How to flex your thinker vs doer modes

Timestamps 

00:00:00: Introduction 
00:03:00: Improving your adaptability 
00:04:19: Being a thinker… pros 
00:05:29: Being a thinker… pitfalls 
00:08:41: Thinker introvert vs doer extrovert 
00:09:43: Being a doer… pros 
00:10:21: Being a doer… pitfalls 
00:13:54: Action for thinkers 1: action its 
00:17:05: Action for thinkers 2: sizing times thinking 
00:20:46: Action for doers 1: ten-minute thinking challenge 
00:24:41: Action for doers 2: find someone to slow down with 
00:28:15: Action for all 1: swap shoes with someone of the opposite preference 
00:29:38: Action for all 2: reframe what "time well spent" means 
00:32:17: Final thoughts 
 

Interview Transcription 

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen. 

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah. 

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where each week we talk about a different topic to do with work and discuss some ideas for action and advice that we hope will help you, and it always help us, navigate our way through our Squiggly Careers.  So, I recorded a podcast with somebody who's coming on soon, Sarah, and they said that, "Research is me-search", and I was like, "That is very true.  It's a slightly cringy phrase, but I can see the truth in that statement"! 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, if you're going to do a podcast, you might as well help yourself at the same time!  For everyone listening, perhaps if you follow us on Instagram, or if you were a real fan, you will have absolutely heard about our new book, You Coach You, which is going to be out in the world very soon.  And as you probably expect from us, it's a really practical book, it's got more than 50 ideas for action, over 100 coach-yourself questions, and loads of tools to try out.   

It will be really useful if you're trying to figure out a career challenge, like how to make progress in a way that works for you, where your career might take you next, how to build your self-belief, or maybe find more purpose from the work you go.  And we also cover more generally the mindset, skillset and toolkit that we just think will help you to coach yourself, whatever your opportunity or obstacle right now. 

So we really appreciate, we know some of you will have already pre-ordered already, so thank you for doing that and for bearing with us, as we have to do slightly more of a sales drive over the next month or so, but pre-orders help us so much, just to get the book off to a really good start, and for people sharing it.  So, if you want to order an early Christmas present for yourself, for your friends, or if you just think it would be a good addition to your bookshelf, thank you in advance, we really appreciate those pre-orders; they make a massive difference to us. 

Helen Tupper: And the podcast topic we're going to talk about today is also inspired by You Coach You, where we talk about the difference between being a thinker versus a doer, and how it affects your ability to coach yourself.  It's quite useful that Sarah is a thinker and I am a doer, so it gives you a very real and different way of looking at them.  So, maybe you'll relate more to Sarah, or maybe you'll relate more to me, but today we're going to take the idea of being a thinker and a doer a bit broader than just coaching, because these preferences show up in our day-to-day all of the time.   

It shows up in meetings, when you might be thinking too much about what to say, or speaking before you think; it shows up in projects that we might be working on, where you might go into one of the two modes too easily; and it's just about understanding, what is my natural preference, which one of these modes do I go to most frequently, how can that be helpful, because definitely both of them are helpful, but when might it hinder me? 

So, this idea of spotting your preference and being able to switch between the two, so that you can be the best of you in all the things that you do, and you just know what actions you might need to take, so that you can use one of the different modes a bit more frequently. 

Sarah Ellis: And I think this adds to your adaptability, and I was thinking, as we were researching this and putting our thoughts together for today's episode, that if you spend some time knowing this, you'll improve your self-awareness and at the same time, you'll improve your adaptability.  We were even chatting before we got started today, and we were both spotting that because we know this about ourselves and about each other, I think it just gives you that ability to not do things that are unhelpful, or not do things where you get in your own way, because none of us are perfect.  But I think the more that we know this stuff, you can just, when you need to you, almost make a tiny intervention that can make all of the difference. 

So, as Helen said, it is useful that I'm a thinker and Helen's a doer, and I suspect most of you who've listened to the podcast for more than one week, you will appreciate that about both of us.  So, we thought we'd talk about the pros and the pitfalls for each preference, what it might sound like, and at those points, I think you start to cringe, because you really recognise them in yourself.  Helen and I did chat about these before and we were both going, "Oh, yeah, we do say that".  So, we'll do that first.  So, this bit is more describing both of those styles and see which one feels more familiar for you, though I'm sure in everyone's jobs, you'll go back and forth; and then we're going to talk about the actions, some actions for thinkers, some action for doers and some actions that we think will work for both. 

