How I Work

Rice University Professor Scott Sonenshein on how to clean up your meetings, decisions and inbox

Listen on

Episode notes

My guest today is Scott Sonenshein. Scott is a New York Times Best-Selling Author and Professor of Management at Rice University. I came across Scott’s work a few months ago when I read his second book, Joy at Work. Scott wrote Joy At Work with bestselling author and Netflix star Marie Kondo, whose cleaning methods I’ve used in my own home over the years. In Joy At Work, Scott and Marie offer stories, studies, and strategies to help you eliminate clutter and make space for work that really matters. In this interview, we cover: Three questions to ask yourself to figure out if a meeting really matters How to dramatically reduce the number of meetings in your work life How to diplomatically extract yourself from meetings The one thing you need to ask for before every meeting How to decrease the number of low stakes decisions in your life How delegation can improve decision-making How to activate the subconscious part of your brain to make better decisions Scott’s daily problem solving ritual How Scott uses routines to boost creativity How Scott cleaned up all the digital clutter from his phone Why it’s so hard to change your behaviour around email How to clean up your inbox How to make it easier to stick to “batch checking” emails Scott’s “spark joy” folder Learn more about Scott right here. And grab your copy of Joy At Work. Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes. Get in touch at [email protected] If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co  

---

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.