Purpose and Focus
Logicians (INTPs) like to cast an intellectual net where most others throw a single line into the water. If reined in, this wide net can be a wonderful tool in life and the workplace. But Logicians are individuals bent on exploring as many options as possible. So landing on one option and remaining there until a project is complete can be a challenge for some of them. It can also keep things unfocused and make goals too much of a moving target to be useful.
Logician personalities can appear unproductive on the outside, but in reality, their thought-lives are typically burning all kinds of energy. So what might appear lazy to the outside observer can be almost frenetic mental activity. Productivity comes when they harness all of that mental motion into a real-world action plan.
Logicians also tend to lean toward being what others might call a loner or eccentric. This social preference can affect productivity if they work with other people. More rigid personality types might have difficulty with Logicians’ more fluid approach to things as they shift from activity to activity and idea to idea with their serial obsessions.
Tips for Maintaining Focus
Nail It Down
Your many interests can lead to personal or organizational mission drift, which can slow down your progress or leave things hanging unfinished. To avoid this, write down your goals and intentions with measurable results that are clearly stated, and keep these marching orders someplace where you won’t overlook them.
Productivity is mostly about staying the course without getting sidetracked. That doesn’t mean that you can’t be flexible and adjust direction as needed. The ability to do so easily can be a gift. However, you may find that you can do more if you indulge your flexibility in the service of meeting larger goals rather than frequently starting from scratch in a new direction. Have an overarching, measurable goal, and try to keep any adjustments within that framework.
You may also find that using tasks or a to-do list is a better fit for your personality type than using a schedule, if there’s a choice between the two. With a calendar alone, it’s possible to meander through a given period of time and not complete anything significant. However, you need to produce a work product or complete an activity to reasonably scratch off an item on a task list. So choose a task list over a calendar if a choice is presented. (And nothing says that you have to use only a task list or a calendar. A calendar marked with completed tasks can provide a wonderful timeline for documenting all of the tasks that you’ve worked on.)
Keep Relevant People in the Loop
Introverts tend to go inward and sometimes fail to notice when they need to go outward and include other people. This interactive style may be more important for Logicians than any other Introverted personality type, since their focus can quickly take unexpected turns.
If you are part of a team, you want to let others know when things have shifted for you, so that you don’t catch them by surprise. Regular check-ins, whether by scheduled meetings or consistent casual chats, can keep everybody aligned. Otherwise, you may spend more time trying to explain why, when everyone thought that you were going left, you ended up going right, and why your teammates were allowed to go in a different direction for far too long. Repairing or realigning the expectations of the unknowing others can unnecessarily cut into a forward motion. Preemptively communicate consistently.
Be prepared also for disagreements or a need to compromise if you work in a more egalitarian situation. Shared responsibility makes letting team members know what you’re doing or thinking even more important. They may need to approve or disapprove of your focus before you spend too much time or resources going in a direction where nobody else is interested in traveling.
What gets you from Point A to a productive Point B? Does the pull toward a goal come from inside or outside of you? Find out by taking our Motivation Test.
Make It a Routine
Sometimes productivity slows down because a person neglects the little things. Perhaps a busy Logician with 20 different things on their mind forgets to pay a bill and ends up on the phone with the power company for 20 minutes getting the electricity turned back on. That’s at least a 20-minute time deficit and potentially a glitch in an otherwise productive day.
Logician personalities don’t necessarily have worse memories than anyone else, although some of our research here at 16Personalities suggests that they might believe that their memory is poor. However, in juggling all of the information that they typically do, they may actually have better memories than they think.
But Logicians tend to fill their memories with the things that interest them over the more ordinary things that they might need to remember for life to go smoothly. As a result, these personalities can become distracted away from the small but important details of life, ultimately costing them time or productivity. One of the best ways to avoid stumbling over the little things is to put those things on autopilot.
Think of Steve Jobs wearing the same clothes daily to avoid thinking about his wardrobe and fashion choices every day. Decide what is a constant daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly activity, and set up a routine that automatically happens at the same time and in the same order regularly. Remove any decisions from the process. That way, the less interesting things get their needed attention without impeding your focus on the things that matter to you.
Link a series of things that lead to a common general outcome together when possible. For example, your morning might involve getting up at 7:00 a.m., drinking a glass of water, showering, dressing, making breakfast, etc., without the need for much variation. If you find that your thoughts drift off, causing you to break your routine, try creating some urgency by starting a timer and giving yourself a set amount of time to complete these tasks. Make completing your routine a game that you play against yourself.
Delegate When Possible
Logician personalities may feel like they should be able to figure out how to do everything themselves. And sometimes, they can indeed become fascinated with the more trivial details of life. But if you have the luxury of delegating some of your less important tasks, it might be something that you want to consider.
Even ever-thinking Logicians only have so much bandwidth in their busy minds. So why clutter your existence with things that someone else could be thinking about or doing? Maybe you could subscribe to a meal-delivery service to take grocery shopping, meal planning, and sometimes even food prep off your plate. Or maybe hire an assistant for a few hours a week who can go through your business email inbox and forward all the correspondences that need your attention.
In this new economy, there’s all manner of people and services who can make our lives less stuffed with things to do. So, how much more productive might your life be if you removed some of the less important things that bog down your forward motion? You have more interesting and more productive things to do, right?
For you, what makes a job or career feel satisfying? What satisfies you can frequently change in a lifetime. Where are you now? Try our Career Values tool to find out.
Onward and Upward
Logician personalities are creative and often enthusiastic, if plugged into an enterprise that grabs their imagination. Part of your productivity comes from adapting to accomplish necessary things that maybe aren’t interesting or part of your native skill set. But more of it comes from making sure that wasted time doesn’t intrude on the interesting things that motivate you, allowing your unique and valuable style to shine when those things do come along.