Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:02:32: Changing perspectives of time

00:04:34: Three thinking traps…

00:04:54: … 1: "I'll have more time to think when…"

00:06:29: … 2: thinking equals lots of time

00:07:29: … 3: drama triangle

00:13:27: Five ideas for action…

00:13:40: … 1: start a thought book

00:25:06: … 2: focus on thinking themes

00:27:15: … 3; together thinking

00:31:41: … 4: create an effective thinking environment

00:35:04: … 5: anti-thinking awareness

00:39:28: Summary of ideas for action

00:39:52: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And you're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we talk about the ups, downs, ins and outs of work, and give you some skills and a bit of support, some tools to try out, so that you can feel a little bit more confident and in control of your career.  If maybe this is the first time you've listened to us, then as well as having quite a few episodes to catch up on, about 300-odd, don't feel like you have to listen to them all, but you might not know that all of our podcasts come with lots of extra resources to help you listen and then learn a little bit more.

So, we have things like PodSheets, which are one-page summaries of the key things that we talk about, sort of quotes and tools; we also have PodPlus, which is a free weekly session, happens every Thursday morning, it's 30 minutes, and that gives you a chance to connect to the community, the lovely Squiggly Careers listeners, maybe ask us some questions, just dive a bit deeper basically into what we're talking about; or you can just follow us on social where we put all the short summaries.  Whatever works for you, we try to take this podcast and make the learning last a little bit longer.  So, hopefully you can find us in all those places.  And if you ever can't, just email us.  We're helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.

Sarah Ellis: This week, we're talking about how to find time to think, which is something that I hear myself say, something that I always hear other people say, "If only I had more time to think", and I was reflecting on why this is something that comes up in conversation so frequently.  And so often, I think people liken it to the moments where you feel like you're stuck on a hamster wheel.  So, you know when you just feel like you're going round and round in circles, loads of urgent stuff to get done and you feel like you can't escape that hamster wheel; there's sort of no way of stopping and getting some time to think, which then often leads to people feeling frustrated and that you can't solve or explore those bigger opportunities or those knotty problems that you perhaps would enjoy, or relish the chance to have some time to think about, but it just doesn't feel practically possible. Maybe there's even a bit of comparison, which is never useful in our careers, but we all do occasionally.  And you look around maybe some of your colleagues and think, "Well, how do they seem to find the time to think?  What's wrong with me; what am I not doing right?" and maybe we search for some sort of formula, or maybe you then just start to see yourself as someone who's just not good at this, which is also unhelpful.

Helen Tupper: Just thinking a little bit about my mum, connected to this topic not just a random thought about my mum, but I was thinking when I was growing up, so my mum worked full-time when I was growing up, and I don't think I would have ever heard her say now, "Helen Elizabeth", which was my full name, "I wish I had more time to think".  I don't think I ever heard her say that, but I did hear her say things like, "Oh, I wish there was more time in the day".  And I don't really hear that as much now.  So, I think when I was growing up, she was like, "I wish there was more time in the day", probably to get more stuff done. 

So, the desire to do felt more prevalent from my parent when I was growing up.  Whereas I think now, it is more "time to think".  I think I hear less of like, "Oh, I wish I had more time to do, do, do", I hear more of like, "Oh my gosh, there's enough going on, I just need a bit of space, I need a bit more time to think. I wonder whether, I mean, many years on from my childhood, whether that is just a little bit of a shift in how the world works now.  There is so much going on, it's so fast, there's so much stuff that we're trying to absorb that there isn't a desire to have more time to do more, it is a desire to have time to think more.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think that could be true because no one ever says, "I wish I had more time for my inbox".  Well, maybe people do, I don't know.  But you know, I suppose sometimes people, maybe particularly when you're in this kind of mindset of struggling to find time to think, maybe you're doing lots of things that feel quite transactional, where you feel like you're not adding as much value as you could or as you want to.  So, it's sort of how you define productivity, isn't it? 

You know when people talk about being productive and which countries are most productive, I always think, well, given lots of people now work in the knowledge space, surely time to think is more important than ever because that's how we add the most value, that's how you realise whether it's commercial opportunity, people opportunity, it's our brains that are doing that, not just doing the same thing kind of day-in-day out, for most people probably in jobs now. So we've identified three thinking traps that we think are really easy to fall into, so it's good to start by just spotting, "Do any of these feel familiar for you?"  So, we're going to talk those through and we'll talk about which ones feel most familiar for us; and then we've got five ideas for action if you want to spend a bit more time thinking and maybe a bit less time doing.  So, the first thinking trap is, "I'll have more time to think when..." 