So, starting with thinking, some pros.  I feel like I'm talking about some pros for myself; this will help my ego, no doubt!  So, the good think about being a thinker is that we explore ideas from different angles, and you do understand nuances, which is helpful.  So, you see lots of different points of view and perspectives.  I was reading a really good HBR article, which is actually about overthinking, which we'll come on to, but I picked out a positive bit of it.  The article describes people who are more thinkers as, "Sensitive strivers" and I was like, "Oh, that's nice, I could just be a sensitive striver".  

Helen Tupper: That's very you, you are a sensitive striver. 

Sarah Ellis: I think the other thing about thinkers is that we are comfortable with pressing pause and sitting with a problem; comfortable with thinking and spending time thinking and enjoy that, rather than find that maybe frustrating.  So, you do tend to be empathetic, because you do spend time understanding people's points of view, and that helps to build your empathy, and thoughtful, because you're a thinker and so you spend time thinking and thinking, "What might that mean to that person, or what might that mean to that project?"  So, loads of good stuff about being a thinker, thankfully. 

Some of the pitfalls then, and I think lots of us will recognise this, any thinkers out there, is procrastination over progress.  So, you sort of get stuck in a spiral of overthinking, which clouds clarity.  That spiralling means that you can stall and get stuck.  I just think you miss out on opportunities to learn by doing, because there is only so much we can learn by thinking, if I'm honest, and I did feel I can say this, being this sort of person.  It's often only when we try things out, when we experiment, when something gets out in the world where we really start to accelerate our learning, so your learning could slow down if you don't adapt at the right moments in time. 

This is another pitfall, and I'm going to talk about what this might sound like in a second.  Often, because you really think about things, you present or you share fully formed thoughts, without the chance for other people to input.  Now, in some ways, that can sound a bit contradictory, because as a thinker, we like to explore different angles and different nuances.  But I think what sometimes ends up being the challenge is, you also like to spend quite a lot of time in your own head.   

So, if you're just really thinking about something, and you're maybe even guessing or anticipating what people might think, let's say you're working on a project, you might go quite far by yourself, and then almost do a bit of a big reveal, and you haven't really gauged from people along the way what could their ideas be, what could their input be.  So often, thinking can sound a bit like, and I think I say this sentence daily, "Let me just have a think about that"!  I love saying that! 

Helen Tupper: Shall I do you a thinker tally around how much I've heard that this week? 

Sarah Ellis: No, definitely not!  So, I like to say, "Let me just have a think", rather than being forced into a decision maybe, kind of in the moment.  Certainly, I'm not a spontaneous decision-maker, and we'll come onto decisions when we get the ideas for action.  So, I'll often talk about, "Let me mull it over and I'll come back to you tomorrow, I'll come back to you this week". 

We were both discussing before we started today, "What's this at its worst?"  So, when you really think about at your worst, what are things that it might sound like, or what might you say?  This will obviously be different for all of us.  But for me, we decided together that it was whenever I say, "I've cracked it", which might sound positive.  But usually for me, when I'm saying that to Helen, I'm essentially signalling to her, "There is no room for manoeuvre, I don't want a conversation", I don't want her input, there is no feedback required at this point, because I've cracked it. 

That is because I would have thought about something way too much, won't have involved Helen along the way, will have done loads of work on it and spent a lot of time on it, and then I get so invested that I'm convinced that I've cracked it.  It's probably, and I guess this is the same, we'll test that assumption in a second on thinking and doing, I guess this is when you get really, really fixed.  So, you've gone into fixed mindset times by your preference, this is what it ends up showing out, equals, "I've cracked it"; so, that's what happens to me. 

Helen Tupper: The thinker introvert, and me being a doer extrovert, I do wonder whether, is it more likely if you're an introvert, you're more likely to be a thinker? 

