How I Work

There is a quiet guilt a lot of people carry every time they open ChatGPT. Somewhere between the headlines about data centres and the vague sense that AI is somehow worse for the planet than everything else we do without a second thought, it becomes easier to just feel bad than to actually work out whether that guilt is warranted.
Nobody hands you the comparison points. Is a heavy day of prompting worse than a night of Netflix? Worse than a round of golf? Nobody says.
In this How I AI episode, Neo and I go looking for the real figures. You will hear how an hour of heavy AI use stacks up against an hour of Netflix, why American golf courses use far more water than AI data centres, and the two things you can personally do that make a genuine difference, including one that has nothing to do with AI at all.
What you'll learn:
How an hour of heavy AI use actually compares to an hour of Netflix
Why golf courses use more water than AI data centres, and why nobody is calling to ban golf
What separates the environmental cost of training AI from simply using it
What governments, companies and individuals can each actually do about AI's environmental impact
The one everyday habit that beats cutting your AI use altogether
Practical AI tools for productivity and focus
Real-world AI workflows used by high performers
How to use AI at work without burning out
Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load
Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.

How I AI is a special series within How I Work where Neo and I explore how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M
Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/
Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a particular kind of tightness that creeps in when the world feels unpredictable. We tidy the to-do list, tighten the routine, optimise one more thing, all in an attempt to feel a bit more in control.
Oliver Burkeman has a word for this: clenching. And he reckons it's squeezing the life out of us, even when it looks a lot like productivity.
In this episode, I sit down with Oliver Burkeman, New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations for Mortals, and former writer of The Guardian's This Column Will Change Your Life, to talk about his forthcoming book Aliveness and what he calls unclenching, learning to loosen your grip on certainty rather than white-knuckle your way through it.
We get into flexible goals, why urgency is so often someone else's agenda in disguise, and how to stop tying your self-worth to your latest achievement.
If you have ever hit a goal and felt the satisfaction evaporate within minutes, this conversation will change how you think about ambition altogether.
Oliver and I discuss:
What "clenching" is, and why our instinct to grip tighter in uncertain times actually backfires
The insecure overachiever trap, and why hitting a goal rarely feels like enough for long
How Oliver's open list, closed list approach stops you drowning in fifty half-started things
Setting a "no later than" time instead of a strict start time, and why looser goals often get more done
Why urgency is so often someone else's agenda in disguise, and how to tell when it is genuinely yours
What Oliver actually does with the emails he has not gotten to yet
Key quotes
"If you have this feeling of aliveness, even the most difficult challenges are copeable with, and if you don't have this feeling of aliveness, even the most impressive accomplishments are kind of worthless."
"You will do enough, because you will do everything that it's within your capacities and your energy levels and your talents to do, and that just by definition will be all that you could ever have done."
Connect with Oliver Burkeman on X (Twitter), LinkedIn and his website. Check out his latest book Meditations for Mortals and look out for his upcoming book Aliveness in 2027.
If you want more from Oliver, listen back to our earlier conversation on time management, a great companion episode to this one: (https://www.amantha.com/podcasts/want-to-make-time-for-the-things-that-count)

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M
Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/
Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before you paste that customer list, that blood test result or that contract into your favourite AI tool, it's worth pausing for a second. Whatever you hand over doesn't just disappear after you get your answer. It sits somewhere, and depending on the tool and the settings, it might be doing more than just answering your question.
Most people have never actually checked what happens to their data once it goes in or thought about the difference between what's fine to share and what's better redacted first.
In this How I AI episode, Neo and I work through what's actually safe to give AI and what's better left out. We cover how to check your settings so free tools aren't training on your data, how to de-identify sensitive things like health results and contracts, the rules that change once you're at work, and the one question to ask yourself before you upload anything.
What you'll learn:
How to know if AI is quietly training on the data you give it, and how to switch that off
The one question to ask before you upload anything to AI
Why work and home should be treated completely differently when it comes to AI
What to redact from contracts, spreadsheets and client files before sharing them
Where the line sits between using AI as a sounding board and relying on it too much
Practical AI tools for productivity and focus
Real-world AI workflows used by high performers
How to use AI at work without burning out
Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load
Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.

How I AI is a special series within How I Work where Neo and I explore how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M
Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/
Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is a version of leadership that looks effortless from the outside. The one where the leader always has the answers, always holds the vision, always appears composed. And then there is the version that happens in private, at 5:00 AM, when your mind is rehearsing every possible failure and no one can see it.
What surprises most people is how often those two versions belong to the same person.
In part two of my conversation with Christian O'Connell, breakfast radio host heard by hundreds of thousands of Australians every morning, we get into the parts of leadership nobody talks about publicly. Christian opens up about the loneliness of leading a team, the night he finally put his thoughts on a whiteboard and told his people the truth about how he'd been feeling, and why he believes his next book will be about leadership because nobody warned him how hard it would be.
If you have ever found yourself carrying something heavy at work and deciding the most responsible thing to do as a leader is keep it to yourself, this conversation will make you question whether that instinct is actually protecting your team or just protecting you.
Christian and I discuss:
Why confidence is the wrong thing to aim for before you speak in public
What happened when Christian finally stopped pretending everything was fine with his team
The one thing that does more for a team than any solution or action plan
Why 5am is the worst possible time to trust your own thoughts
The David Letterman line that changed how Christian thinks about taking risks
Why Christian considers himself an accidental leader, and what he's doing about it
Key quotes
"Confidence is something that catches up. Momentum is more important."
"It's a beautiful thing, leadership. If you get it right, it's a path of aliveness and transformation. If you get it wrong, it's the opposite."
Connect with Christian O'Connell on Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn and his website. Tune in to The Christian O’Connell Show and check out his latest book Unscript: The Radical Act of Being Yourself.

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M
Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/
Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The AI world has has done a spectacularly bad job of naming things. Agents, GPTs, gems, notebooks, projects, skills - you'll find a completely different word for what is essentially the same kind of tool. Agents in one place, GPTs in another, gems somewhere else. Different names, similar ideas - and no handbook to tell you that.
But the tools themselves are not that complicated. Once you know what each one is built to do, knowing which to reach for becomes straightforward.
In this How I AI episode, Neo and I cut through the jargon and map out what Agents, Projects, and Skills actually are, how they differ from each other, and which one to reach for depending on what you need to do.
How I AI is a special series within How I Work where Neo and I explore how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.
What you'll learn:
Why agents, GPTs, and gems are the same kind of thing (just with different names)
When a project is the right choice over an agent
What makes a skill different from a long prompt
Practical AI tools for productivity and focus
Real-world AI workflows used by high performers
How to use AI at work without burning out
Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load
Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.

My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M
Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/
Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.