Organisational psychologist Dr Kat Page has spent two decades researching workplace wellbeing and happiness at work. She is a Leadership Partner at ByMany, Adjunct Professor, and author of Good Work a book that makes the case that burnout is a design problem, not a people problem. In this episode of the Leadership Odysseys podcast, Dr Kat Page and Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee) explore what happiness actually means, how good leadership shapes the conditions people work in, and why designing better work is the most important lever any leader has.

From a Goat Farm to a Life's Work

Kat grew up on a 40-acre property in Benalla, Victoria, a writer from primary school age. When she landed on happiness research at Deakin University at 21, she knew immediately it was what she was meant to do. Two decades of organisational psychology research followed — and a book that needed all of it to be written properly.

"I was just in my happy place, no pun intended, studying happiness."

What Happiness at Work Actually Means

Most people sit between a six and eight on the happiness scale regardless of what happens to them. The deeper form of happiness, flourishing comes from living in alignment with your values and feeling like your life matters. Kat's practical tip for leaders and founders: do a values card sort, rank your top three, and use them to make decisions. At any point in time, she says, there are only three values you can truly live by.

"Happiness is really about having someone to love, something to do, and something to contribute towards."

Why Fixing Work, Not People, Is the Answer to Burnout

The central argument of Good Work is that poorly designed work not a lack of individual resilience is driving the workplace wellbeing and burnout crisis. Kat's Six Cs framework describes what good work looks like in practice: clarity, control, competence, connection, contribution, and care. Each one is a design choice. And each one, when absent, quietly depletes people who are trying to do a good job.

"Work is a social determinant of mental health. Fix work, and you improve outcomes at scale."

The Loneliness Nobody Talks About

Kat admits she has experienced loneliness herself, despite being surrounded by people constantly. In a world of Zoom meetings, Slack messages, and back-to-back calendars, genuine human connection at work is increasingly rare. The antidote, she says drawing on researcher Zach Mercurio's work on mattering, is not more contact — it is the feeling that you matter to someone.

"How rare it is to have someone say: I see you. I see how hard you have been working."

The Me, We, Us Framework for Good Work

Good Work is organised around three layers that every leader can act on. Me is your own energy, recovery, and non-negotiables. We is the space between people — connection, psychological safety, and how leadership is felt in the moments between conversations. Us is the organisational system: culture, work design, and the structures that either protect people or erode them. Knowing which level a problem lives at is the starting point for solving it.

"Good work is not a luxury. It is a design choice and a shared responsibility."

This episode of the Leadership Odysseys podcast was recorded 1 May 2025. Good Work by Dr Kat Page is available now in print and audiobook.

Connect with Dr Kat Page: LinkedIn | Website

ByMany: Linkedin | Website

This episode is brought to you by: Naturally Glutenfree

Connect with Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee): LinkedIn | Instagram | Website

Mentioned in this episode:

Zach Mercurio — The Power of Mattering

Megan Wright — Spacious Mode

Craig Hassad — Punctuating Your Day

Sir Cary Cooper — Workplace wellbeing researcher and mentor

Amy C. Edmondson — Harvard Business School, endorsed Good Work

Life values card sort — search online for a free version

Most leaders are good at filling their calendars. Far fewer are intentional about what goes in them. In this episode of Leadership Odysseys, Kirsty Ghahramani (Gee) sits down with Nashville-based productivity coach, speaker, and bestselling author Mridu Parikh, founder of Life Is Organized, to explore why driven, capable people still end the day feeling like they didn't do enough. Mridu shares the single question that replaces every productivity framework you have tried, why white space in your calendar is quietly deceiving you, and how to build systems that protect your focus without sacrificing the life you are building around your work.

1. The Closet Was Never the Problem

Mridu began as a professional home organiser, but a pattern kept emerging. She could sort the garage and tidy the pantry, and clients would still come back overwhelmed. The real disorder was not in the spaces. It was in the calendar, the inbox, and the mental load of expectations people had never stopped to question. That shift became the foundation of everything she teaches. The physical and the organisational, she argues, operate by the same logic. If you can organise a cupboard, you can organise your priorities. You just need the right questions.

1. The Pillow Test

Mridu replaced the Eisenhower Matrix with one question asked at the start of every day: what two to three things will make me feel most successful when my head hits the pillow tonight? The phrasing is precise. It limits scope, grounds decisions in how you will feel rather than what looks urgent right now, and consistently surfaces what you have been avoiding. Those two or three things, she says, are almost always what you are procrastinating. It is also the question at the heart of her recent TEDx talk, How to Stop Feeling Like You Didn't Do Enough, which explores why we can work hard all day and still go to bed feeling like none of it mattered - and how purpose, presence, and relationships all hinge on getting honest about what we are actually working towards.

1. The White Space Trap

When we see open space between meetings, we believe we have more time than we do. Mridu calls this positivity bias, and high achievers are especially vulnerable. Her fix: schedule the work, not just the delivery. If a proposal is due Friday, Monday needs a block for the outline, Tuesday for team input, Wednesday for the draft. When you fill in those steps honestly, the calendar stops lying, and you stop overcommitting.

1. Schedule the Distraction

Willpower is not a strategy. We are wired for ease and the dopamine hit of a cleared inbox. Mridu's answer is to schedule distraction deliberately and use a timer without exception. The timer creates an external signal that breaks the pull of the scroll in a way that looking at a clock never will. She also notes that how we communicate our availability trains the people around us. Telling your group chat you will respond tonight removes the pressure, protects your focus, and costs almost nothing.

1. Purpose Before the To-Do List

When Mridu compares a client's stated priorities to their actual calendar, the gap is almost always startling. Health, strategic growth, family time. None of it on the schedule. Her point is not that people are dishonest. It is that intention without a calendar commitment stays intention. The calendar is not the last step in planning. It is the moment the plan becomes real.

Mridu's work is not about optimisation for its own sake. It is about alignment between the life you say you want and the days you are actually building. Her advice for founders: protect the morning, block strategic thinking, and come to a mutual agreement with your team that internal emails and meetings don't start before 10am - so everyone can protect their highest-value hours, not just the leader. The leaders who create lasting impact, she says, are not the ones who manage their time. They are the ones who lead it.

Connect with Mridu Parikh: LinkedIn

Connect with Life is Organized: LinkedIn | Website

This episode is brought to you by: Naturally Glutenfree

Connect with Kirsty Gee: LinkedIn | Instagram | Website