Sarah Ellis: I cannot believe you're saying this!  So, I took that out of talking about this podcast, because I thought, "She'll never let me talk about that, because we'll have to go into too many directions and I can't find any research to prove it either way".  So now, don't open up Pandora's box; I intentionally edited myself! 

Helen Tupper: We don't have to think it through for hours. 

Sarah Ellis: Of course we do! 

Helen Tupper: No, it's just an interesting relationship.  Perhaps our audience could come back to us and let us know.  Are you an introverted thinker and an extroverted doer; or, is anybody listening contrary to that, let us know.  If you think you're an extroverted thinker or an introverted doer, let us know.  We don't have to do more than that, Sarah, we just have to collect some evidence; prove to do. 

Sarah Ellis: Do you know, I can feel an Instagram poll coming.  I mean obviously, I can't do them, you'll have to do it, but I would actually be fascinated by it.  I can't believe I had written sentences, then I deleted them! 

Helen Tupper: So, I think what you might be hearing here, everybody, is that my preference is a doer.  So, rather than add another ten minutes into today's discussion, I'm like, "You could just give us some data by emailing us and we'll do an Instagram poll", because as a pro as a doer, I can open to experimenting quickly: it will work, it won't work, it doesn't really matter either way, I just want to do it and move it forward.   

There are some disadvantages to that approach, but I enjoy the action.  I enjoy seeing things moving forward really quickly, I love getting response and engagement on things, because for me, the progress that you make is so much more important than it being perfect and it never getting started. 

But I think there are a lot of pitfalls of my approach.  Sometimes I go into quantity mode rather than quality, so I'll be like, "How many things can I get done today?" or, "What have I got through?" and I'll just push stuff out.  So, if I make that really specific and I think about, I might get up in the morning and create some tool that I think would be really helpful for people's development, and I don't run it past Sarah to improve upon it, because I'm like, "Well, I've got it done.  It's 9.00am and I've got it done". 

Sarah Ellis: You never do, actually!  That's an interesting point! 

Helen Tupper: Well, because I find it so motivating to just do it over breakfast.  Then I'll be like, "Well, I'll push it out on social media, so that lots of people can feed back on it quickly", rather than, why would I get feedback from one person, even someone who is my business partner and as smart as Sarah?  But if I push it out really quickly, I can get 100 people's feedback on it, and I'll either get a thumbs up, which means they like it, or not.  That's like, I'm quickly collecting data. 

But I will have made lots of typos, that probably affect people's perception of me and my ability; I won't have bought in somebody who I respect, Sarah, to make it even better; just the idea of getting things out into the world becomes the dominant thing for me, as a doer.  I will start a lot of things off with a lot of energy, and then I might get overwhelmed by the amount of things I've started off and then not complete them, and that doesn't make me feel good, and I don't think that's great for teams either; I think it starts to become a bit inefficient and wasteful. 

I think, as a doer as well, I'm often attracted to the stuff that I can get done quickly, that I have energy for, that I can get done quickly; and that sometimes means that more significant stuff, that needs me to be present and to be committed to it, I don't go to very easily.  So, if you take the book, for example, if I looked at my diary and I was like, "Should I write our book all day and really research a chapter, or should I do planning for social media or five conversations with our clients?" I would go, "That's five conversations with clients, and each one of those is separate and quick", rather than sit with one thing all day.  So, there are definitely some disadvantages to it, in terms of what I can put out into the world, when I am fully in doer mode. 

For me, it sounds like, "Well, let's just have a go and get started.  Let's just get it done.  What's the first thing we could do to move this forward?"  There's always a pace and productivity in when I'm communicating, which I would imagine can sometimes make people feel uncomfortable, because I force that through.  At worst, my doer nature can almost become quite derogatory, because what I will say is something like, "Can we just stop going round in circles on this and move it forward?" and what I mean is, "Can we just stop doing that thinking thing that you're doing, that really important part of you, can we just stop doing that now and just put it out into the world", and I've sort of gone, "because doing is better?", is I think what is implied in what I'm saying then. 