And the problem with that mindset is the when never comes along.  So, let's imagine you're in the middle of a big project.  You'll just say to yourself, "It's okay, because I will have more time to think when this project comes to an end".  Or sometimes it might be more to do with a time, so, "I'll have more time to think after September".  We sort of set these milestones of when more time to think will magically appear. In my experience, that has just never been a thing because every time one thing stops, something else starts, unexpected things come along.  And I think this is a little bit letting go of the idea of a perfect world and a perfect plan.  And I'm someone who loves to plan, I really enjoy a plan.  I like being organised, I'm very future-oriented, and I could definitely fall into this trap.  I think I have just recognised that through experience, if you try to plan your thinking time in this way, you're essentially planning to fail.  And you've got to sort of let go of this perfect opportunity that's going to arise at some point in the future.

Helen Tupper: I also think it's quite reactive.  So, I think one of the things that you're very good at doing with your diary is you're very proactive.  So, you will look ahead and create space.  Whereas, I think when you fall into this thinking trap, you are waiting, you're often waiting for that space to magically appear.  So, I think you are more of a creator than a waiter, I think as well.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm a thinker, I suppose.

Helen Tupper: That's true.

Sarah Ellis: I'm naturally more of a thinker than a doer, so this is a very important and valuable topic for me personally.  The second thinking trap is that thinking equals lots of time.  And I do hear this quite frequently from other people where they'll say, "Oh, if I just had a day or a week to think things through", and we imagine that quality thinking equals big, chunky moments where it's not 15 minutes or it's not something you could fit into a day. 

I think we've got to do a bit of rethinking, a bit of relearning about what thinking looks like and what that might look like as part of our days and our weeks.  Of course, sometimes we might immerse ourselves in the space or the time to think, but when we're looking at our realities, if you want more time to think, I think you've got to imagine, "What might that look like in an average week?  What might this look like this week or this month?"  And so maybe just letting go of this has to be, I've got to…  Again, it's back to waiting, "I've got to wait until I've got this big space in my diary" that again, potentially never comes, but then you also put a lot of pressure on yourself in that moment.

Helen Tupper: And the third thinking trap is that not having the time to think is something that is completely outside of my control, so it's a result of the circumstances that I'm operating in.  And that is a really unhelpful trap to fall into because you're expecting someone else to almost magically solve this situation for you.  But in reality, to solve the problem, you have to own the problem.  And when Sarah and I were reflecting on this, it reminded us of a model, Karpman's drama triangle.  I think it's a model they often use in therapy, actually. So, if you imagine a triangle, it says that when you are coping with the situation, so you've got a drama going on, in this case it's a drama to do with your career development, there are three factors at play which can create a bit of a problem for you, it almost gets you stuck in that situation.  So, the first is where you see yourself as a victim. 

So, "It's not my fault I've not got enough time to think", and you don't own that problem, so that might be the starting point for this situation.  The second bit on the triangle is where there's some kind of villain, so you are the victim and there's a villain.  So, let me just take a sort of example of our business.  I go, "Oh, I've not got time to think and it's not my problem because here's the villain; it's Sarah".

Sarah Ellis: I quite enjoy playing the villain!

Helen Tupper: "Sarah is always sending me ideas and emails and messages, and I haven't got time to think because Sarah sends me so much stuff to do".  And so you have this sort of victim/villain issue, which means you get a bit stuck in a situation.  But then what happens is you introduce the hero.  And the hero in this situation could be, "So, what I'll do is I'll plan a day for me and Sarah to do some thinking together.  So, on 1 of October, we're going to take a day and we'll do all of our thinking there, and then that's the situation solved".  But the problem is when the hero is taking a day or half an afternoon a week, or whatever it is you do, that time isn't necessarily the best time for both of you to do that.  That time might get eaten into by other things. 

You've not really changed your mindset.  You might have changed your time set, but you've not necessarily changed your mindset, which doesn't mean you're going to do high-quality thinking. So, what we can't do is fall into this, "I'm the victim, it's someone else who's the villain, and what I'm going to do to save this situation is just do one thing once", because actually, in order to get out of this thinking trap, we need new patterns of behaving, we need new ways, as Sarah said, of thinking about thinking.  So which one of those traps, Sarah?  We've got the three, so, "I'll have more time to think when…"; thinking equals just lots of time, and I can never find that space; or, the drama triangle, where maybe it's someone else who's the villain, or you're doing the save the day with some kind of hero action.  Which is your biggest trap?

