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AMAZON BEST BOOKS OF 2019 PICK

FORTUNE WRITERS AND EDITORS'' RECOMMENDED BOOKS OF 2019 PICK

" User Friendly is a tour de force, an engrossing fusion of scholarly research, professional experience and revelations from intrepid firsthand reporting."
- EDWARD TENNER, The New York Times Book Review

In User Friendly, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant reveal the untold story of a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: the assumption that machines should anticipate what we need. Spanning over a century of sweeping changes, from women''s rights to the Great Depression to World War II to the rise of the digital era, this book unpacks the ways in which the world has been-and continues to be-remade according to the principles of the once-obscure discipline of user-experience design.

In this essential text, Kuang and Fabricant map the hidden rules of the designed world and shed light on how those rules have caused our world to change-an underappreciated but essential history that''s pieced together for the first time. Combining the expertise and insight of a leading journalist and a pioneering designer, User Friendly provides a definitive, thoughtful, and practical perspective on a topic that has rapidly gone from arcane to urgent to inescapable. In User Friendly, Kuang and Fabricant tell the whole story for the first time-and you''ll never interact with technology the same way again.

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user friendly: how the hidden rules of design are changing the way we live

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User Friendly: How The Hidden Rules Of Design Are Changing The Way We Live, Work, And Play

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AMAZON BEST BOOKS OF 2019 PICK FORTUNE WRITERS AND EDITORS'' RECOMMENDED BOOKS OF 2019 PICK " User Friendly is a tour de force, an engrossing fusion of scholarly research, professional experience and revelations from intrepid firsthand reporting."

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AMAZON BEST BOOKS OF 2019 PICK

FORTUNE WRITERS AND EDITORS'' RECOMMENDED BOOKS OF 2019 PICK

" User Friendly is a tour de force, an engrossing fusion of scholarly research, professional experience and revelations from intrepid firsthand reporting."
- EDWARD TENNER, The New York Times Book Review

In User Friendly, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant reveal the untold story of a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: the assumption that machines should anticipate what we need. Spanning over a century of sweeping changes, from women''s rights to the Great Depression to World War II to the rise of the digital era, this book unpacks the ways in which the world has been-and continues to be-remade according to the principles of the once-obscure discipline of user-experience design.

In this essential text, Kuang and Fabricant map the hidden rules of the designed world and shed light on how those rules have caused our world to change-an underappreciated but essential history that''s pieced together for the first time. Combining the expertise and insight of a leading journalist and a pioneering designer, User Friendly provides a definitive, thoughtful, and practical perspective on a topic that has rapidly gone from arcane to urgent to inescapable. In User Friendly, Kuang and Fabricant tell the whole story for the first time-and you''ll never interact with technology the same way again.

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user friendly: how the hidden rules of design are changing the way we live

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
User Friendly: How The Hidden Rules Of Design Are Changing The Way We Live, Work, And Play

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
AMAZON BEST BOOKS OF 2019 PICK FORTUNE WRITERS AND EDITORS'' RECOMMENDED BOOKS OF 2019 PICK " User Friendly is a tour de force, an engrossing fusion of scholarly research, professional experience and revelations from intrepid firsthand reporting."

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The single biggest reason why start-ups succeed | Bill Gross | TED

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How brands hijack your feelings to influence what you buy | Cindy Sheldan | TEDxBearCreekPark

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When the Covid-19 pandemic removed the safety net of schooling and employee-paid child care for working families, the damage was cataclysmic. Without a stable form of childcare as part of the business infrastructure, the world stopped working for the vast majority of working parents around the world. One third of the U.S. workforce, or an estimated 50 million workers, has a child under 14 in their household. As researchers, practitioners, and mothers ourselves, we wanted examine the role childcare played in the employment decisions made by families and more importantly, what those choices can teach us about the needs of working parents moving forward.

In our national panel survey of 2,500 working parents we found that nearly 20% of working parents had to leave work or reduce their work hours solely due to a lack of childcare. Only 30% of all working parents had any form of back-up childcare, and there were significant disparities between low and high-income households.

Of those who lost a job or reduced hours due to childcare, 40% of parents said that the factors for deciding who would be responsible for taking care of the children came down to which parent worked more hours or had a less flexible schedule. Shockingly (but honestly), nearly one third said that deciding who would take care of the kids came down to "who was better at it." In comparison, less than one quarter cited income as a factor in their decision - suggesting that gender roles still loom large in household decision-making.

Why Is Childcare Not a Business Issue?

In our survey, 26% of women who became unemployed during the pandemic said it was due to a lack of childcare.

Women also said they significantly increased their time spent on schoolwork and playing with children as well as cooking and cleaning, while men saw marginal increases in household chores. While working women have always shouldered more of the household responsibilities, Covid-19 made work-life balance disproportionately more difficult for women, and in particular, single mothers and women of color. In our survey, women were more likely to report that their hours were reduced due to a lack of childcare if they were Black (23% for Black versus 15% for non-Black) or if they were single, divorced, separated, or widowed (22% for not married versus 15% for married).

Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the dire problem for women in The Washington Post, arguing that the economy cannot fully recover unless women fully participate. She said that "without affordable and accessible child care, working mothers are forced to make an unfair choice."

Data shows that the United States' gross domestic product could be 5% higher if women participated in the workforce at the same rate as men.

Given these economic realities and the truths that our survey laid bare, the question we pose is: Why is childcare still an employee issue and not a business issue?

Making Childcare Part of the Business Infrastructure

History reveals that periods of struggle have stimulated change in employee benefits. The Great Depression brought Social Security. World War II and the Stabilization Act brought the first health insurance benefits. The rise of unions brought even more comprehensive health care offerings including dental and vision coverage for families.

The pandemic offers us another opportunity to create change for working parents, especially women.

The percentage of women in the labor force in 1950 was 30% compared to 62.7% in 2018. Yet the benefits packages employees receive today were created during a time when most households had only one parent in the workforce, and that parent was male.

Providing childcare was not on an employer's benefits radar because women were already doing that (unpaid) work at home. Ironically, when women took over the jobs for men fighting in WWII, author G.G. Wetherill wrote, "The hand that holds the pneumatic riveter cannot rock the cradle at the same time."

In response, the landmark Lanham program was created. It was the first and only federally subsidized childcare program for working parents regardless of income. Unfortunately, once the war ended, the program did too. Men went back to work, and women reverted back and assumed their (still unpaid) jobs at home. Following the closing of the Lanham childcare program, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, "The closing of childcare centers throughout the country certainly is bringing to light the fact that these centers were a real need."

There is still a real need. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the previously invisible (or forgotten) link between child care and the economy. It is the lifeline for women to stay employed. More than 2.3 million women have left the labor force since February 2020, accounting for 80% of all discouraged workers during the pandemic, reducing the labor force participate rate to 57%, the lowest it's been since 1988.

Even before the pandemic, inadequate childcare was costing working parents $37 billion a year in lost income and employers $13 billion a year in lost productivity. Based on our data, Barron's estimated that closing schools for Covid-19 could cost about $700 billion in lost revenue and productivity or 3.5% of GDP.

Nearly two thirds (63%) of parents we surveyed had difficulty finding childcare during the pandemic, including 33% who found it very difficult - nearly double what parents reported just six months ago. The numbers are even worse for Black and brown families.

During the pandemic, our survey revealed that working parents lost eight hours per week on average due to a lack of childcare. Combining reported hours lost for the individual as well as their spouse/partner, our survey revealed an even greater loss of 14.6 hours per week. This is similar in magnitude to the loss of hours due to staff reductions, loss of business, or lack of remote work available.

The sooner employers treat childcare with the same seriousness as health care and other aspects of businesses infrastructure, the faster employees can get back to full force.

Here are four ways to start the process of aligning women, childcare, and the economy post pandemic.

1. Create Support Structures for Women at Work

The future of work is going to be more fluid than in the past, with more work being done remotely and less confined to 9 to 5 hours. Additional childcare options will help relieve women of the additional role of school teacher and babysitter that so many assumed during the pandemic, but this new hybrid work model will indelibly blur the lines between work and family responsibilities, putting new and different pressures on women.

Companies are going to need to do more to foster engagement and create a sense of belonging, particularly for women who historically have not advanced at the same rate as men within firms. Addie's work (helping scores of women return to work as well as stay there) has found that community - in particular, small cohorts of women sharing both successes and challenges, and bolstering each other as they navigate balancing both work and home - is particularly important in supporting women at work and in strengthening employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention. Addie's work has shown that companies that have adopted programming designed to build community and peer-to-peer support networks have seen a 90% increased commitment and organizational attachment from their female professionals. It's clear that providing child care infrastructure is critical to supporting working mothers, but without support for the women themselves the full benefits for productivity and career satisfaction are in peril.

2. Offer Flexible Work Schedules and Remote Work for All Parents

One of the most positive pieces of data from our survey revealed that women were less likely to cite childcare as a reason for becoming unemployed if they had access to paid family leave through their employer, the ability to work from home, or support from coworkers.

Jamie, in her book Maternal Optimism, has previously noted that the American education system hardly qualifies as full-time care. Yet it's what working women have been relying on to squeak through for decades. The average school is closed for 29 days during the 10 months a year when it is officially "in session." These days off, along with summer vacations and the perceptual misalignment between the school day and the work day, all create gaps in childcare.

Employers need to expand policies and practices to support all working parents of children under the age of 18. Each stage of parenting delivers different challenges, parental needs and most importantly, parental presence.

Hopefully remote work will be more accepted after a year proving that it is a feasible and productive option for employees - especially parents - in need of more flexibility.