Sarah Ellis: Okay, so we've got a couple of actions for thinkers, a couple of actions for doers and a couple of actions for everyone.  The point is, these actions will probably make you feel uncomfortable.  We have tested a couple of these actions in workshops over the past couple of weeks, and people do get quite uncomfortable with them.  When I've been doing things on Zoom, you should see the chat that comes up when people are like, "Can you stop talking about this?  I really wouldn't want to do it, but I can see how it would be a good challenge, but it's making me a bit tense just hearing you talk about it", so don't be surprised if that's how you feel. 

But also, if this is not you, you're probably like, "Yeah", the actions for doers, for thinkers you're like, "I'd love to do that"; and the actions for thinkers, if you're a doer, you'll be like "No problem".  So, let's go through them and see how we get on. 

So, for thinkers, two actions for you.  The first one is called, "Action its".  So, this is taking Post-its, hence the action its, and it is basically forcing you, or nudging, if you want to use a nicer word, into action.  I use this every time I'm either overwhelmed/spiralling and/or just feel like I need some help to start to make some progress.  I probably used it for the first time most effectively at the start of the pandemic, where a massive change and a massive amount of uncertainty had me feeling a bit lost.  At that point, I wasn't overwhelmed, but I think I felt lost.   

I have used it again in the last week, and that's been more because I felt overwhelmed and worried, because there's so much to think about, which always worries me, and there's so much to do.  That can also lead to that kind of paralysis of doing nothing, or making progress on the wrong things.  And the way you do this is really, really simple. 

Every Post-it note has one action on; that's all you're allowed.  That's a rule and you've got to stick to the rule, one action per Post-it, and you put them all together, cluster them all together one side of your room.  I've got them on a noticeboard; you can write them in your book if you wanted to, you can put the on your computer, wherever you want them.  But I think it is quite useful to use actual Post-it Notes, because of the second half of the exercise. 

Then, the idea is that every time you take an action, you literally pick up that Post-it, and you move it to the other side of the room, or you move it to the other side of the noticeboard, but you put it somewhere where you can see a cumulative effect of the actions you are taking.  There is something about the kind of momentum that that builds, and the slow snowball, because as a thinker, it's never going to be a super quick one, it's a slower one that that creates, that just really helps you to prioritise action when you need it.  Because, there are sometimes moments where we think, "I could just stay in thinking mode". 

We can recognise we've got to do something, either to get us unstuck, or to stop thinking and to start doing.  And people like Roman Krznaric, who's a brilliant philosopher, he talks about this, about we've got to learn by acting.  You've got to action your way to wherever you want to go.  So, I have found this a really, really useful exercise, to see all the actions.  In some ways, it sounds like that would be overwhelming, but actually it's not; it's the moving of those Post-it Notes that must give you some sort of really useful dopamine hit, I imagine, a feeling like you're making a bit of progress.  But also, you do feel like you should be moving them. 

It doesn't stop you thinking, but it does help you to start; I think that's the point.  And I can imagine, I mean I'm talking about in the last 18 months, I think I've done this exercise three times, so it's not something I do all of the time.  But what I'm starting to realise is, there are certain moments around, like I say, lost or stuck or spiralling of some description where I just think, "I feel like I just need those 'action its' in my life again", and as a result, I've done it for the last week, I feel so much better right now. 

Then an idea for action number two is about "sizing times thinking".  This is really, how do you stop and think about how big is an opportunity or problem, and use that thinking to make sure that you identify how long to stay in thinker mode for.  So, the challenge I have, and I don't know if any of you listening relate to this, because I'm guessing Helen's not going to, but maybe she at least recognises it in me, is that I care about everything that we do for Amazing If, for the business that Helen and I run together, and I think about all of it.  And I want it all to be brilliant. 

The problem with that is there's no being distinctive or being discerning and maybe going, "Well, maybe this over here, project A, is worthy of three times more thought than project B.  And maybe project C is very, very important and is worthy of even more thought".  But that ability to think about, well not everything deserves exactly the same amount of brainpower, is the way that I think about it. 

So, what I've tried to do in my own mind, as I spot myself going into thinker mode, is divide decisions.  I divide decisions into which ones need to be great and which ones need to be good enough, in terms of outcomes, so I try and get quite outcome-focussed, so great versus good enough; and, what needs to happen today, this week and this month.  I find if I just do that great versus good enough, that really helps me.  Then, the today, this week, this month makes them time-bound, so again it prompts me into action.  It also creates a limit on your thinking, which for me personally is really useful. 

