Skimmer or Diver?

Settling down to work in my office on Monday morning I became absorbed by the radio programme playing in the background. Daniel Levitin, author of “The organised mind: thinking straight in the Age of Information Overload” was making bold claims derived from neuroscience research and studies on successful individuals from business people to artists. The following is apparently what is now known about humans and organizing the mind:

• There is no such thing as multi-tasking. Those who look like they are doing it are actually switching their focus very quickly from one thing to another, and this is in fact wasting precious energy. It really is best to focus properly on one thing at a time.
• The morning is our best time for focused attention, before our energies are depleted.
• Successful people do two things consistently – they prioritize; and they revisit their ranked list twice a day and rejig as necessary.
• We can get easily distracted by novelty – tweets, Facebook thumbs-ups and writing easy-to-do emails. They give us a dopamine kick. And this is addictive. In today’s digital age the temptation to give in is great. Prioritization and staying on track has never been more important.

I completely get the imperative of prioritization, and was fascinated by the dopamine kick effect. Apparently rats given indefinite access to dopamine “hits” by pulling a lever will do so incessantly, neglecting food and sleep – and before long, die!

The programme left me pondering on two questions:

How long is optimal for focusing on a piece of non-routine work that requires significant attention? If multi-tasking is in fact a sequence of micro-periods of focus that just looks like parallel processing, then lengthening each period may result in familiar plate-spinning. But continue to lengthen the period and at some point switching to another task must cease to be inefficient and actually be healthy.

And what about the little discussed phenomenon of the act of switching between activities. It’s clear to me that it is not always like an instant switch flicking, so how do we so it and how long does it take?

Working as a coach with senior executives for many years, and having grown up with four siblings, I notice that some people seem to have longer attention spans than others, and it seems easier for some people to switch tasks.

I’d like to share my musings, and hear back from you if you agree…

There could be both an age factor and a personality factor at play.

OK, let’s get the age issue out of the way. As a youngster I think I was faster in my switching capability than I am now. We’d probably all agree that mental processes get slower as we age. Therefore, multi-tasking probably makes even less sense in terms of economic use of personal energy the older we get. Note to self!

When younger, I tended to become immersed in a book or go deeper in a conversation more than my peers. As a user of Myers Briggs for many years, I am sure this is explained in large part by my MBTI type – I am an introverted intuitive (IN). My brain is easily stimulated, rapidly spots patterns and creatively imagines more. I can get lost in my rich inner life and quite enjoy metaphors. So maybe there is an important factor is to do with personality (or perhaps more specifically innate thinking style), which is independent of age.

Speaking of metaphors, let me offer one that might help pull this together and which might help predict that, although multitasking is not great for anyone, it is probably more stressful for some than others. It could also point to a simple but potentially useful principle for organizing your time to suit you.

Imagine a sea beneath which there are deep chasms and underground caves. And imagine two kinds of water-sport enthusiasts. On the one hand, there are water-skiers and swimmers who can go under-water, but far prefer to traverse or move through the surface. When they dive they don’t go very deep and quickly rise to the surface because they need the oxygen from the air. They also happen to cover a great deal of ground – or should I say water! Let’s call them Skimmers.

On the other hand, there are those who are more intrigued by the depths, who love going deep under the surface, exploring the chasms and caves, and enjoy complete submersion for substantial periods. They take oxygen supplies with them and can stay under far longer, losing awareness of what is going on at the surface. Let’s call them Divers.

If you happen to be a Skimmer thinker, you probably enjoy a wide scope of activities, and it’s likely that having to shift between them is not too energy demanding, it may even be appealing. However I’d suggest that if you are a Diver thinker, shifting rapidly between activities or tasks would expend a great deal of energy. You’d have to rise rapidly up from the depths, which can be hard to do when engrossed with the topic at hand. Being interrupted and forced to change direction quickly could be very stressful, and possibly even harmful to one’s well-being.

Leaders today are bombarded by emails and messages from many sources. No question about it, prioritization and managing one’s boundaries are key for us all in staying focused, whether Skimmers or a Divers. However – and this what I’d like to test out with you – could knowing whether you are a Skimmer or Diver help you plan your time, i.e. the decisions you personally make about how you will spend it? My guess is that discerning your preference could help you to intelligently craft your days and weeks and even life, and set yourself up for greater satisfaction and less stress.

If a Skimmer, you’d probably be fine spreading out your planned time on various topics/projects in smaller slots. If a Diver, you’d probably benefit from giving your attention to some tasks for longer periods than a Skimmer could handle. And consequently you might need more switching time than Skimmers. Just like a deep sea diver needs to descend and ascend at an appropriate rate to avoid the bends. The deeper the dive the longer it takes. If you’ve had an intense few hours getting stuck into something complex, you may need decent switch-time before you tackle something else – a break that might be longer than you currently think.

Needless to say, back-to-back meetings are not a good thing for either type, but Skimmers might cope better (provided meetings are not too long) as they’d need less time than Divers to decompress, and prepare for the next one. If you’re a Diver and find yourself unable to avoid such a situation, it would no doubt help to have plenty of time to decompress later in the day. Whatever your preference, I suspect that if you have a consistently packed diary (even if the time slot lengths suit your preference), it’s more than likely you are underestimating the potential value of switch-time. That time would not be the same as contingency for overruns (which typically gets used up), ideally it would be separately time-tabled to give you the important time you need to properly switch your focus and be fully ready for the next activity in your day.

To my mind, switch-time is really a proper break, but doesn’t mean doing nothing. Options could include walking around the block, practicing mindfulness, doing some stretching, really tuning in to your body, some meditation, or checking your priority list. I imagine that any of these may be a more efficient way of closing one task off in one’s mind and being able to engage with another, staying on track, and of helping your attention and your productivity last longer throughout the day than say, launching straight into 30+ minutes of emails right up to your next meeting. Incidentally, I recently downloaded a phone app that allows me to set an alarm for time I wish to spend on a task, with an automatic break added. You may have heard of the Pomodoro technique, where the philosophy of taking v very regular breaks is key? The timer came with 25 minutes + 5 minutes break as a default, and I found myself changing it to 50 + 10.

Ideally, once you know the optimum period of time for your concentration and your ideal switch-time, you would be able to think ahead and influence your diary accordingly, making sure you (or your PA) support well by not sneaking meetings into switch-time.

Of course, the nature of the task has an impact on the optimum focus-time – the simpler it is, perhaps the less diving required. So if you’re a Diver, perhaps some restraint is required so as not to turn every task into something more complex than it is. And if the task is complex, then if a Skimmer you may need to be careful not to oversimplify things.

I wonder if any of this rings true for you. Do you have preferences more akin to a Skimmer or to a Diver? Does your self-awareness influence how you plan your time?

Do you allow for switch-time? If so what do you do with it, and does it work for you?

In the meantime I wish you happy skimming or diving, and may any switch-time you need be highly prioritized and fiercely protected!

Siobhan Soraghan BSc MBA

Founder, Active Insight. Consultant, coach, author, speaker, mentor to leaders.