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 has a lot of experience beating procrastination. And now his focus is on beating his bad habits for go...
Mar 20, 2023•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 “third voice” in some form. Sometimes, that means a third person - a trusted mutual friend or collea...
Mar 13, 2023•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Google Calendar (and most similar calendar apps, too). But before you go and colour-code your calendar w...
Mar 06, 2023•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 home life. Whether she needs to re-focus in order to get everyone fed and out the door for soccer pract...
Feb 27, 2023•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 miss seeing your team every day? That’s the Hybrid Paradox. And at my consultancy, Inventium, we’re lov...
Feb 22, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 little tip from one musical theatre’s true titans. Stephen Sondheim advised writers to always work on l...
Feb 20, 2023•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 thing as being too nervous. Nick breaks down his strategies for avoiding confirmation bias, which in...
Feb 15, 2023•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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, though. While he’s happy to trick audiences (it’s what they’re paying for!) he also knows the differen...
Feb 13, 2023•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 and even a handful of comic books. So when I read his new book in the hopes of upping my own storytel...
Feb 08, 2023•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 playing the game of fitness on the hardest mode, but health and fitness expert Sam Wood says the ‘every sin...
Feb 06, 2023•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 make her more successful in any field, she put her head down and committed to learning her craft. Al...
Feb 01, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 you hire people with a great eye for design, or you seek out the best creative partners, you can only ...
Jan 30, 2023•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast **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 led to some of his most successful outings as an author, and describes his unconventional - and frigh...
Jan 25, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 something clicks. Hugh doesn’t know why this particular kid stood out, or if he even really stood out, but...
Jan 23, 2023•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast **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, he says, is that most of live an unbalanced life by accident. Because of the internet and the rapidly ...
Jan 18, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 what causes burnout is ‘information obesity’, and one of the best ways to overcome it is with action. Dom...
Jan 16, 2023•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast **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 thoughts, and the blank page. It’s the platonic ideal of knowledge work! But… it’s not that simple. Take B...
Jan 11, 2023•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast How much is a million-dollar investment worth? If that feels like a trick question, maybe you haven’t come across ‘bad money’ the way Dr Catriona Wallace has. When she was the CEO of Flamingo AI, Catriona received a million-dollar investment offer, but there was a catch: the investors would only hand over the cash if Cat promised to stop wearing a nose ring in public. She said no. Why? Why would you turn down so much money for something seemingly so small? Well, in Cat’s eyes, the money from peo...
Jan 09, 2023•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2022** David Siegel’s in his third CEO role, and if all his years of experience as a leader have taught him anything, it’s that most people take too long to make a decision. The clearest example: company strategy. When David joined Meetup, he drafted the new company strategy as quickly as possible. At first, that sounds like a pretty irresponsible treatment of such a huge part of the business… but David’s underlying reasoning reveals why we should all speed up a little bit! David teach...
Jan 04, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast A good presentation can almost feel like alchemy; it requires deep and fascinating subject matter, delivered with confidence and style, and it needs to impart some kind of message. That’s a lot of boxes to check! But therein lies the key: parenting expert Dr Justin Coulson sees just how much audiences need to get out of a keynote, so he puts just as much in. Justin breaks down how evidence, stories and messages work together to create impactful presentations. Connect with Justin at the Happy Fam...
Jan 02, 2023•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2022** There’s a moment in the 2013 comedy movie We’re the Millers that points to how pervasive - and misguided - the “no regrets” life motto has become. A character proudly displays a tattoo that reads, “no rAgrets”, and even more proudly proclaims that he really doesn’t have any regrets. Not even one letter. Bestselling author Dan Pink highlights this scene as a great metaphor for society’s almost comical underappreciation of regret. Dan is an advocate for the transformative power of...
Dec 28, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast How would you feel if we were in the middle of a conversation and I suddenly started talking to someone else from across the room? Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing whenever we let our phones or laptops drag us down the multi-tasking rabbit hole. Leadership experts Frances Frei and Anne Morriss are hyper-vigilant of their device usage. This makes sense for two people who are devoted to productivity, but that’s not the end of the story. Frances and Anne are also devoted to connections. They w...
Dec 26, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2022** If your job title is “Executive Productivity Advisor for Google,” you probably need a pretty refined definition of productivity, right? And Laura Mae Martin certainly does. But she says it’s equally important that every individual has their own, unique definition of productivity. It’s all too easy to fall into “busy language”, she says. Back-to-back meetings and a three-page to-do-list might make you feel productive, but if you’re not making time for your most important work (an...
Dec 21, 2022•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Whatever happened to that huge, game-changing project you started working on last year? Or the idea you had a couple of months ago? If you’ve got an ever-lengthening list of unfinished and abandoned pursuits, it’s probably because you’re not prioritising the correct ‘time horizons’, as Atlassian’s Dom Price calls them. The first horizon is the short-term: answering emails, making sales calls, delivering final products - anything that gives you a sense of immediate gratification. And while wins i...
Dec 19, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Melissa Doyle is a picture of professionalism. She’s adamant that even when she had young children, and felt like she hadn’t slept for weeks on end, she never had good cause to complain about her 4am call times as a news presenter. After all, she’d dreamed of being on the news since she was a little girl, and now it was a reality. Plus, she was working with a fiercely focused purpose. Melissa shares how this purpose-drive philosophy helped her through tougher moments in her presenting career, li...
Dec 14, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Picture this: you’ve just finished an incredibly important presentation. It was dense with crucial information… And you absolutely nailed it. At the end, one of your colleagues wants to give you some feedback. You thrive on constructive criticism, and welcome the chance to learn. But all he says is: your outfit is too distracting. Your dress is so sparkly it made it difficult to concentrate. How do you react? Most of us would blow a gasket - to hear something so overtly sexist and inappropriate ...
Dec 12, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does success really mean? And more importantly, what does it mean to you? These are big questions, questions that author and executive coach Nigel Marsh says we can’t ignore. In fact, he believes that we can’t reliably achieve anything meaningful if we don’t first answer these questions. Nigel’s mantra is “clarity, alignment, momentum”, and he seeks each in that order. Without clarity and alignment, he says, momentum isn’t just useless - it can actually be destructive. After all, being ever...
Dec 07, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to productivity, you are your own worst enemy. Nobody knows how to trick you into procrastinating or cutting corners quite like you do. You know all of your own strengths, weaknesses and thought patterns. But if you know yourself better than anyone else does, that also means you are your own best resource for productivity tools, hacks, tips and tactics. Writer Eric Barker knows how important specificity is, especially when it comes to productivity. So while he loves poring over pro...
Dec 05, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Not long ago, Australian theatre star Elise McCann was struggling. Like everyone else in the entertainment industry, her work ground to a screeching halt early in the pandemic, and she turned to mindfulness and meditation for help. But unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. Elise’s good friend and fellow actor Lucy Durack was struggling, too. In fact, she felt like she couldn’t even get meditation right: she was listening to guided meditations while changing her baby’s nappies in an effort to fit t...
Nov 30, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Richard Wiseman’s love of magic has improved his work as a psychologist in some unexpected ways. Of course, it’s helpful when he’s conducting experiments or research into the psychology of magic and illusions; but the lessons magic teaches about performance and holding an audience’s attention have been just as valuable. For one thing, Richard never gives away “the answer” too early. If you open your presentation with your findings or big ideas, you have nowhere else to go. Richard instead teases...
Nov 28, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
