Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics used by the world's most successful people to get so much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day. This episode is another my favorite Tip episode. The title's probably pretty self explanatory. It's about my favorite tip from each of the interviews that I conduct. So on today's show,
my guest is Harris Faulkner. Harris is a multiple Emmy Award winning newscaster, anchor, and trailblazer in her field. Harris currently leads two daily programs on Fox News over in America, out Numbered over Time with Harris Faulkner, which airs every weekday from one to two pm Eastern Time, and she serves as the co host of out Numbered, which is also on every weekday from twelve to one Eastern Time.
Harris joined the Fox News channel in two thousand and five, so she is quite the veteran, and throughout her career, Harris has interviewed many notable figures, including President Trump, Senator John McCain and Bill Clinton, to name just a few. Now, in this my favorite Tip episode, what we get into talking about is how Harris blocks out downtime in her life, but more specifically, how she schedules time to be spontaneous. So let's head to Harris to hear exactly how she does that.
Well, I have to schedule downtime. I have to force myself to change what used to make me feel comfortable like I used to. And I it's funny because for me, more information is always the thing. Like I would come home and I would continue reading stuff after a whole day of news. I can't do that now. It's too much. And I have to help my children manage. My ten and my thirteen year old daughters manage their stress and
whatever they're feeling. The little ones have not seen anybody other than the four of us and so long, and the one camera man who comes here is on the first floor wearing a mask and gloves. They don't go near him, so they literally, other than looking out the window, haven't had human contact outside of us. And I don't want to stress them out with my stress, so I have to self care. I take more bubble baths than I've ever taken in my life, and you.
Said, like, you're now literally scheduling downtime, Like, what does that look like? Is it almost if I looked at your calendar there would be time where you're uncontactable, for example, by the rest of the world outside your family, Like, what's that looking like on a really practical level?
So it looks exactly the way you described it. And you know, here's how old school I am too, Amantha. I have all these digital devices and everything else. I've got to phones and laptops and tablets and stuff. I use four devices for every show. But I have a beautiful fabric calendar book and I love it, and I buy a new one every eighteen months. And it is something about physically writing in the words my time spontaneity. Yes,
I actually schedule spontaneity. That's awesome, lad. But my husband, he's a big role in this because I'll start to I'll schedule and it's no more than forty five minutes to an hour at a time, but it may be turning on my favorite We have sonas in my house and I'll just turn it on for the bedroom and my favorite channel is called Poolside, and it's just like
it's almost like a boat's rocking. The music is just kind of bumping and it's not too you know, it's it's got some soul behind it, but it's you know, it doesn't look like a TikTok video. And I will do anything for I just finished a book by Gabrielle Union called We're Going to Need More Wine. It didn't just come out, It's been out for a while. It was bestseller. But I had started that book like five times last year and just never do you know, I
finished that book in just a manner of hours. Wow, just a couple of break times because I don't allow anything else to impede. And my husband really supports me with this, like he will tell the girls, Mommy's having a moment. Now. I don't get to do that every day, but if I'm doing it three times a week, that's three hours. That's that's like. And I create a spa, you know, I'll light a candle. I'm very I love aromatherapy,
so I like for things to smell good. And you know, I'll take that bubble bath and the whole that just makes the whole upper floor with all the bedrooms smell good. Sometimes I'll just get out my yoga mat and do a couple of down dogs and just look at the city with the curtains open. I mean, they're Florida to ceiling windows and that's my time. It doesn't have to be complicated, but it does have to be kept. And that was something that my husband was really supportive on.
He's like, well, what good is it to schedule my time or spontaneity on your calendar. If you're not going to keep it, it can't be a broken promise. So that's the deal.
I'm fascinated by this idea of scheduling spontaneity. So when did this start? And how often are you doing this spontaneity. Is that always just on your own the spontaneity or is it sometimes spontaneity with your family? Like, well, I'm curious as to the origins to start with.
So that is the question of the day. I love that question, Amantha. It can be by myself. But the best spontaneity is when I surprise everybody and I walk in with I did this last weekend. They looked a little scared, but it turned out to be fun. A five hundred piece puzzle that I had ordered off of Amazon. We're not usual to do that, but we did. We cleared everything off the dining room table and we did this for hours and had such a good time. The whole point is it is for it to be relaxing
and fun and to feel disconnected. So I love the idea of doing things that I don't normally do. So my spontaneity isn't always by myself. But I try not to write anything down, like I literally whatever. When that time comes, I'll say what sounds good, what feels good, and I'll go do that. And the other day we made homemade biscuits for breakfast. My time was thirty minutes in the morning, and I said, you know what, school hasn't started yet, Let's go do this. And we did
and it was delicious. I made some egg whites, fluffy biscuits and sausage, and I made little sandwiches.
Sounds delicious.
There's a way I could have known I wanted to do that, but we work for it.
That is it for today's show. If you liked it, you might like to listen to my full chat with Harris, which I linked to in the show notes. And if you're enjoying how I work, Why not leave a review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you've listened to this. It's awesome hearing reading people's reviews. It really does make my day. So thank you if you've left a review, and thank you as well if you intend to leave one today. So that's it for today and I'll see you next time.