How I Work

I am running a year-long experiment called My Year of Better. It’s my attempt to test out some science-backed strategies in my own life to become happier, more productive, more creative, and less stressed. If you would like to play along at home, join my pack of 1000+ lab rats at: https://amantha.substack.com/

On today’s show, I describe Experiment 1: Worry Time, which has been shown to be a very effective strategy to significantly reduce stress. 

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

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My guest today is Paul Migliorini. Paul leads the Amazon Web Services business across Australia and New Zealand - a role that he has been in for the last four years. Prior to joining AWS Paul held leadership roles in Asia and Australia with BT, Motorola, Regus and Ernst & Young, most recently as the CEO for Regus ANZ and Regional Managing Director for South Asia at BT.

I was keen to speak to Paul because I have heard a lot of things about Amazon’s culture and ways of working that fascinated me. And there is nothing better than being able to get an insider’s perspective on how it all works.

So if you have ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of one of the world’s fastest growing and most powerful companies, I think you’ll love my chat with Paul.

We cover:

• How Paul has dramatically changed his mobile phone behaviour
• Amazon’s 14 key leadership principles
• How being frugal leads to innovative
• The importance of “two pizza teams"
• Why leaders at Amazon do more coaching rather than managing
• Why input measures matter more than output measures
• The two types of decisions that can be made at Amazon and how this impacts decision-making speed
• The importance of disagreeing and committing to decisions
• How strong opinions are encouraged at Amazon
• How Amazon identifies people who will fit with the culture during the recruitment process
• The 50% test that Amazon use in their recruitment process
• Why Powerpoint is banned at Amazon
• The critical role of long form narratives at Amazon
• Why the first 15-20 minutes of meetings at Amazon are spent reading
• Why Amazon create fictitious press releases for products that don’t exist
• Amazon’s working backwards process
• Why Paul sees it as his job to say yes to as many requests as possible. 

Learn more about Amazon's Summit, check out career opportunities at Amazon and connect with Paul on Linkedin.

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's mini-episode describes a brand new project I am launching - My Year of Better. I'd love you to be a part of it.

Sign up here (it's free!).

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**BEST OF 2019**

My guest today is Dan Pink. Dan is the author of six bestselling books, including Drive, A Whole New Mind, and his latest book "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing", which has spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list. You might also be familiar with Dan through his TED talk about the surprising science of motivation, which has been viewed over 20 million times.

I am a big Dan Pink fan so I was very excited to be able to chat with him. I think he has such a knack for dissecting complex science and finding a way to make it not just accessible, but memorable and impactful for his readers.

We cover a bunch of things during this chat, including:

• How Dan works out whether an idea is great or whether it stinks
• How the idea behind his latest book "When" came to be
• The importance of the structure of a book, and Dan’s approach to mapping out a book’s structure
• Dan’s process for coming up with the title for a book or project
• How he came up with the title for Adam Grant’s bestselling book Give and Take
• Why Dan structures his work day into three distinct sections
• Why Dan isn’t a big believer in willpower
• How Dan constructs his working environment to make it easy to stay off digital distractions
• Dan’s approach to radically reducing the amount of emails he receives
• How Dan decides what to say yes to and what to say no to
• Dan’s approach for saying no politely
• Dan’s process for translating a book into a keynote speech
• Why Dan asks his wife to read his books out loud to him during the editing process

Find out more about Dan at danpink.com and subscribe to his newsletter right here. And you can check out his latest book When here.

For comprehensive show notes on this episode, go to: https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**BEST OF 2019**

My guest today is Marcus Buckingham. Marcus is the author of a stack of best-selling books, including First, Break All the Rules, Now, Discover Your Strengths, The One Thing You Need to Know, and Stand Out, to name a few. His latest book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Harvard Business Publishing, 2019) takes an in-depth look at the lies that pervade our workplaces and the core truths that will help us change it for the better.

Marcus has appeared on “Larry King Live,” “The Today Show” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and now leads People + Performance research at the ADP Research Institute and remains CEO The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC).

I was keen to get Marcus on the show as he is someone who challenges the status quo of how organisations operate, and I was keen to see how he had applied his advice in his own life.

In our chat, we cover:

• The four questions Marcus asks himself every week
• Why "do what you love" is bad advice
• Why “work-life balance” is an unhelpful concept
• How Marcus has reduced the amount of work he loathes and increased the amount of work he loves
• How Marcus reframed how he thinks about networking and mingling to find it more enjoyable
• How Marcus made firing people a less awful task
• Marcus’s process for creating great keynote presentations
• How Marcus thinks about the opening of his speeches
• Why the annual planning process organisations use is broken - and how to fix it
• Why Marcus thinks about work as a collection of projects

Find out more about Marcus via his website, get your hands on his most recent book Nine Lies About Work, and sign up to the Freethinking Leader Coalition.

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**BEST OF 2019**

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

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

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

We cover:

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

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

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

***BEST OF HOW I WORK***

I'm currently taking a few weeks off, so today's episode is a Best Of episode. I've gone back through the archives of the last 2.5 years of hosting How I Work and picked out my absolute favourite episodes!

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

In this chat, we cover:

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

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

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

You can find the full interview here.

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

You can find the full interview here.

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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

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

We cover:

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

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

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

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.