Sarah Ellis: I think my biggest trap is probably the second one.  I think I sometimes underestimate how much good, quality thinking you can do in short bursts.  I think what's really helped me with that is you, because you are a short-burst, quick thinker.  And I will sometimes push back on that and almost say to you out loud -- I almost want to stop.  I'll sort of go, "Okay, so let's just go away and think about that".  You just ignore me and keep --

Helen Tupper: Well…!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that's a conversation for another day!  And you'll keep going, but you'll keep going in a very sort of short way.  So, you'll just be like, "Well, let's just do 10 minutes and just see where we get to.  Or let's do 15 minutes and see where we get to, sharing our thoughts on…"  It could be a small problem, it could be a really big opportunity, and because you're a very in-the-moment thinker, and you're very good at thinking spontaneously, and you're great at creating connections through conversation, almost just us chatting gets you to better and better places.  And I often will stop you and say, can we just write that down?  You're really good at sort of developing your thinking in flow, out loud; you definitely think out loud. I don't, I think in a different way to you, but sometimes that sort of forcing function of us coming together really makes me reflect on, "Well actually, do you know what, that was 15 minutes really well spent.  Our thinking is further ahead now because of that 15 minutes".  And to me, that's time really well spent.  And so I think naturally, that's the one where I do sometimes think, "I'd love half a day.  I'd like to sort of luxuriate in my thinking", probably because I really enjoy it, but that is unrealistic.  And so I quite like being forced into these sort of short bursts, but it's taken a bit of learning and practice for me to do that.  What about you?

Helen Tupper: Well, just before I share mine, which is different to yours, I do think, and it's not one of our ideas for action, it might be that having a thinking language or a few thinking statements or questions is quite useful.  So like, "What are your thoughts on…?"  "What do you think about…?"  "My first thoughts on this situation are…", framing your thinking, particularly fall into the trap that you do.  If you think, "Oh, thinking takes a lot of time", actually having the framing as, "My first thoughts are", makes it sort of quicker and shorter and it might just help people get a bit unstuck from like, "Thinking has to be an away-day that we have to find in our diary". Mine's different to yours, mine's the, "I'll have time to think when..."  And do you know what, I really realised this.  So in August, when we did the Squiggly Careers Skills Sprint, I was at home for quite a lot of time because I was having an operation and I was in a bit of rest and recovery.  And in my head, I thought, "Oh, well, in August, I'm not going to solve all of our problems".

Sarah Ellis: You mean you haven't solved all our problems?

Helen Tupper: No, sorry.

Sarah Ellis: Is this you telling me you've not solved all our problems?

Helen Tupper: Sorry, yeah, this is the big reveal that we've still got them!  But I remember thinking, "Oh, I'll have time to think when I'm off in August".  And yet, no, I haven't, because the problem wasn't actually the time, the problem was my mind, like how much I had aligned my time to thinking, and I hadn't.  So yes, I had more time, but if I wasn't in the right mindset for that moment, then the thinking didn't really happen.  So yeah, the, "I'll have more time to think when…", it just doesn't work, doesn't work. So, we've got five ideas for action now, which are definitely a bit more about mindset, but a bit more about how you set yourself up to thinking success over a longer, longer term.  So it's not that hero, one day we'll do it all for you. 

So, idea number one is to start a thought book, so not just a notebook, a thought book.  So, this is having a physical place, because we do think writing things down is important when you're thinking, but having a physical place where you can capture your thoughts. Now for me, I quite like a notebook.  So, my thought book would look like probably a nice moleskin notebook, and I'd probably buy some nice pens and I would capture lots of my thoughts in there, and we're going to give you some prompts of what you might capture in your thought book in a moment.  But for somebody else, someone like Sarah, for example, she might use a Miro board or a Mural, so maybe you have a digital way of capturing your thoughts; or for other people that might have it on lots of Post-it notes; or even in your phone, to be honest.  But it is a place that you will capture your thoughts so it can become almost a bit more habitual for you. I also think you can connect some of the dots then.  So, when you see your reflections and your thoughts in one place, it can sometimes help you to sort of prompt, "Oh, actually, that's a bit like this".  Or in Miro or Mural, you can literally drag two thoughts together to create a bigger thought.  So, think about what is the best place for you to have a thought book, and then what we're going to do now is give you some prompts, so things that you might want to do to simulate your thinking in those places.