3. Increase Childcare Subsidies as Employee Benefits

We understand that providing childcare as a benefit may not provide the same corporate tax incentives as providing health care (yet), but when weighed against the costs of finding and hiring new employees, the investment in keeping parents employed by offering childcare proves its value. Moreover, this is how paid leave is structured in states like California and Massachusetts, where employers pay into a fund that can then be used by workers for any type of caregiving that includes a child, spouse, or elderly family member. In this way, the caregiving benefit is akin to health care such that we are collectively ensuring that we can meet the needs of loved ones rather than relying exclusively on the invisible caregiving labor of women or private savings.

Companies can get creative in how they do this. For example, biotech company Genentech partnered with an organization that helps employees find high-quality programs for their children when school is not in session. Johnson & Johnson provides financial assistance for the speech, occupational, mental health, and physical therapy needs of employees' children. These are just a few examples of how corporations can put their combined leverage into making child care support possible for all working parents.

4. Provide On-Site or Local Childcare Spaces and Supervision

Black and Hispanic families were more likely to live in childcare deserts with few options before the coronavirus pandemic struck. Indeed, our survey of working parents found that the loss of hours due to lack of childcare thus far in the pandemic is greater for women of color, women without a college degree, and women living in low-income households - groups which lost nine or more hours per week and who were more likely to be working in essential industries that require in-person work.

When back-up childcare was available to these vulnerable populations, they lost fewer hours of work per week during the pandemic. Employers who can pool together to offer quality on-site or local childcare options for employees will see more productive and loyal employees. As mothers, the mere idea of being able to bring our children to work and know they are well cared for, safe and engaged, would be a game-changer.

Our survey of working parents revealed that both moms and dads are currently experiencing high levels of distress, with two thirds scoring in the range of high psychological distress on the standard K6 mental health scale used by researchers.

Childcare is not a family issue, it is a business issue. It affects how we work, when we work, and for many, why we work. Moving forward, employer-provided childcare could also influence where we work. Employers that provide high-quality childcare will not only differentiate themselves from the competition but will also create a "sticky" benefit that fosters retention. Employees are less likely to move to a new job if it also means moving their childcare from an environment they love and trust.

It is up to businesses to think creatively about ways to build the childcare infrastructure we need to help working parents keep working for their families, and the economy as a whole.

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When the Covid-19 pandemic removed the safety net of schooling and employee-paid child care for working families, the damage was cataclysmic. Without a stable form of childcare as part of the business infrastructure, the world stopped working for the vast majority of working parents around the world. One third of the U.S.

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One of the most important ways managers can support aspiring leaders is though developmental feedback; that is, feedback focused on growth opportunities. However, not all developmental feedback is created equal. New research based on a computerized analysis of more than 1,000 pieces of written feedback identified four key ways in which feedback given to women tends to be less actionable and less effective than that given to men: Developmental feedback for female employees tends to focus on delivery rather than vision, coping with politics rather than leveraging politics, and collaboration rather than assertiveness. It also tends to present a lack of confidence as a fundamental shortcoming, rather than a specific skill that can be developed. Based on these disparities, the authors offer several strategies for managers to overcome their own (often unconscious) gender biases and help both their male and female reports achieve their leadership potential.

Although businesses now employ more female managers than ever before, women's advancement into senior leadership roles remains much slower than for men. While there are a variety of structural causes driving gender inequity in the workplace, one important factor is the disparity in how men and women are given developmental feedback. Identifying and reducing bias in feedback on past performance is somewhat more straightforward, since this sort of feedback tends to be more quantitative - but feedback focused on how employees should change and grow as leaders in the future is fundamentally qualitative, making it much harder to analyze.

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Research: Men Get More Actionable Feedback Than Women

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One of the most important ways managers can support aspiring leaders is though developmental feedback; that is, feedback focused on growth opportunities. However, not all developmental feedback is created equal.

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When discussing the careers of women leaders, there's a phenomenon referred to as the " glass cliff." It's an obvious relative to the term glass ceiling, which describes the invisible barrier to advancement that women often face when they are up for promotion to the highest levels of an organization. The "glass cliff" describes the idea that when a company is in trouble, a female leader is put in charge to save it. When women are finally given a chance to prove themselves in a senior position, they are handed something that is already broken and where the chances of failure are high.

We see this happen frequently enough that it made us wonder, are women in fact more qualified to lead during a crisis? Could that be why they are handed the reins when times are tough?

During the Covid-19 crisis, we've heard anecdotally about women leaders doing a better job and new research backs that up. One study found that outcomes related to Covid-19, including number of cases and deaths, were systematically better in countries led by women. Another looked at governors in the U.S. and similarly found that states with female leaders had lower fatality rates. We decided to look at our global database of 360-degree assessments to see if we saw any patterns in how male and female leaders inside organizations are reacting and responding to the crisis.

Who's Seen as More Qualified to Lead in a Crisis?

Last year, we wrote about how women were rated better leaders by those who worked with them when compared with men. The data for our analysis was pulled from assessments of over 60,000 leaders (22,603 women and 40,187 men). We wanted to look at similar data gathered during the first phase of the Covid-19 crisis to see if these ratings had changed.

