to keep your writing sounding human, and share some of the most overused AI words and phrases worth banning from your prompts entirely.

Neo and I cover:

• Why sounding like AI is a credibility problem, even when you've done the actual thinking and are only using AI to refine and edit your work.
• The single most important instruction to give AI when asking it to clean up your writing.
• Why em-dashes are so hard to eliminate from AI output, and the specific phrasing (including pasting in the actual dash character) that gives you the best chance of getting rid of them.
• Using a ninth-grade reading level as a brief to keep language plain, accessible, and free of jargon.
• Why it's fine to let AI start a sentence with "and" or "but" occasionally, and which stiff transition words (like "additionally" and "moreover") to ban outright.
• What "corrective antithesis" is, why AI overuses it, and how to cut it down with a simple instruction and example in your prompt.
• Amantha's process for building a mega anti-AI slop prompt.
• How to build your own personal banned-words list, so AI stops using words that don't sound like you.

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 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: Martin Imber

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**Record a question for Amantha’s next Ask Me Anything here: https://www.speakpipe.com/howiwork **  

It's Ask Me Anything time!

I asked listeners of How I Work to send in the biggest challenges they’re facing at work right now: from AI overwhelm to constant meetings to feeling busy but not actually making progress.

In this Ask Me Anything episode, I tackle questions like:

• Why AI is making some people busier, not more productive
• How to reclaim focus when your day is full of meetings
• The biggest productivity mistake I see smart people make
• What actually helps prevent burnout (hint: it’s not yoga at lunchtime)

Plus I share practical strategies you can start using immediately — including my LiPS prioritisation strategy, ways we reduce meetings at Inventium, and how to protect your energy at work.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, distracted, or stuck in “busy mode”, this episode is for you.

Amantha recommends: 

These are a few of the tools we use at Inventium to reduce meetings, communicate more effectively, and get work done faster.

• Loom: http://loom.com/ Our go-to for async communication. Instead of jumping on a meeting, we’ll record a quick video to share updates, feedback, or walkthroughs.
• Tella: https://www.tella.tv/ A more polished version of Loom. I use this a lot for client-facing communication – especially when walking through proposals or ideas in a more engaging way.

If you’re looking to go beyond just “using AI” and actually start saving time with it, check out Inventium’s latest AI programs for 2026 - designed to help you use AI strategically and creatively in your work. https://www.inventium.ai/  

Have a question you want me to answer in the next AMA episode? Reach out via email ([email protected]) or socials – I’d love to hear from you! 

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: Martin Imber 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

That wall of industry newsletters in your inbox isn’t a reading list. It’s a stress list. 

You tell yourself you’ll get to them later. You don’t. And the pile keeps growing. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I explore how to use AI as a structured research assistant. Not just to summarise articles, but to filter signal from noise, prioritise what’s actually relevant to you, and automatically deliver regular briefings so you don’t even have to remember to run the search. 

Neo and I cover: 

• How to give AI the right context so it knows exactly what “new” means to you 

• Why vague prompts produce vague research – and how to fix that 

• How to define trusted sources and instruct AI where to search 

• Structuring your report so it highlights impact, availability and practical relevance 

• How to ask AI to prioritise credible sources over hype 

• Setting up scheduled searches in ChatGPT using “schedule this” so reports run weekly or daily 

• How scheduling works in Copilot and what to know about current limits 

• Creating sections like quick hits, watch lists and hype watch to make reports easier to scan 
• Why you should always request links so you can verify and dive deeper 

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn and via 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 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: Martin Imber 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.