So, if Helen says to me, "Right, we need to make a decision about the copy that goes on the back cover of You Coach You, and we've got to do that by Wednesday", I will think, "Okay, that's something that's really important, because that's what people are going to read as a way to decide whether they want to buy the book or not, and I know how much time I've got to think about that".  Then I can almost look at the time I have and think, "When will that happen and what would that look like?" versus maybe a smaller decision about, let's say, a social media post where I might just think, "That's a ten-minute thinking, and try not, Sarah, to keep thinking about that for the rest of this day, for this evening, for tomorrow".  I could just going and going and thinking forever. 

So, I don't think I'm brilliant at this yet and it's not a hard and fast rule, and I don't think I've cracked this, funnily enough.  Maybe there'll be a time when I can come to Helen and go, "I've cracked it", but that has just helped me a bit to just think about, "Where is that brainpower most useful", and not all questions, not all opportunities, not all obstacles are born equal. 

Helen Tupper: And perhaps, and even better if on that point, could be where we collectively do the great versus good enough thing.  So, you can always scan over what the work to be done this week or month might be and be like, "What are the three things in this work that needs to be great?", and then is the assumption that everything else is therefore good enough, so that you're not doing it again, it's not a thing that you're just doing it in your head, because then it becomes you thinking about thinking. 

So, maybe if there's a way that we find time to do that together, you align and maybe you get to it a bit quicker, I don't know.  So, having Sarah shared a couple of things that helped her, I will share a few things that help me as a doer, not let my doerness become too disruptive.  I think these really take effort and energy.  These are some of the things that I definitely saw people getting uncomfortable about when we shared them, the first one in particular people looked so afraid of! 

So, this is the "ten-minute thinking challenge".  So, this is where you have something that you do need to think through, you don't just need to do, so it might be, what's one thing that I really want to focus on for my development next year, or what are the five relationships that help me the most at work, or what's the one thing I want to improve on, like a good, big open question that you might want to think about for a bit longer.  What you're going to do is create space in your day, set a timer, you're going to turn off every distraction that would take you away from sitting in thinker mode, and it's ten minutes. 

Now, for thinkers, they'll be like, "That's easy, and why would you not do that?"  But for doers, I'd be thinking, "Well, what if I had an idea?" this is genuinely what I'll be thinking, "What if I have an idea in that ten minutes?  Then, I need to be able to google it, so I need my phone to be able to google it".  Or, "What if I think, 'Actually, what I should do is go speak to that person', then I need to be able to get onto LinkedIn really quickly?"  I can't keep all the ideas and actions that would come into my mind when I sit with a problem for ten minutes in my head; that's just a waste of time.  If I've solved the problem, I should just move it forward. 

So, that's sort of the -- 

Sarah Ellis: The old, waste-of-time thinking? 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, thinking is a waste of time!  Why think when you can do, is sort of what would go in my mind!  But with this ten-minute thinking challenge, it's useful to have the "to-think list" for doers, as well as a to-do list, so it's useful to have this, "What is on your to-think list?" and take that thing into this ten minutes.   

Then, because I think it is hard to do this, what can make it easier, I have found, is a pen and paper.  I do think, if you really want to train yourself, go pen and paperless, really sit with it in your mind.  But if you're easing your way into it, perhaps a mind map, my journaling gets me there a little bit with just writing down my thoughts in a continuous stream.  But I guess it feels like filling a page, or having a mind map as an output, has an element of productivity to it.  I think the ultimate thing is, can you do this without any pen and paper; can you just sit with it in your mind? 

But on the way to that ten-minute distraction-free, pen-free thinking time, maybe try mind mapping, or just sort of journaling along the way, but don't let yourself take the action, don't let yourself email the person, send the WhatsApp, find out the insight on Google; don't go there, because you've just fallen back into that default mode for your development. 

Sarah Ellis: Do you know, I was thinking about what might make this easier as well, if this does feel hard for you.  I don't think it's cheating to go for a walk.  So, I think you could think, "I'm going to go for a ten-minute walk", and consciously use that walk to meander and think about that thing on my to-think list, and we know that walking helps our brain to think in different ways.  So, you might get some new thoughts from doing that. 