Between March and June of this year, 454 men and 366 women were assessed on their leadership effectiveness using our Extraordinary Leader 360-degree assessment. Consistent with our pre-pandemic analysis, we found that women were rated significantly more positively than men. Comparing the overall leadership effectiveness ratings of men versus women, once again women were rated as more effective leaders (t-Value 2.926, Sig. 0.004). The gap between men and women in the pandemic is even larger than previously measured, possibly indicating that women tend to perform better in a crisis.

Women were rated more positively on 13 of the 19 competencies in our assessment that comprise overall leadership effectiveness. Men were rated more positively on one competency - technical/professional expertise - but the difference was not statistically significant.

In the table below, percentile scores for men and women are displayed sorted by the average rating for women based on data gathered in the first wave of the pandemic.

Why Are Women Leaders Seen as More Effective?

Each leader we assessed also received an employee engagement score based on their direct report's responses to questions about how satisfied and committed they felt. The engagement level of those working for male leaders was slightly below average, but the engagement scores for the direct reports of female leaders were significantly higher. The overall average for both male and female leaders was the 51 st percentile.

To better understand what was driving the difference in engagement levels, we looked at the competencies that direct reports ranked as most important during the crisis. Notably, respondents put greater importance on interpersonal skills, such as "inspires and motivates," "communicates powerfully," "collaboration/teamwork," and "relationship building," all of which women were rated higher on. Our analysis echoes what the researchers found in the study mentioned above about U.S. governors: that female leaders expressed more awareness of fears that followers might be feeling, concern for wellbeing, and confidence in their plans.

Perhaps the most valuable part of the data we're collecting throughout the crisis is hearing from thousands of direct reports about what they value and need from leaders now. Based on our data they want leaders who are able to pivot and learn new skills; who emphasize employee development even when times are tough; who display honesty and integrity; and who are sensitive and understanding of the stress, anxiety, and frustration that people are feeling. Our analysis shows that these are traits that are more often being displayed by women. But as the crisis continues, and intensifies in many places, all leaders, regardless of gender, should strive to meet those needs.

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Research: Women Are Better Leaders During a Crisis

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When discussing the careers of women leaders, there's a phenomenon referred to as the " glass cliff." It's an obvious relative to the term glass ceiling, which describes the invisible barrier to advancement that women often face when they are up for promotion to the highest levels of an organization.

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For Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, anxiety has always been his super power - even when he didn't know how to put a label on it. Today he helps other entrepreneurs embrace how they think and act differently than others, while also encouraging mentally healthy practices like meditation.

Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Finkelstein about generational trauma, the anxiety of starting a business at age 17 to support his family, and how to channel anxiety into action.
HBR Presents is a network of podcasts curated by HBR editors, bringing you the best business ideas from the leading minds in management. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harvard Business Review or its affiliates.

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Shopify President Harley Finkelstein on Anxiety and Entrepreneurship

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For Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, anxiety has always been his super power - even when he didn't know how to put a label on it. Today he helps other entrepreneurs embrace how they think and act differently than others, while also encouraging mentally healthy practices like meditation.

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EMILY CAULFIELD: You're listing Women at Work from Harvard Business review. I'm Emily Caulfield. This episode is part of our series, The Essentials, in which women working for the public good contribute their wisdom and practicality to discussions of key career skills. For me, productivity is ultimately about making work easier. When I feel productive, I feel a sense of progress and confidence. And being efficient with what I need to do helps me make more space for what I want to do, and how I want to steer my career. Some days I check off most things on my to-do list, and other days I struggle to push through a single daunting assignment. Kate Troutman offered to join me in sorting through these feelings and frustrations with an expert. As you'll hear, she's got some, too. Kate's a social worker at a trauma center that treats people who are critically ill or severely injured. And her job is to coordinate as many resources for them as she can before they leave the hospital. Or if tragically they won't be leaving, to support them and their families through end-of-life care.

KATE TROUTMAN: It just feels that everything that I'm supposed to be doing needs to be the most productive.

EMILY CAULFIELD: And this is where Alice Boyes comes in. She can relate to the obstacles creatives like me and front line workers like Kate faced to be more productive at work. Alice is a writer who used to be a clinical psychologist. She's published two books, The Health Mind Toolkit, and The Anxiety Toolkit, and she's in the middle of writing a third about productivity.

ALICE BOYES: It isn't about getting things done. It's about getting done the most important work that you could be doing.

EMILY CAULFIELD: I expected Alice to give us typical productivity tips - how to do the most work in the least amount of time. It was so refreshing to have the idea of productivity reframed this way. In talking to Alice and Kate, I started to think more about my values and how my to do lists aligned with those values or don't. I hope their insights speak to you, too. Here's our conversation.

So, Kate, what did your day today look like? Or what does a typical day look like for you? And where do your, like, productivity challenges come up?

