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 Thin-slicing is the ability we develop, either unconsciously or with practice, to rapidly extract highly reliable patterns of information from tiny slivers of data (Shariff, 2006)]. Put another way, thin-slicing happens when we make snap judgments that can be more effective than deliberate thinking. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink, tells the story of the 2500 year old statue the Getty Museum was evaluating for purchase. All of the scientific tests indicated authenticity. However a few experts, when first viewing the statue, felt that something about it was not quite right. The experts were correct.
These snap judgments have come under criticism. Since the Supreme Court judgment (Terry v. Ohio) that police officers could only detain a suspect when they could articulate the reasons for their hunch or intuition, the use of this skill of thin-slicing in the police force has been disallowed. Contrary to the US legal system, the cognitive sciences have given more and more weight to our ability to thin-slice. “Emotions and intuitions are not obstacles to reason, but indispensable heuristic devices that allow people to process diffuse, complex information about their environment and make sense of the world” (Lerner). Lerner insists that our emotions and intuitions can be both reasonable and accurate.
We make snap decisions all the time. Whenever we meet a new person, we make a judgment on them based on what we “read” in their face. Faces rapidly communicate a host of complex and subtle messages, about identity, emotion and social signals that we can pick up immediately. These social judgments can be quite accurate (Chatting & Thorne). Speed Dating is a recent phenomenon that relies on accurate thin-slicing (Houser, Horan & Furler). Houser and her team designed an experiment to determine how successful that thin-slicing was. They report that the decisions made in the first 30 seconds of the “date” were often as “accurate, valuable, and predictive as cautious and deliberately made” decisions (p.78). Other groups have reached the same conclusion (Thomas).
The ideal situations for thin slicing are:
- when engaged in tasks which rely heavily on judgment
- when those making the judgment are experienced or skilled in their area
- when judgments are made in situations providing good feedback
- when the judgmental tasks have stable rules (Hogarth).
Malcolm Gladwell continues on to talk about thin-slicing in different contexts. He suggests that we lack conscious awareness of our own judgmental processes. However, we can learn when to trust our instincts and when we should be wary of them. Once we are aware of thin-slicing we can educate and control our snap judgments and first impressions and come to trust them more and more (Hogarth & Schoemaker, 2005).
One way we can improve judgment in a specific application is by eliminating irrelevant, distracting cues. That is where Ezidoesit can help you: it eliminates unnecessary clutter from your inbox so that you can focus on the tasks you have already prioritized.
But you can use the concept of thin-slicing when you prioritize your emails into the Elevator Bar. You often intuitively “know” whether an email request from a specific person is going to be high or low priority for you. If you use thin-slicing to prioritize those emails, you gain even more time to work on the tasks.
But what if your intuition lets you down and you have dropped a high priority email request onto the low priority section of the Elevator Bar? That’s not a problem. As soon as you realise the task requires a higher priority, simply change the priority of the task.
The point is: in areas of your work you are the expert and you can trust your intuition. Make use of that by thin-slicing emails onto the Elevator Bar, leaving you more time for doing the work.
K. Renner BA. Dip Psych
References
Chatting,D.J.& Thorne,J.M. Faces as Content. The Future Content Group, Broadband Applications Research Centre, BT Group, plc.
Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York: Little, Brown, & Co.
Hogarth, R. M. & Schoemaker, P. J. H. (2005). Beyond Blink: A Challenge to Behavioral Decision Making. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 18(4), 305-309.
Houser, M.L.,Horan, S.M.& Furler, L.A. Predicting Relational Outcomes:An Investigation of Thin Slice Judgments in Speed Dating. Human Communication, 10 (2), 69 –81.
Lerner, C.S. George Mason University - School of Law
Shariff, A. (2006). Review of Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. Canadian Psychology Psychologie Canadienne. Vol 47(3), 232-233
Thomas, G. (2007). Preparing facilitators for experiential education: The role of intentionality and intuition. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning.
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 How much does wasted time cost you or your organisation?
An employee earning $50,000 per annum, who wastes 60 minutes each work day, will have lost $6,250 in profit per year. However, what is more important is the loss of choice, purpose and meaning that disappears with those 60 minutes.
Peter Drucker has suggested you cannot think of managing time unless you first know where it goes. The Ezidoesit performance gauge will provide the answer to that question. Now you can do something about that lost time.
The good news is that time management is a learned skill that anyone can develop. Ezidoesit provides the tools to help you hone that skill.
Each day should be spent working towards your goals: an IT development project, a marketing pitch, product promotion, team development, surgery list, sales targets… Define the tasks that are associated with your goals and then prioritize them. Which tasks need to be done first, which second, which third, and which are in the future and can “hold” for a while?