Sarah Ellis: And so the first prompt is to create a to-think list.  So we all love a to-do list, well actually I don't really, but I make them and they're not that effective, but I do really like a to-think list.  When people say to me, "I just need to find more time to think", my first question is always, it's probably a bit of a provocative question, "Okay, what do you want to think about?"  So, I think if you're generally saying, "I want more time to think", you won't ever make progress.  Whereas, if you're very clear on, "I want to think about…", then actually it focuses you.  And I think you create a conscious bias for your brain to then start to think about those things. I very rarely do incredible, quality thinking that's completely out of the blue and a really left field thought.  Often my best thoughts come from, Helen and I have agreed we're trying to make some progress on something or we've got a knotty problem and my brain just keeps coming back to it at various different points in the day, in the week and then suddenly you go, "Oh, that's because I'd got something very clear on my to-think list", so try writing some of those things down. The next one comes from a book that I've been reading, or certainly an adapted idea from a book that I've been reading, about how to build a second brain, which actually that book is slightly different to what I'd imagined, but really it's about the structure and discipline of being productive, of writing things down, and there's lots of things in that book actually that are quite counterintuitive to me that are not things that I would naturally do.  So it's quite good, because it challenges you to think differently. 

And one of the things that it suggests, and I've changed slightly, but I think it's really helpful, is to have some ongoing open questions. So, keep a list somewhere of those questions that you haven't got answers to yet, but make sure they're all open.  So start them with who, what, why, where, when, how, or tell, explain, describe.  So it could be something like, if Helen and I had a shared list of open questions, "How can we reach more people with our podcast?"  And these ongoing open questions could be really big, so very zoomed out, then you might have some that are really zoomed in like, "How can I build a better relationship with this specific person?"  Or it could be much bigger, "How could I improve my work-life fit?"  Some of them might be about personal life, some of them might be about work life, they could be about relationships, but what are your open questions right now?  I just thought that was a good framework.  That's potentially I think an alternative to the to think list, you might not need both, just see which one works for you.

Helen Tupper: It's a nice team thing as well, that.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it is nice; I thought that.

Helen Tupper: I like the idea of the team being able to just, like you might say, "Over the next week, put your open questions down and we'll pick one to talk about in the next team meeting".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, really nice.

Helen Tupper: So, it takes any fear factor away I think doing it in that way.

Sarah Ellis: And then our next idea is the thinking five-minute mind map.  So, this is probably once you've got the clarity on the question, or something on your to-think list, how do you sort of move forward from that?  And if you just set a timer and just spend five minutes jotting down your thoughts in response to that question or that topic or that theme, you'll be surprised I think how far and how fast you can go in five minutes.  If you did five minutes a day for a week, I'd be really interested to see what that mind map would look like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, because again, I think each day you just sort of add a bit. When I do this, which sort of shows, I mean, Helen and I have very, very different approaches to thinking, and I am very unstructured and really messy, and that just works really well for me, I will often have a mind map visually, so scraps of paper, Post-it notes, and I add to it a little bit frequently.  So I've got one idea and then I just add to it.  Or I'll be going to bed and I'll be like, "Oh, I've just got a few ideas I want to put down", and I just put them down.  Or we're mid-conversation, something will pop in, I'll just add something to it.  So, I'm actually not somebody who would sit and be like, "Right, I'm going to spend 15 minutes and do this mind map".  I create one mind map very quickly, but then I put it somewhere that I can see it the whole time, and then I just keep adding to it.  I think you're stressed by that idea!

Helen Tupper: No I don't feel stressed, I was just thinking that mind map, more recently I have found ChatGPT to be quite helpful in mind mapping.  You know, I often think about mind maps as like, it's a bit of paper, you have something in the middle, you have arrows going off it and you build on it.  And I think that is what's happening in my brain when I'm using ChatGPT.  So, I'll start with a question like, "How can we help more people with Squiggly Careers?"  And I might put something in ChatGPT, and then I'll read the response, and then it will almost create the arrow to the next thing for me.  It might be like, "Okay, so make it more part of someone's everyday work life".  And then I might ask another question like, "What habits do people have every day at work", and it'll answer it, and then I'll almost go off on another.  And I think I'm sort of doing, rather than writing down --

Sarah Ellis: Oh my God, you're going to replace me with ChatGPT, aren't you?  Is this where this is going?!

Helen Tupper: I mean, I asked ChatGPT exactly that question, "How can I replace Sarah Ellis with you?"  I'll tell you the response later!

Sarah Ellis: I mean, we've obviously now got to do that, because I would really like to see what it says. Helen Tupper: "Sarah who?"  There you go, there you go.