KATE TROUTMAN: You know, a normal day, when I get in, there's people who may have come in to the ER overnight. Sometimes the domestic violence, homelessness. Maybe it's a new diagnosis of something, and they can be quite sick, brought in from an accident. Those are all types of things that I'm required to respond to. And then I'd still get phone calls from my manager, from different family members asking questions about school, insurance, various numbers of things. There's a lot of action things happening, and so it's really difficult to find the time outside of that to sit there and do the, you know, communication, documentation, statistics, I mean, other pieces. And like normal kind of written pieces that will come along with a lot of positions. It is very hard to find the time, and when I have that time, I struggle to use it productively. I'd say there's also a bit of an adrenalin piece that comes in when I'm moving around, when emergencies are taking place, because all of this is happening, and then there is a car accident that came in. So, I'm kind of required to stop everything and go respond to the car accident. And so very quickly, the priorities change, and I'm OK when it's all happening like that. But again, it's just after all of that settles down, it's really difficult to focus and find the time and feel like I'm using it efficiently to finish all of the other things I need to do.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Alice, what advice do you have for Kate in dealing with this?

ALICE BOYES: Yeah, so I just wanted to acknowledge a few things that you said at the beginning. So, it's almost like ironic that the things that people would think are the hardest things there are about your job, being with people when they're going through something really tough, that's something you almost find easier than the paperwork stuff.

KATE TROUTMAN: That's a very prudent observation. I would agree with you.

ALICE BOYES: And I was exactly the same. I could talk to people feeling really strong emotions all day, every day. Ask me to fill out a form, and it fills me with dread and terror. So, I think that's really important to realize it's a really common experience, to have it be like that. And you were so insightful of saying that other word, it's kind of adrenaline-fueled. And so, when you're trying to sit down and do the paperwork, it's where that adrenaline is kind of wearing off, and you don't have that physiological push to get things through. I think in terms of figuring out where you can put your energy, one thing is to think about what your core mission is. Your sense of your core mission in your work. And my spouse is a medical doctor, and she says like her core mission is to help her patients have as many years as possible in good health. Right? So, if you've got some set of single sentence mission statement like this, you can sometimes say, "well, does this work towards my core mission, or doesn't it?"

Another really important place to put your energy is to overcome this problem that I call, it's a phrase, though I hadn't heard it until somebody mentioned it to me: It's too busy chasing cows to build a fence. Alright? So, it's when you know that you've got these systems that are not ideal, or you've got some ongoing problems that you've run into, like the one you've identified. Right? You've identified that it's hard to do the paperwork when your adrenaline's wearing off. And that's something that you really need to do some work on solving that problem in a big picture level. But what happens is that we're always too exhausted to do that picture work. So, I think the number one task would be figuring out not how to carve out the time to actually do like the notes, but about how to carve out the time to work on that problem at a big picture level, like thinking about who might help you solve that problem, or who might have information that helps you solve that problem?

KATE TROUTMAN: Alice, when you were talking about what is your core mission, it was running through my mind, like what is my core mission? What is my core mission? When I get up every day, and I go into the emergency department, or this ICU, and sometimes I see people have the worst day of their life, and other times it's a very humbling moment, and I get to be a part of it, just walking beside people. But what is my mission? I'd say my mission is wanting to give people the resiliency to carry on in their day-to-day world and out in their community. My aim is for them to need me as little as possible. I'm just trying to think about how much I do over the course of my day and how much falls into that, and how much doesn't. It also makes me wonder if there is a different setting that ultimately in the future would give me more complete fulfillment in being able to obtain that or feel like I'm obtaining that mission on a more regular basis.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Alice, I don't know if you told us what your core mission was. Did you?

ALICE BOYES: You know, I can't summarize it. It's something that I have struggled with. But it's something to do with reaching people in the biggest way that I can. For me, I've learned that through writing I can do that a lot more than I could do it when I was an individual therapist. So, I used to be a psychologist. I haven't been a psychologist since 2013. And it was a huge thing, because I had studied for years and years and years to be eligible to use that title. And I gave it up because I realized that I could be more productive in another way. And also, by giving that up, I also freed myself from some of the bureaucracy and some of the rules that come along with having that title. So yeah, I really do need to come up with my own core mission statement, and I embarrassingly haven't.

EMILY CAULFIELD: No, I think that's good. That's a good start.

KATE TROUTMAN: Does your professional core mission and the core mission that you carry on in your personal life, do they overlap at all? Or are they completely different?

ALICE BOYES: That's interesting. Like when I was preparing for this before we started, my daughter came in, and she said to me, "Mom, did you know that tomatoes are a fruit?" And I said, "I did know that." And we had this big conversation. And we asked Google some questions about other things that were apparently fruits. Like cucumbers and peppers are apparently fruits. I knew the tomato thing, but not those other things. Right? And so, one of my really important values and things is to inspire this love of learning in my child. Right? So, I really did think in that moment, inspiring this love learning in my child trumps preparing for this podcast. Right? So, I guess I have different values and things going on. I sort of have some idea of the order that they fall in, I guess.

EMILY CAULFIELD: I like that. That helps you prioritize how you're spending your time.

