How I Work

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.  But what happens when an athlete retires? Which elements of the spartan lifestyle serve them well beyond the area, and which ones a...

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 designs calendar apps actually use it himself? Well, it begins with the past… Patrick believes that he can’t possibly be oriented towards what matters to him...

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 get as good as possible at writing jokes - and to get good at anything, you have to do it every day.  Australian comedy legend Wil Anderson concurs - and he’s spen...

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 of discussing what it depends on, Four Pillars co-founder Matt Jones and his team have developed a series of frameworks to aid their decision-...

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 a previously minor medical problem unexpectedly became very serious. After some painful injections, he managed to get on stage for a speaking engagement, only to finish his presenta...

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 might inadvertently be sending us down the wrong path.  Simplicity, Leo says, isn’t about deprivation. When you imagine the simple life, you might picture a m...

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 and the exposure to nature make hiking a uniquely powerful practice. When hiking for at least an hour, you enter an elevated, almost euphoric mental state,...

“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 mentor ran 30 companies, and his advice was that Daniel should clear his calendar for one day a week, every week, and use that day for thinking.  Initially, it sou...

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 a Ted Talk on the topic, and most of the speech was about how long he procrastinated writing the speech! But as a master procrastinator, Tim h...

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, how do you deal with a split decision?  Comedy duo Rich Higgins and Matt Kelly (better known as The Listies) have realised the only reliable solution to this problem is to introduce a...

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 the same.  Patrick shares some of the most useful calendar hacks he’s come across throughout his career, and they’re all features on the freely available Goo...

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 over and over again, her nerves are fried, and her emotions are all over the place.  That’s the day-to-day business of being an actor, but Ada’s learned that it doesn’t mesh well with her ho...

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 there’s been a tonne of benefits: setting our own schedules, working to our bodies’ natural rhythms, greater control of our environment… But do you ever just really, really mi...

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 the start?  Singer, songwriter and actor Eddie Perfect has been writing for more than two decades now, and over the years he’s discovered the wisdom behind an odd li...

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 big part of his success. When so much of his reputation and his competence relies on constant fact-checking and corroboration, there’s no such...

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 integral to magic, but doesn’t go down so well in a friendship. Thinking this way, considering which ‘social contract’ still applies when Richard’s performing, t...

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, multiple musicals...

You’re tackling a huge project - something that’ll take you multiple months, if not years. Maybe you’re writing a book, learning a new skill, or trying to build a workout routine. How often should you work on it?  Common sense might suggest you take it easy, space out your sessions, make sure you don’t get burned out. But what if the opposite is true?  Exercising every single day sounds like playi...

When marketing expert and author Ann Handley says everyone should improve their writing skills, she doesn’t mean we should all be turning our email exchanges into florid prose or epic tomes - while better writing absolutely makes for better emails, Ann’s real goal when working on her writing is actually to improve her thinking.  After her college professor told her that being a better writer would...

At Four Pillars Gin, they have a mantra: they’re ‘makers, not marketers’. Ironically, they have some of the best marketing in the world!  But it’s all about function, according to Co-Founder and Brand Director Matt Jones. If being ‘makers’ is such a big part of the Four Pillars appeal, customers need to get as close to that making process as they can. That’s what aesthetics is all about.  Whether...

**BEST OF 2022** If you know anything about magic, you know a true magician never reveals his secrets. While psychologist and author Richard Wiseman might not share the secrets behind his favourite magic tricks, he’s more than happy to share how magic has made him a better thinker, a better psychologist, and a better public speaker.  Richard also shares how focusing more intently on listening has...

Hugh van Cuylenburg hangs up the phone - he’s been speaking to his (very) pregnant wife, who’s struggling at home without him. He’s exhausted too, after days and days of back-to-back presentations. Oh, and the AC’s not working.  Needless to say, Hugh’s not feeling his best going into this presentation. But a couple of minutes into his speech, he spots a boy in the middle of the audience, and somet...

**BEST OF 2022** It’s the greatest productivity debate of our time: how do we achieve work-life balance? Or maybe the real debate should be: is work-life balance even possible?  Eric Barker, the author of Barking Up the Wrong Tree and now Plays Well With Others, doesn’t think work-life balance is truly achievable. At least, not if you want the best possible results in a given field. The problem, h...

Atlassian’s Dom Price is just like anyone else - some days, he just doesn’t want to get out of bed. The difference is: he stays in bed.  After decades of working at breakneck speed, Dom’s learning to listen to the signals his body sends him, and it’s working wonders.  But what about when it’s something beyond a bad day? What about when he’s feeling truly burnt out?  Dom’s theory is that part of wh...

**BEST OF 2022** For productivity geeks like us, the professional writer can become a bit of a mystic figure. When we fantasise about finally perfecting our morning routines, finally clearing out enough time for a fruitful Deep Work session, setting up the ideal workstation - we’re often thinking about a writer. There’s something idyllic about the idea of being a writer: it’s just you, your though...