Sarah Ellis: Oh my God, that's probably true, don't do that!  Actually on that, Helen and I have both been using Miro boards much more frequently in the past couple of months, in case anybody hasn't tried those out.  I think it's free, isn't it?

Helen Tupper: You get three free boards, I think.

Sarah Ellis: There we go.  And what I find they are useful for is essentially, it's like Post-it notes on a board.  Everyone will be able to start it really quickly, it's not like you have to learn the tech particularly.  I often think they're quite good as sort of the next stage.  So, you've done some scribbles, you've got some notes in your phone or wherever it might be, and you are starting to bring it together and you're starting to create connections.  And I do find those boards really helpful just as a way to start adding a little bit of a structure or a bit of a framework to what you're thinking about and to spot some gaps.  And they're very shareable. Helen and I, for the same project, have both done separate ones.  I think that's really important sometimes that you give people space to think individually before you come together.  And actually, we've resisted the temptation almost to create one together too soon, because actually we're both like, "Well, let's both have some space and time to think, and then let's figure out at what point do we connect the dots between our thoughts?"

Sarah Ellis: And then the last idea, which again if you've not had a go at, is often quite surprising, but takes a bit of practice, which is free writing.  And free writing just means you're essentially sort of scrawling without critiquing or analysing, which as somebody who's a thinker with a critical brain, I find quite hard.  And I know that Helen is much better at this than me.  If you're someone who likes to journal, if you're very good at habits, you perhaps already do a version of this.  But again, you would put a header at the top of the page, "How can we help more people with their Squiggly Careers, and you just write down your responses to that and you just write down a page, and you keep going until you have written a page. This one actually, certainly from the research that I have read, better to write it by hand than to type it, because I think it's James Pennebaker who did the research on this, where he talks about almost the process of writing.  I think it gives you the space to think, probably because you're slower, I'm certainly a slower writer than I am typer, and there is something about that physical act that sort of connects you to your thoughts, to your brain, to the bits of paper.  And actually, maybe we don't write stuff down that often now and so again, that might feel like something new for you.  

You don't need to do it very often, but it might just be again, it's a way of moving from to-think lists, open questions, to this might be your in between, this to then before you do a mind map; you might do a mind map, then you might do free writing. Helen and I were saying that we've both listened to a few podcasts recently with people talking about their creative process, where people definitely have to think things through quite deeply to come up with ideas, and how obvious it is that everybody has quite a clear creative process.  People are not just magically coming up with ideas, they are doing exactly what we've just described.  Their version of a to-think list, a mind map, free writing, do this two things, and they sort of repeatedly have created their own way of how to think if you are a … person or if you're trying to create a new concept. So, I think never feel, like I say, I'm messy and I'm unstructured about how I do this thinking, but I think I follow the same messy process probably pretty much every time.  And that doesn't restrict your thinking; if anything, I think it frees your thinking.

Helen Tupper: And then, my specific example of something that I watched recently, which helped me to see some of these thinking processes through, was Es Devlin's course on masterclass.com.  It was all around her creative process and it was it was so interesting to see how a thought became a sort of drawing on paper actually, and then became a 2D structure and then a 4D structure.  It was just amazing to see that thought get bigger and more physical, and really, really worth watching if you're a Masterclass subscriber. Also just around the free writing, this is super tactical but if you're going to try the free writing, like writing a full page of thoughts, pick a flowy pen.  I know that sounds really weird, but you know how some pens are a bit scratchy, and they're annoying to write with?  I actually have, this is very retro, I have a fountain pen, because I find that it literally is a flowy pen, but it is also really annoying, because I end up with ink all over my fingers, which makes me realise why we don't have those any more.  But just pick a pen that you like writing with, because it helps you keep flow.

Sarah Ellis: And if you want to listen to Es Devlin, who Helen was just talking about there, for free on a podcast, I also heard her on This Cultural Life, which is a Radio 4 podcast.  And again, it's funny, Helen and I discovered her without talking to each other, in very different ways.  And we were both saying, "Oh, we heard about this really interesting creative process", and then we realised we were talking about the same person.  So, she's just really fascinating to listen to.  But she's not the only one.  There are lots of examples, I think, of people who, again, have figured out how to put a framework around their thinking, and then they do incredible work.

Helen Tupper: So, idea for action number two is to focus on thinking themes.  I find this really helpful because I think I am a more structured thinker than Sarah.

