How I Work

Laura Mae Martin has my dream job - she is Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor. Her job is to advise the top folk at Google on how to be more productive. In this chat, we cover: * Ruthless Prioritisation: the importance of saying no to good things to make room for great things. * Sunday Planning Ritual: Laura’s ritual of planning the upcoming week every Sunday, and her exact process for doing...

Unlock the secret to skyrocketing your productivity with a simple, yet powerful approach to managing your daily tasks. In this Quick Win episode, Professor Adam Alter, New York Times bestselling author of Anatomy of a Breakthrough and master of efficiency, reveals his top strategy for preventing small tasks from derailing your big goals. Learn how to transform your workflow, clear your mental clut...

Kemi Nekvapil loves a ritual. And my goodness, she has some good ones. From her 24 things for 2024 through to her annual planning and reflection rituals, Kemi lives a purposeful life. And that’s what I expected from one of Australia’s leading coaches who has been trained personally by Brene Brown, along with being the international best-selling author of Power. So what are Kemi’s secrets to being...

How much power can just a few words hold? Turns out: a lot. In this Quick Win episode, Olympian Libby Trickett reveals the invaluable advice that changed her life: the power phrase. Facing the challenges of asthma and bronchitis while competing in the world championships, Libby adopted a mantra that propelled her to victory and later helped her navigate life beyond sports. My new book The Health H...

In a world where success and connection often feel inseparable from our digital devices, it's rare to hear about someone going to extreme lengths to break free. Yet that's exactly what Kristina Karlsson did. Kristina, best known as the founder of the beloved kikki. K stores, shares her remarkable journey from the highs of global expansion to the lows of having her company put into administration....

Have you ever found yourself drowning in a sea of tasks, feeling like there's never enough time to think deeply about the things that truly matter? Mel Silva, who heads up Google's Australian and NZ business, has been there, and she's found a powerful solution. Thinking Days. And in today's Quick Win episode, you'll learn how to create your own. My new book The Health Habit is out now. Order your...

Singing, dancing, and performing eight shows a week, Broadway star Andy Karl is no stranger to the grind of musical theater. Andy reveals the physical and vocal warm-up routines he depends on to bring his A-game to the stage each day. From tackling vocal warm-up hacks to staying healthy during demanding performances, Andy shares insights that are invaluable for anyone with a high-intensity schedul...

Are you tired of spending too much time composing emails or writing reports from scratch? Do you wish you had more time to focus on the core of your work rather than the administrative tasks? In today's quick win episode, Wharton Professor Katy Milkman shares her favourite time saving hack - the template. From responding to emails to pursuing goals, Katy has unlocked the power of templates to save...

Imagine walking into a one-on-one meeting with your boss and leaving feeling not just heard, but genuinely empowered. It almost sounds too good to be true, but Professor Steven Rogelberg, a renowned organisational psychologist, insists it's not only possible but essential. In this episode of How I Work, I sit down with Steven to peel back the layers on what makes for effective one-on-one meetings...

If you’re anything like me or the guests on How I Work, you want to optimise absolutely everything. But when you’re after the best, sometimes ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough. So what do you do when you know exactly how to optimise something, but the right tool doesn’t exist yet?  If you’re Ulrich Dempfle, you build that tool yourself! After learning about REHIT, a very short but very intense exerc...

Smartphones are so ubiquitous today that living without one sounds like something only monks and mountain hermits would be able to do. While many of us crave an extended break from our addictive little pocket-computers, it’s hard to imagine actually making it work. So how did Ryan Shelton pull it off?  The comedian, actor and co-host of The Imperfects podcast felt like his phone was beginning to c...

Dom Price’s health journey didn’t start where he expected. In fact, it started in phases… Phase one was a realisation. He’s always lived like a youngster - he’s energetic, excitable, passionate, and incredibly busy. This made him think he was immortal, even if he wasn’t exactly pursuing a healthy lifestyle. But he realised he was mortal the hard way when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer a couple...

Struggling with the endless cycle of distractions? You're not alone. On this episode of How I Work, I sit down with the wizard of focus, Nir Eyal, who's literally written the book on becoming indistractable. Nir's sharing some top-tier life hacks that go beyond typical self-help fluff. Think about turning every decision into a personal experiment, having actual uninterrupted time with your family,...

Lisa Leong discovered the hard way that you can be both fit and unhealthy. While working a high-powered (read: high stress) job that required her to fly around the world, she thought she might need some balance. For some reason, she thought training for an Olympic-distance marathon was the way to do it!  Between working marathon hours and training for a literal marathon, she didn’t have time to sl...

Are you tossing and turning every night, struggling to get the restorative sleep you crave? Or perhaps you find yourself reaching for that comfort bar of chocolate a little too often? I can most definitely relate - or at least I could - before I applied some clever behaviour change strategies that I write about in my new book, The Health Habit :) In today’s episode, I share my own health habits th...

Have you ever wondered what goes into getting a book into the world? To celebrate the launch of my new book, I’m taking you behind the scenes of The Health Habit. In this episode, I share how I came up with the idea, the process of pitching it to Penguin Random House (my publisher), how I wrote the manuscript in record time, and everything else involved in getting a book onto shelves. My new book...

Hall passes are one of the most powerful strategies we can use when it comes to making new habits stick. I explore the "what the hell" effect, the benefits of flexible routines, and the surprising impact of cheat days. Get ready to learn practical strategies for staying on track with your goals, even when life throws you curveballs.  Today’s episode is an extract from my new book The Health Habit,...

Self-identity plays a huge role in shaping our behaviors and decision-making. So it stands to reason that if you want to make a big change to your life, you might need to change your self-identity. I reveal what the research says about self-identity and health habits. I also share some practical steps to help you recreate your own identity and solidify your commitment to new and better habits.  To...

We often hear about how bad social media is for our health. Today, I flip that assumption on its head and explain how you can leverage social media for good. Discover the power of social normative theory, how good habits are contagious, and the influence of social media on our behaviors and expectations. Learn how to strategically curate your social media feed to align with your health goals, whet...

Did you know that the sequence in which you eat can affect your blood glucose levels? Studies have shown that the order in which you consume vegetables, proteins/fats, and carbohydrates can make a significant difference. By simply changing the order of your meal, you can potentially reduce glucose spikes by up to 75% and experience benefits including increased energy levels and a greater sense of...

Are you striving for a healthier life? I explore the popular notion of taking 10,000 steps per day for better health. Is this magic number really all it's cracked up to be? Let's uncover the truth by delving into the scientific research behind the ideal number of steps to take per day to reduce the risk of premature death. Today’s episode is an extract from my new book The Health Habit, which come...

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 January 9, 2024. Learn more about it and pre-order it here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/ *** Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin Instagram   If yo...

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 truly begun.  But it didn’t. Why not? Where did Hugh find the strength to keep pursuing his goals, even after messing up the best opportunity he’d ever had?  Hugh’s a master s...

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 topic… And finalised it at the last minute.  However, for a self-proclaimed master procrastinator, Tim sure gets a lot done. And thankfully, among the many, many...

**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 wasn’t exactly pumped. That is, until author Matthew Dicks explained the benefits.  Matthew’s the bestselling author of a slew of novels and non-fiction books, he’s written a rock opera, multip...