Then, the other thing I was reading about last week is how our thoughts are impacted by what we're looking at.  So, assuming you haven't got your eyes closed when you're doing this, which some people might, slightly more meditative state; apparently, it's useful when we are thinking and trying to either get unstuck or just think hard about something, if you've got something almost in the distance.   

So basically, now, I'm looking at a wall, which is about 30 centimetres away from me in my lounge.  But if you really want to think about something, having a view, being able to see out of a window, being able to see something a bit further into the distance, because it opens up your thinking and again, it just encourages you to think in different ways, and to follow what you can see out of a window. 

So, maybe it sounds silly, I don't know, but I read this and I tried it last week, because I do have a window that I don't face in the room that I work in, and I consciously, a couple of times in the day, moved my chair.  I was glad no one could see in; I was just staring out of the window in contemplation.  Really enjoyed it, obviously! 

Helen Tupper: You're so funny!  The second idea for action for doers is to find someone to slow down with.  So, I mentioned that for me, pace and productivity are often the drivers behind my doing, so finding someone to slow down with is one way that you can find your flow out of doing mode into thinking mode.  So, Sarah would be one of those people. 

Sarah Ellis: I'm a slowdown, right?!  I definitely slow you down.  Sometimes you reject my slowness! 

Helen Tupper: Well, I think we all bring such a different energy to the situation, and I was thinking actually on Friday last week, Sarah and I were recording our audio book, and Sarah did the morning session and I did the afternoon session. 

Sarah Ellis: Oh, God! 

Helen Tupper: And I was with loads of people that basically did not slow me down, loads of people that made me even more energetic, and Sarah had been there on her own in a calm mode and basically said, "You've arrived with a whole different energy than I've got right now"!  But I guess it was a very visual reminder about thinker/doer energy.  And, spending some time with a thinker can slow you down, it can slow your thinking down, it means that you might be more into listening mode, learning mode. 

It's one of the reasons I've joined this Yellow Learning this year, and I would say everybody in that community, so I'm part of this group of six people, we meet every other week over Zoom and they're all over the world, and they are a reflective, curious, I mean you'd love them, Sarah, really thinker bunch; they're a thinker bunch.  And I sit in that session, I don't say a lot, I think through what I'm going to say, but I'm much more in listening, learning, reflecting mode and it's designed to do that.  I really enjoy it and it is such a different headspace from how I spend the rest of my time, and it just helps me to come up with some new ideas, just have the ability to recognise that sometimes, I do need to put myself into that sort of space. 

So, whether it's a community that maybe think slower than you, and they're trying to solve a problem or something like that; or, whether it's an individual, you go for a walk with them, you have a conversation with them, they just have that different pace, energy and approach to how they think than you might do, find those people, spend time with them, and it will just help you to be more adaptable. 

Sarah Ellis: Also, that's interesting, because as we said, sometimes these actions will feel hard and uncomfortable, but also maybe they're enjoyable, because we get to try a different way of being and a different way of acting.  So, I don't think we have to automatically assume, "This is just not going to be fun [or] I'm not going to be good at this", because I think we all can, sometimes we just forget to.  Or sometimes, there are just moments where you can spot, "Okay, I need to slow down now".  It's not that you don't enjoy it, it's just it's not your natural mode, and then you need to create some rituals or habits or just opportunities to change channels sometimes.  I think that's what it is. 

Helen Tupper: But also, and this is going to sound really weird, but I quite like to watch thinkers in action, I quite like to watch their faces and their heads.  Because, a thinker, their eyes will go up as they're trying to connect some dots in their mind, or connect some information that's stored in their very big brains; or, they'll move their head on an angle.  They're actually really interesting to observe behaviourally. 

Sarah Ellis: I feel like you're now looking at us in the zoo. 

Helen Tupper: I'd put all the thinkers in the zoo! 