Sarah Ellis: Do you think?!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, just a little bit.  I don't think it makes either of us more or less effective at thinking.  It's just different.  I like a structure, and so I find having a theme like, "Today I'm going to think about …" really, really helps me to just focus my mind a little bit.  And one of the things that I did in August, which I found really useful, there's an article that I've referred to before, it's an oldie but a goodie, on Harvard Business Review about how to become a corporate athlete, and it talks about these four different elements which contribute to, I think your performance and resilience at work, is probably the best way of thinking about what being a corporate athlete actually means. So, it talks about your mental capability, your physical capability, your spiritual capability and your emotional capability. 

And throughout August, when I was a bit disappointed in myself, I was like, "Why am I not doing these things I want to do in August?" I started to almost theme it a little bit.  So I was like, "Well, I'll take those four different areas".  And so, for example, the spiritual bit, I reconnected with meditation.  So, Sarah and I had done a meditation course a few months ago that I felt I'd lost my way with a little bit.  And so I read a little bit on it, I listened to a podcast on people who had done some stuff around meditation, and I reconnected with that, just for a focused day about, "Well, how could I make this work; and what does it look like; and what more do I need to know?" Then, for example, on the mental capability, I was like, "Okay, I'll think about that for a day".  And I really, really thought, what could I read; what could I watch; what could I listen to that would help me with that mental capability?  That is where I got to with that Es Devlin.  The reason I watched that was because I was like, "Well, Masterclass helps me.  There's lots of different things that I can learn there, and that's a format that works for me for learning".  And so just having the themes, I mean you don't have to have the ones that I said, but I think picking thinking themes that are important to you can focus your mind on what it is you might want to think about, particularly I think if you're perhaps a more structured person like me.

Sarah Ellis: And so idea for action number three is about together thinking.  So, I think it's always interesting to reflect on how you think individually and how you best think in groups; and also, how do we accommodate that everybody thinks in different ways?  So, as Helen and I have described, we've realised that our thinking styles have massive contrasts in terms of us at our best.  So, you want to create an environment where we can both be at our best, we want to create an environment where Helen can be spontaneous, can think out loud.  But if I had to think like that, I wouldn't do any good thinking, essentially.  I need to know ahead of time what are we going to be thinking about.  I like to reflect, I like to have space by myself, space to be quiet. So, when Helen and I are thinking about coming together to think about stuff, we will really design that in a way that works for both of us.  So, just to give a very practical example, because we did this last week and it just worked so well that it stopped us in our tracks.  And we were coming up with some ideas on something and we both just stopped and said, "Okay, let's both write down the five things that we think are most important. 

So, rather than just talking them through, let's both just stop, write them down, and then in this moment, let's talk about them".  And actually, I think we said, "Let's write down the ten things that we think are most important".  And what was interesting is we could both only get to five, which was like, "Well, that was interesting in itself".  And so we were just quiet, we were together virtually, we just stopped speaking, basically.  Both of us looked down, scribbled down some notes, gave ourselves a bit of time to think and then we both shared straightaway, "Oh, this is where I got to. To Helen's point earlier, here were our first thoughts, we weren't holding each other to account on going, "Well, this is what it has to be", because I think I would always find that hard, as someone who finds the whole "good enough versus great" thing quite difficult, sometimes articulating first thoughts for me feels quite uncomfortable because I think, "Oh, I can do better.  Given more time, I can do better", so first thoughts is helpful framing.  And then when we shared our five things that we thought were most important, they were, with the exception of one, quite dramatically different. 

We had approached exactly the same question in a completely different way, even though we'd been talking about it beforehand.  I would never have guessed we would go in two very different directions. Then it meant the quality of the thinking that we then did together after that moment was so much better as a result.  And back to the, you know, we talked about thinking together.  What's really nice about that is that was probably a 15- to 20-minute conversation, so it was pretty short.  We were clear beforehand what we were going to be talking about, we were definitely better because of that conversation, we were further forward because of it.  But I think the thing that's really interesting about thinking together is it's a forcing function to stay focused, which can be quite hard.  I mean, no one does their best thinking at the desk, you hear that all the time, because you always get distracted by emails and presentations you've not done and stuff.  But sometimes thinking by yourself, it's so much easier to get distracted, or maybe your head gets -- I just wander off in a few different directions, or whatever. But when you're with someone else, you're sort of each other's accountability partner as you're thinking something through.  And Helen and I, we were reflecting on, "How do we find time to think individually and together?"  And we were like, "The together thing does work some of the time".  It doesn't have to be in person, but it's like, "Well, I'm not looking at my phone right now.  I'm not looking at my emails because we're sort of all in.  We're all in on trying to answer this question.  And we're just going to see what we get to in 15 minutes".