ALICE BOYES: Yeah. So, what my focus is, it isn't about getting things done. It's about getting done the most important work that you could be doing. And what that is, is really going to change from year to year and kind of across your career as you develop more skills, and you develop new relationships and that kind of thing. So, my approach is absolutely not about helping you be a cog in a machine. It's: how can you get done the most important work that you could be doing? And one of the things I think about as the few really big decisions that you make in a year will determine the trajectory of your success. Right? So that you don't need to worry about being productive every minute of every day. Because there's even like a Jeff Bezos quote about that, where he's saying, I'm not here to make decisions every day. I'm here to make a few really good decisions a year. And it kind of sounds like that, oh, well, that's Jeff Bezos. Right? He's just in charge of strategy or whatever. And it's like that for everybody. One of the most important decisions for the year for me was like the title of the book. Right? And it would be really easy to just be tired from the whole process of writing it and not put the focus on that, that should have gone on it. Or when people choose to sign up for retirement contributions, that kind of thing, that those are the really critical decisions that people make in a year, and that's what's really going to determine your success, not with your productivity every minute of every day.

EMILY CAULFIELD: So, do you try to figure out what those things are at the beginning of the year? Or are you just deciding over the course of the year what those important things are? Like, is there a way to look ahead and know those things?

ALICE BOYES: You could have some insight into it. But you can't always have completely control over it. But you can choose to do things that seem like they're going to have a long-term impact. And my thing is, don't separate the personal and professional. Right? Because it's easy to put yourself last, and then not get the personal things done. Like whether that's buying a house, or some years it's going to be the personal thing that is the really pivotal thing, and some years it's going to be the work thing that's going to be the really pivotal thing. But just be doing things that at least have the potential to actually change the trajectory of your success.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Alice, I have tried standard productivity methods and hacks. I've tried bullet journaling, eating the frogs, or doing the toughest thing first, writing to do lists the night before, or scheduling tasks. What do you think of these in general? I know they're all very different. But do you have any feelings about them, Alice?

ALICE BOYES: Yes, so let's take scheduling tasks. OK? Because that's something that is very commonly recommended. So, one of the things to think about there is, what are the actual psychological mechanisms going on there? And part of that's the idea of implementation intensions. So, they did research on whether students would do the essay or not. And if the students planned when and where they were going to do the essay, they were more likely to do the essay. So that's forming implantation intentions helps us follow through on tasks. You don't necessarily have to necessarily have to schedule the task to form implementation intentions. I think a lot about how I'm going to do a task without actually scheduling it. I form some of those implementations. I think through the steps that I'm going to use to do it. The other part of that is the idea that scheduling tasks, or we're going to do time boxing, so that we're going to fit in our deep work. Right? But you don't actually need to do that time boxing if deep work is something that you're doing on a regular basis. So, it actually takes an awful lot of self-control and mental energy to be able to do it that way. Like a far better way is more to use habits, to have habits where you do the deep work in a particular sequence, in a particular part of your day every day. Right? It requires a lot less self-control than scheduling in at three o'clock one day and at nine o'clock the next day, or whatever it is. So, with some of these productivity suggestions that sound kind of simple or obvious or whatever on the surface, there are lots of different ways that you can apply the underlying principles without necessarily applying the specific surface level tip, and sometimes the surface level tip is not actually that good.

KATE TROUTMAN: Well, Alice, one question I had is when you said that you actually spend more time kind of visualizing and thinking through the tasks that you have to do. Is that just throughout the day? Or is that like in the morning when you get up? Like, do you have like a dedicated period of time that you find it more useful for you to do that? Like, if you're having coffee in the morning, and you're alone, and you're kind of thinking through the course of the day, or at night before you go to bed writing a list, do you have specific time that you set aside for that?

ALICE BOYES: Yeah, so I find that usually I end work sessions on a stuck point. So, what is really useful to me is to go for a walk or to run an errand, so to drive somewhere, or something where I can let my mind wander. And what usually happens there is, I end up sort of mentally planning where I'm going to pick back up at my next session. So, it means I'm not facing a cold start. I'm not picking the work back up at a stuck point. So that's something that I do. The other thing I do is, I find that problems often solve themselves when I wake up in the morning. So, if I've been doing deep work the day before, then I will often wake up with a solution to like the previous day's problem. And so just hanging out in bed for like five or 10 minutes in the morning is really useful to sort of capturing those solutions. But definitely having more mind-wandering time. One of my big points on productivity is, people rely too much on their focused mind. There's this whole big push where they get told that we need to be more distraction free. And we need to improve our focus. But that is really going about it in a way that's much harder than it needs to be, that your unfocused mind is this amazing toll for solving problems and finding solutions to things. And if you can just let yourself have more mind wandering time, those solutions will just kind of pop up on their own without you having to kind of strong arm them.