Sarah Ellis: "Here's specimen A, Sarah, thinker"!  So, two ideas for action that we think will work for everyone.  So, the first one, this is really an empathy action, but how can you swap shoes with someone who you know has the opposite preference to you, in terms of thinker or doer?  This is practising walking in somebody else's shoes to help you to identify actions.  This is as simple as thinking, "What would Helen do?" and if Helen was doing it, "What would Sarah do?" 

We actually both do this, and it's not that you're even necessarily having that conversation, though of course if you know someone, you can, and those people can often help you.  But sometimes, I will genuinely just imagine Helen in a situation, or Helen in a meeting, and think, "What would Helen do right now?" and straightaway it helps me to think, "She would cut through this complexity and she would get us to what is the most important thing for us to do now" or, "She'd ask a really good question like, 'Okay, there's a lot to think about and a lot to do, but what's the most pressing priority in the next couple of months?' and she would get away from this complexity or this potential overwhelm, and she would get us to clarity with those kinds of action questions". 

So that, in business terms, makes me think, "Okay, let's ask something action-y, let's ask something Helen-y", and that often then just means that you've done that little bit of switching, it helps you to move forward. 

Helen Tupper: The second idea for action that works for both of them is to reframe what "time well spent" means.  So, for example, doers might think immediately, it's about outputs, it's about efficiencies, it's about getting stuff done.  But actually, if you reframe that into, it's not just about outputs, actually it's about insights, you might go into a situation or a meeting slightly differently.  And for thinkers, who might think about, "We have to get to the right answer, this has to be as high quality as we can, this has got to be as good as it can be", that risks falling into perfection, which sometimes means you might not get started.   

But if you reframed what would good progress look like in this meeting, "How could I progress this problem in a meaningful way by the end of the day?" those sorts of framings and questions might just help you rethink what time well spent looks like, and mean that you spend your time better as a result.  

Sarah Ellis: I also think you could be proactive about your day or your week some of the time, and you might even be thinking before, and I bet loads of our listeners already do this, because you would be smart about being situational in your thinking, you'd think, "What would be helpful in this meeting; a bit more thinker or a bit more doer?  What would be helpful in this project; is this about doing and learning by doing, or with this project, have we really got to think through some of these knotty problems?"   

This doesn't always have to be reactive in the moment; I think this can just also be about spotting which style and which preference is most useful at any one point in time, without losing you being your own authentic self.  And two resources that I thought might be useful, depending on whether you're a thinker or a doer. 

So, if you're a thinker, I would definitely look at the work of Steven Pressfield.  He talks a lot about procrastination, if that's a particular problem for you, and he has a very good short book, called The War of Art.  But there's also loads of videos, and you can find lots of his work available online.  And I was trying to think for Helen, I was trying to think, "If you're a doer, what could I make Helen go and read, watch or listen to that would slow her down and encourage maybe a bit more reflection and rest?" and there's a great organisation, called The Idler Academy, and the Idler Academy have a magazine, they do workshops, again lots you can read and find out about them.  Their philosophy is about slowing down and reflecting.  And actually, we both like Idler Academy, don't we, so I'd definitely recommend them. 

Helen Tupper: We do.  I do read it, but I do sometimes get a bit vague reading it, because honestly, it's really random.  It's like, "Well, how can I apply this insight about frogs in Argentina?" but I kind of go with it, because I can see the benefit of being idle and all that sort of stuff.  But I will admit that I do also go, "But where's the model that I can use at work?" 

Sarah Ellis: Where's the matrix, guys?! 

Helen Tupper: Well, I hope you have taken some insights out today, whether you're a thinker, whether you're a doer, you will work with both, so you can help yourself and help them too.  And maybe you've just laughed along as Sarah and I have laughed at each other.  But this genuinely will help you to be more adaptable at work, because you will inevitably need to be in different modes at different times. 

So, please download the PodSheet; that will help you to take action.  There are some coach-yourself questions in there for people who like to reflect, and there are also the actions summarised in there for people who like to get on with the dos, something in there for both of you! 

Sarah Ellis: Something for everyone! 

Helen Tupper: You can get the link to that as well, it will be in the show notes.  And if you ever can't find anything that we talk about, like resources, PodSheets, you can always just email us.  We're helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com. 

Sarah Ellis: So, that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening, and we'll be back with you again soon.  Bye for now. 

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.