Helen Tupper: And I guess again, as a structured person, if you wanted to replicate that, I think you've got to start with, "Well, what is it we're thinking about?", so we had a specific thing in mind, and I think you want to talk about it a little bit, but not a lot, but just really clear on the case we're thinking about.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, we did five minutes, do you reckon; five or six minutes?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, probably, yeah, just discuss it.  Then you take the time to write down your idea.  So, "Let's take five minutes now just to collect our own thoughts".  And then you've got the, "These are my thoughts on…", the share back, and then you need a little bit more time then to say, "And what does this mean for us?"  I think that's probably the four: have the topic, time to think, time to share back, time to connect the thoughts together, would be the way that you could structure it.  And you could probably do that, I mean that was just Sarah and me together, but I think it could work with more people in the room; you might just need a little bit more time towards the second half of the session to make sure that everyone's thoughts are heard and then connected. Idea for action number four is to create an effective environment for your thinking.  So, this is the place and the space.  Sarah mentioned that maybe your desk isn't going to be the best place for you to do it.  I weirdly, it really annoys me this because it's not very environmentally friendly, but I find, and also just it's annoying sometimes because I can't write down what I'm thinking, but I find driving is such a good physical thought space for me.

Sarah Ellis: You have got an electric car!

Helen Tupper: I know, I should just drive my electric car!

Sarah Ellis: You should drive your electric car!

Helen Tupper: In laps, I'm just driving around in laps!

Sarah Ellis: Is that better?

Helen Tupper: Maybe, I have thought that, honestly!  I haven't thought like, "Can I just drive around?"  There's something for me, I think, I know you shouldn't say you drive on autopilot, but I think there's something so routine for me about driving.  I used to commute a lot.  When I used to work at Microsoft, that I'd be two-and-a-bit hours a day of driving.  And so for me, I think I've trained my brain that that is a nice thinking time for me.  And I could take a thought, go into my car, drive around a bit, and I would actually quite enjoy that.  Now, equally, I could also go for a walk.

Sarah Ellis: Remind me to not get a lift from you!

Helen Tupper: No, probably not the most safe thing, I know.  But also, I could go for a walk.  I live in the outdoors, and I do find it quite useful just to go for like a little walk, but there could be just rooms in where you live, like in your house or your apartment.  There might just be places that are a bit better for you to do your thinking.  And it is both the place that you're in and then how you make sure you're designing that place so it's effective, which might be like moving your phone around.  We've talked about distraction downfalls before.  So, I would think about the place and the space, how you create an effective environment, so whether you want to think for 30 minutes or an hour, you know that you're more likely to stay in that sort of thinking zone.

Sarah Ellis: Do you know what, one of the things that is maybe a bit surprising, but I do think is an effective environment for me for thinking, is WhatsApp.  As somebody who is quite sort of anti-always-on and turns off all notifications and loves going for a walk, particularly when I am thinking together with someone else, sort of someone I feel like I trust and who I'm looking for maybe some feedback on some thoughts that I've had, if I've got some first thoughts or thought starters, I've definitely got a couple of go-to people where if I happen to catch them, it's quite incidental because I'm like, "Are they around to respond?"  But if I catch them at the right moment, it's definitely really effective for me. I actually don't want to speak to that person.  I mean, these are my friends.  But you know, I don't want to phone them and go, "Oh, this is..." but I'll be like, "Oh, hey, … person.  Thinking about this for, I don't know, a future podcast series or a book", or whatever it might be, "here are three first thoughts".  And I just want people's reaction to it, and I want people's responses, and then that makes me think a bit differently, or it makes me add to their thoughts.  And I suppose that it's like, I think, I feel like I've got some thinking partnerships.  If I think about the place, the place those thinking partnerships happen, it's on WhatsApp, and that just works, that does work quite well for me.

Helen Tupper: It's interesting.  I only probably do that with you on WhatsApp.  But I was just thinking a little bit about LinkedIn.  But sometimes, I do thinking on LinkedIn.  I'll be like --

Sarah Ellis: Well, you think to everyone, and I think to one person.

Helen Tupper: Introvert, extrovert, there you go!  I'm like, "Here are some thoughts, world, what do you think?"

Sarah Ellis: Everyone!

Helen Tupper: You're like, "Here are some thoughts, friend, what's your opinion?"

Sarah Ellis: Yeah!

Helen Tupper: That's very insightful!

Sarah Ellis: Yes, yet very, very true.

Helen Tupper: Moving on!

