1 Step, 2 Step, 3 Step more

Katie reminded me about a seminar we did two years ago in San Francisco for the Association for Pyschological Type International (APTi) — yes, we’re highly entertaining in person too. Feel free to hire us! One of the attendees, a Smart Freedom (NTP), told us that the most helpful piece of advice they got that day was to peel back a task until you get it as close to 1 step as possible. This is the key to getting something done when it’s hard for you to do so. This is universally true but for more detailed types, Classics (SJ) and Funs (SP), this advice is often best when turned on its head.

Smarts (NT) and Organics (NF) are big picture thinkers first who attend to details second. This can mean tasks such as hanging your coat up in a closet can be too much trouble. When someone nags them to hang up their coat, “What’s the big deal?”, it’s as if they know it’s not a one step action. It is a big deal. It’s actually five separate actions. Open the closet door, get out a hanger, put the coat on the hanger, hang the coat up and then close the door to the closet. I’m a Classic and writing these steps made me exhausted. It doesn’t mean Smarts and Organics can’t or don’t hang up their coats but on the margin, more may drape their coat on a piece of furniture if they’re in a hurry.

If I had a Smart client who wasn’t hanging up their coat but wanted a neater home or someone they lived with had a problem with the lack of coat hanging up action, I’d recommend trying to make this process a 1-Step process. Put a coat rack or a rack of hooks where you would like coats to go and chances are that the coat will not be laying on a piece of furniture but nicely tucked away. This works for Classics and Funs as well because everybody can be in a hurry heading in or out of their home/office. But, Classics and Funs can also use this advice in a different way by turning the 1-step rule upside down.

Turning this rule on its head means taking a task that you think of as “1-Step” and breaking it down into actual steps. The coat example is one a Classic or Fun might think of as a 1-Step action or request but it’s not. They’re the types most likely to ask, “Is it so hard to hang up your coat everyday?” and the answer for many people might be, “Yes!” and they’re kind of right because as I showed you above, it takes 5 steps to complete this task not one. I’m guilty of saying these things to my own husband and he’s a Classic.

If you’re a Classic or a Fun having trouble getting something done, chances are you’re thinking of it as a 1-Step process when it’s really multi-step and the trick to getting it done is to break that process down to individual steps. Focus on getting each of those steps done and then accomplishing the entire process will happen sooner rather than later. For example, cleaning out your closet might seem like a 1-step process — you go into your closet and throw out things you don’t wear — but in reality it’s multi-step. First you’ve got to ensure you have garbage bags on hand, then go through your closet and throw out clothes, next find a space for the extra hangers, store the garbage bags of clothes somewhere and finally either drop off the clothes or arrange for someone to pick them up. It’s multi-step. So if you have “Clean out closet” on your To Do list or your mental To Do list and it’s not getting done, chances are that the reason is because you need to break it down as close as you can get to one step.

The most efficient way to break it down would be to make this task a two step process: Clean our closet (1) and then Take clothes to Goodwill (2). For an Organic Freedom (NFP) or a Smart Freedom (NTP), I might even just tell you to put the clothes in the trash to make that second step easier to accomplish. Remember clothing is almost all biodegradeable that is unless you’re throwing out polyester from the 70s. But, if you still own clothes from the 70s then you’ve got more fish to fry.