KATE TROUTMAN: Some of my favorite points during the day is the commute that I have, whether I'm walking, biking, taking the bus. There's something about being in public again, being out on a bus and kind of being in a group of people, but just quietly sitting there and not really having anywhere to be other than just right there on that bus. I find that really liberating sometimes because I am able to let my mind wander. Now that you're identifying what my mind is actually doing, I would say it's successful, in when not pushing it, I will connect pieces that I wouldn't otherwise.

EMILY CAULFIELD: You're making me really miss the commute, since I've been working from home for such a long while.

KATE TROUTMAN: I know, how do you let your mind wander during the day when you're at home?

EMILY CAULFIELD: Well, I was just going to ask Alice, like, how do I work in mind wandering time, time where I can kind of step away from thinking about work and trying to be stress free during that time? Should I be working that into my routine somehow?

ALICE BOYES: Yeah, so going for walks is a huge thing for me. And there's good literature on that. There's one study where they had people go on a backpacking trip for four days, and then they tested their creativity, and their creativity scores were like 50% better after the four-day backpacking trip. And so obviously you can, you know, scale that back to what's actually achievable. So that's just something that is incredibly useful. But a lot of mine is doing something that are necessary, like driving to the supermarket is something that I'll do after I take work position. I also, I have a five-year-old, and we have like a swimming pool, so something that I will do during the summer is, she will be in the pool. She kind of just sits on the steps with her arm floats on, and I will sit on like a big inflatable unicorn and float around the pool. And that's something that's really useful time for me to do some of that thinking. It is creativity. It's figuring out what is going to work for you and your lifestyle. So, I need to be supervising my five year old, but that's a way that I can both be doing that and having some mind wandering time. Whereas if I was to take her for a walk or something, she would need a lot of attention, so that's something where she doesn't need a lot of attention during that activity. And also, I'm physically away from my computer. So, it sort of forces that.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Can I ask you guys about your to do lists? I have my to do list for today. Mine is kind of long and ridiculous, but I'm going to speed, I'll speed through it. So today I'm supposed to send images for color correction. I have to update a budget spreadsheet that I have. I have to schedule some Instagram posts. I have to hire illustrators for next week. I was prepping for this interview. Update an illustrator database. That keeps getting pushed off every week. Clean up my desktop, clean up my workspace, clean up my room. Send PDFs to artists. Research for the next issue. That's my work stuff. Now personal stuff. Do laundry, do my taxes. I still have not done my taxes. Post new Etsy items. Research for a trip that I want to go on. Work on my portfolio. Fix a pair of pants. Paint my bike frame. And then get organized, is the last item, with a lot of exclamation points after it.

KATE TROUTMAN: Is get organized a carryover on your to do list?

EMILY CAULFIELD: Oh my God, so many of these are carryovers, and I've checked off like four of these items today. And so, a lot of these are carryovers, and they're going to come with me tomorrow, and probably into next week. Kate, what about your to do list?

KATE TROUTMAN: Sure. Actually, I will be getting hitched in about six weeks. So there's a lot of stuff that's-

EMILY CAULFIELD: Congratulations.

KATE TROUTMAN: -popping up. Dentist appointment, eye appointment, fitting. I do have a separate work list that it's finish updating the overnight guide. Call Ron. Call sister. Email the school. Guardianship update, question mark. It's really gratifying to make them off. And I think that's sometimes why I keep such a detailed list. Alice, do you like to do lists? Is a to do list something that you keep, and that you generally recommend for people?

ALICE BOYES: I have, over like a long period, had simplified my life down to a point where I don't really need that as much anymore. I only have like two things on my calendar each week. So, and we were also joking before we started, that I only wash my hair once every three months. So, I've gone like a no poo method on that. So that's not for everybody. Right?

KATE TROUTMAN: I support it.

EMILY CAULFIELD: I concur.

ALICE BOYES: But there are ways, depending on what your nature is, we can kind of give up some of that conventional life stuff that helps to simplify more. So, I could really easily be dragged into the whole sort of American culture of doing, but I have over a really long period of time figured out how not to be sucked into that. And really figured out what works for me. So, I generally have two deep work periods in a day. I don't always have that, but I had it for almost a full year with the book that I've just written, where every day I would do about two two-and-a-half-hour deep work sessions on writing, and then after that, like it really solved the problem of prioritizing, because I just didn't have very much energy for anything else after that. Like it was just every day, like just doing the odd little thing that would keep life ticking over. Like today, I've got rental properties, and I had to pay the property taxes on them. It was something that was due next week. So, every day, on top of my deep work, I'll just do a couple of more things, and it will keep life ticking over. But it does take a long time to do that, and it's very personal, because like not everyone is going to want to stop washing their hair. But like that's something that works for me. So, it is really a journey of self-discovery more than it is a journey of finding, how can I make myself comply with standard advice?

ALICE BOYES: Alice, sometimes there's work that's not urgent, but it's still really important, that piles up in the background so much that at that point I feel I'm too embarrassed to ask for help. Even though that is exactly what I want and need. Do you have a recommendation for what I can do when I'm feeling overwhelmed like this?