Sarah Ellis: Moving on!  So last idea for action, we're calling anti-thinking awareness.  So essentially, what gets in the way of thinking and what needs to stop so that you can start?  If you're not doing this today and you want it to happen, if you want to create this as a habit, what are you going to change, what are you going to do differently, really holding yourself to account, that point about this being in your control rather than out of your control.  And sometimes it might be mindset, like the story you're telling yourself in your own brain about your ability to think or find time to think. 

Sometimes it might be some practical stuff.  I also find from my own experience, particularly since perhaps running our own company versus maybe being in a big company, which I think has some similarities but lots of differences, is there are moments, and I'm sure this is true in lots of jobs, where it's just not the right time. So, because I love thinking, and everything we've described today, I always want to be doing this or finding some time quite frequently to do this.  But there are moments where I think you have to let go of, "Okay, well, it's not today".  And that's maybe because I thought in particular, when there's lots of small stuff to get sorted that does feel urgent, I then think the quality of thinking just goes down.  So, my question to myself is always, "What can I let go of?  Do I need to let go of the time to think about this today?  Or can I let go of the small stuff, because actually it feels urgent, but if I did it tomorrow, what would happen?"  Almost doing that stress testing of what needs to happen in what order just really helps me, helps me to either think, "Well, I know I will have some time to think, but it's tomorrow, it's Wednesday", or, "Actually no, I can do that today.  I'm sort of feeling like this is urgent, but the actual reality is different and it's not going to make that much difference if some of these things wait".  It's that sort of busyness trap, I think, sometimes that I fall into that sometimes gets in the way for me.  What about for you?

Helen Tupper: I think mine's achievement.  I have to stop thinking that my thinking is going to have an obvious output.  So, "I'm going to go, I'm going to think about a new book idea over the next hour and then I'm going to come up with a chapter outline".  I have to let go of that, because sometimes you might think for an hour about whatever the thing is you want to spend some time on, and all you might have come out with is a better framed thought, or some more ideas.

Sarah Ellis: Yes, or, "This is not right".

Helen Tupper: "Well, this isn't right", or, "I'm not quite sure, I might need to spend some more time just going around that a little bit".  And as someone who is a doer with a bias for outcomes and achievement and sort of small achievements, actually, I have to let that go, because otherwise you constrain your thinking because all your thinking is doing is moving you to the next output.  And I think the most effective thinking is when there isn't actually always an obvious output, because you're just giving yourself time to think and you haven't predetermined where those thoughts will take you.  So, that's often a thing that I have to let go of is, "There's going to be some really obvious shiny thing that's going to come out of the next hour that you go for a drive in your car and think about this thing".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think back to Es Devlin, who we were talking about, you have to trust the process.  I think that's definitely what I have experienced is, I trust now my thinking process, whether it's ten minutes, whether it's half a day, whether it's over a year, sometimes you'll think, "Oh, that mind map, there's one genius thought in there".  And then the next day you realise, "Actually, it doesn't really work when you stress test it a bit more", and going, "That's all part of the process".  I think probably because we have spent more time, we create more now, you realise that there will be stuff that you create that you let go of that you think is brilliant, and then ends up being rubbish or it doesn't fit and then you kill it. You know, a bit like we talk about hold your ideas lightly, you do hold your thoughts lightly.  I think the more you practise this, the most important thing is you are thinking, you are questioning, you are thinking, you have time to think as part of how you work.  But recognising that the quality of those thoughts and the usefulness of those thoughts of course will vary, but if you've got a process, I think you then feel confident that you're like, "Yes, but some of it will be really good stuff" and, "Is my job better because I've figured out how to make a habit of time to think?"  I think that's the sort of the outcome that I think I'm looking for.

Helen Tupper: So just to summarise those five ideas for action then: number one is to start a thought book; number two is to focus on thinking themes; number three is all about together thinking; number four is to create your effective thinking environment; and number five is about anti-thinking awareness.  And we will summarise all of that for you on the PodSheet, which you'll be able to find either @amazingif on LinkedIn or on our website, amazingif.com.

Sarah Ellis: So, it's been brilliant to be back.  For those of you who've been sprinting with us in August, we're back to our normal weekly episodes.  Thank you to everybody who listens.  If you have five minutes, do us a bit of a favour, rating, reviewing, subscribing, sharing always makes a massive difference and we read every single review and we love to know your feedback; what's working well, even better ifs, ideas for topics, experts you'd like to hear from, either put them in the review, or you can email us.  We're helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com. But that's everything for this week, so thank you so much for listening, I'm back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.