Dr. Amantha Imber on her real productivity systems and daily habits

Executive overview

Most productivity advice is designed for people who control their own schedule. Knowledge workers with meetings and inbox obligations need a different approach. Time boxing, sleep consistency, and environment design are the three levers that actually move the needle.

The biggest productivity gains come from protecting your peak hours and redesigning your environment — not from willpower.

Ideal workday structure

• Book the first two hours for the highest-priority deep work (book writing, strategy, product development)
• Batch meetings into the afternoon; avoid scheduling them before 11am
• Write 1,000 words per day on a manuscript — non-negotiable, with one "hall pass" allowed
• Clock off at a consistent time even during deadline periods

Time boxing: the most effective technique

• Time boxing = scheduling a meeting with yourself in your calendar for a specific task
• Labels tasks as "DW: [task name]" to remove decision fatigue about what to do next
• Deliberately overestimate task duration so finishing early feels like a win
• Match deep work blocks to your chronotype — larks should protect mornings, owls their evenings

Overrated advice: checking email only 2-3 times a day

• Unrealistic for most knowledge workers whose job requires being contactable
• Better approach (from Google's executive productivity advisor Laura Mae Martin): keep email open most of the day, but close it for two to three one-hour deep work blocks
• Use email software like Superhuman that makes it easy to close and re-open cleanly

Handling off days and distractions

• Use app/website blockers (e.g., Freedom) to remove reliance on willpower
• Keep your phone out of arm's reach — if it's in another room, the impulse to check it usually passes
• Forest app: set a focus timer; checking your phone kills a growing digital tree
• If still distracted, do a state change — a short walk resets energy and motivation

Planning process

• Daily planning via time boxing in the calendar
• Monthly planning: list the big goals and deep work chunks that will "shift the dial"
• Pin or surface that monthly list daily (previously Apple Notes, now Notion) to reorient priorities
• No formal weekly planning — the monthly list serves as the anchor

The habit with the biggest impact on energy

• Consistent sleep: same bedtime and wake time every night within a 30-minute window
• Leaves social events early rather than compromise sleep schedule
• Without energy, everything else in the system falls apart

Environment design as behaviour change

• Redesign your physical and digital environment to make the desired behaviour the default
• Example: change your browser homepage to Perplexity if you want to default to AI-assisted search instead of Google
• Most people get excited about new tools but never change their environment to support them
• The environment does the work willpower can't sustain

Current tools and recommendations

• Snipt — podcast app with a one-tap "Snipt" button that captures and emails the last minute of audio; useful for saving insights while exercising
• Whisper Flow — dictation software for Mac using a hold-to-record function key shortcut; accurate, auto-formats, works in any application
• Reset by Dan Heath — recent book recommendation on how to create change