ALICE BOYES: Yes, so just don't think it's a personal thing, or don't think it's only happening to you, or don't think it's happening to you because of some flaw that you've got. It is like a universal human experience to have that happen, so taking all that shame out of it, taking as much anxiety out of it as you can, so if you've got any sort of thoughts about, well, if I ask about how this terrible thing will happen, like making sure your reality tests those thoughts. I would also say like, it's really important to use habits rather than to use self-control. So, I talked before about how I have this writing habit. When I'm in an intensive writing phase, I write every workday in these two specific periods, and it becomes a habit. It doesn't become like something I have to think about putting on my schedule. And we know that the more something is a habit, the less self-control it takes to do that thing. So, I would say that you had to figure out some way of having that become a habit. And it takes a few months for those, a fix of habits to kick in, where it starts feeling more automatic, and we have the self-control required stuff to go down. And I know that that's really challenging with everything that you've said about sort of what your responsibilities are and what your schedule's like, and emergencies come up and things. But as figuring out if something is really important, and if it is kind of, it does need to be important. Like it does need to be kind of related to that core mission. It should be that deep work stuff that you're trying to make a habit of. But I would say that that is something to definitely try to work towards. You don't necessarily have to have this all figured out now. It will be a process that happens over a period of some years where you figure out the best rhythms for you about how you work best and how you get that deep work stuff done.

EMILY CAULFIELD: So, Alice, it takes time to build these habits, like you said. So, when life changes significantly, like say you're now managing people, how do you revisit your habits and getting work done and being productive?

ALICE BOYES: Yeah, so you're not starting back at zero in terms of understanding yourself. Right? So, you're gaining understanding of yourself as you go through. And when the circumstances change, then you might have to apply your understanding of yourself in a somewhat different way, but you're still gaining that understanding of yourself in the way that you work best as you go through. I would say that one of the things that comes up is that when we have a change, what changes is the most important work that we have the opportunity to do. Right? So that when you become a parent, the most important work you have an opportunity to do changes. When you start leading a time, the most important work that you have an opportunity to do changes. So, it is time to time to go back to that question and say, what is the most important work that I have the opportunity to do now? And really, going back to what Kate was saying a little bit earlier about sort of thinking, well, is this role that I'm in now the way that I can do my most important work? That really changes. Like early on in my career, seeing clients was really important to my development, because I needed that experience with people to develop the thoughts and ideas that are now things that I write about. But at some point, it became not the most important work I could be doing anymore. And it's just allowing those shifts to happen. And being curious about how your life is evolving. And not necessarily going into it with this really fixed plan of how things are going to work out. But taking opportunities as they come, noticing when you're extra interested in something, and really letting yourself evolve over time.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Well, this has been such a great conversation. I'm definitely going to take a lot of this information with me.

KATE TROUTMAN: Truly, before this podcast, I had not really been asked what the goal was of my daily work. And that's pretty significant. I've been doing it for a handful of years now, and I've never gone in asking myself each day, and I think that's something that is important to be able to give you focus and remind you why you're doing something. And then if there is a shift at some point, something else becomes more important to be able to lean into that and let it happen.

EMILY CAULFIELD: Thank you so much, Alice, and thank you Kate.

ALICE BOYES: Yeah, just thank you to Kate so much, because your starting place was already having a lot of insight. Like, even if you don't think that you've thought about this a lot, like you do have a lot of insight into this, and it really is just trusting those insights that you're having, and letting those lead you, like what you said about a big problem is the adrenaline wearing off, and you're trying to do paperwork in that state. But really trusting your own insights and reaching out for help based on what those insights are.

KATE TROUTMAN: For a second I thought you were going to say, you started with a lot of anxiety. I was like, oh, that too. But thank you.

ALICE BOYES: Thanks, guys.

EMILY CAULFIELD: If you'd like to read about productivity, Harvard Business Review has tons of books and articles. I'll start with the books. There's Getting Work Done from our 20 Minute Managers series. There's also the HBR Guide to Being More Productive, as well as the HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done. And then Getting It All Done, part of the HBR Working Parents series. For the latest angles on productivity that we publish, including lots of articles by Alice, got to HBR.org. Women At Work's editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Adam Buchholz, Tina Tobey Mack, Erica Truxler, and Rob Eckhardt. Robin Moore composed this theme music. Email us at womenatwork@hbr.org. I'm Emily Caulfield. Thanks for listening.

AMY G: Hi, everyone, it's Amy G. One last thing. You know that new audio app, Clubhouse? We're going to be on it later this week doing a sort of discussion group on the latest episode of The Essentials. We'll be taking your questions and hearing your thoughts on the topic we discussed this week. If you're on Clubhouse, follow the Harvard Review Club for more details. Hope to see you there.

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EMILY CAULFIELD: You're listing Women at Work from Harvard Business review. I'm Emily Caulfield. This episode is part of our series, The Essentials, in which women working for the public good contribute their wisdom and practicality to discussions of key career skills. For me, productivity is ultimately about making work easier.