Make these decisions and slot the tasks into the Ezidoesit elevator in the appropriate colour bar. Email yourself the task or manually create the task if these tasks are self generated and not originating from someone else in the organisation (or your partner at home). Put as much information into the task as you can. This will save you re-thinking the requirements when you come back to the task later.
Assign time to each task and determine when its deadline is. If you can, bring the deadline forward a little. This will let you complete the task even when interrupted or (better yet) provide a feeling of satisfaction when you complete it before the deadline. Then decide who needs to do this task –it may not be you.
The time management experts all agree[1]:
- Make lists and stick to them. Don’t try to carry all your “must dos” in your head, put them into Ezidoesit .
- Keep your to do list close to hand. Ezidoesit provides a single ‘silo’ for all your tasks –you won’t have to go searching for your task list.
- Set alerts so that you are reminded when a task is due to be started or is nearing its deadline. Ezidoesit allows a number of reminder options and you can customise the sound.
- Don’t be sidetracked from the task in hand. With all your email safely hidden in Ezidoesit , you will not be distracted!
- Share your list with others who are associated with you on projects, etc. The Ezidoesit team version allows sharing of task and scheduling information.
- Don’t procrastinate. Work through your tasks in order of priority. Ezidoesit allows you to prioritize your tasks and clear out the Elevator bar a section at a time.
- Use previous tasks as a reference for the time required for new tasks. Ezidoesit keeps information on all your tasks, so you can get a more accurate idea of how long an assignment will take.
- Don’t become disheartened by long lists. Ezidoesit breaks the longest task list up into four manageable sectors which you can work through with ease.
- Remove tasks as they are completed. Ezidoesit allows you to complete tasks as you go, removing them from sight but keeping them in history for future reference. You no longer need to re-write your list at the end of the day, EziDoesIt reshuffles your time and tasks automatically.
- Schedule time for yourself; for professional and for personal development. Ezidoesit allows you to set aside time each day for these renewing activities, with the option to cut into this time or not when scheduling tasks.
Planning allows you to feel in control. Creativity and innovation are the result of organised thinking which provides time and space instead of stressful deadlines and knee-jerk chaos. Tasks are the small stepping stones to the top of Goal Mountain. Start your journey today with EziDoesIt.
[1] There are number of excellent time management books available. Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Michael Gerber, Julie Morgenstern, Tom Peters, Stephanie Winston, and John Hoover are a few whose written advice can help you to get the best out of your life.
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Information varies in complexity, from the lowest level of complexity where something can be understood on its own (opening a car door, pressing F1 for help) to highest complexity where a number of pieces of information have to be remembered and processed at once (driving a racing car, editing a photo to change colour tones, darkness, and contrast).
These high complex tasks have a number of elements which have to be understood together to enable the task to be performed properly. Higher complexity equates to greater intrinsic cognitive load. Our brain handles this load through working memory, where we can store a few pieces of new information at the same time. Working memory is limited to two or three elements, especially when we tackle a new task made up of totally new information. For complex tasks, we usually engage long term memory plus working memory to get the job done. However, you will have had feelings of extrinsic overload where all the information is new and you can’t use working memory to help out.
We work in a space of “increased complexity, saturated with multi-tasking, interruption, and profound information overload. The effect of this cognitive overload at a social level is tension with colleagues, loss of job satisfaction, and strained personal relationships.” (Kirsh, 2000 p.20)
The way in which information is presented reduces that overload. Indexes in books [remember those?] are a good example of how to find information quickly without having to read through each page. Ezidoesit reduces your cognitive load in the same way. Rather than an inbox of 100+ emails to constantly search through, you are able to work from an elevator bar of four sections, within each section are the sorted and scheduled tasks you need to do.
Computer Science studies (Mackay) have found that the ability to adapt the technology to your own way of working “can help users manage the growing complexity of their work environments and the corresponding increase in cognitive overload” (p.1). That makes sense; we all have our own theories of working and efficiency.
Ezidoesit is a technology that does not “automate” work, i.e. treat users as simply another component in the work process. Rather, Ezidoesit “informates” work, empowering us to use the technology in our own way, to make decisions and operate autonomously (Mackay). It enables you to reduce the need to multi-task by making a decision on email/task priority once. It reduces the clutter before your eyes –invoking the “out of sight out of mind” adage.
Why is this important? Studies have found that information overload leads to stress, lack of job satisfaction, physical ill health, poor work and personal inter-relationships, delayed decision making, and decreased efficiency (Kirsh, 2000). Don’t let the oversupply of information that is pushed at you every day sap your mental strength and overload you. You deserve better.
K. Renner BA. Dip Psych
Kirsh, D. (2000). A Few Thoughts on Cognitive Overload. Intellectica (30), 19-51.
Mackay , W.E. (2000). Responding to cognitive overload: Co-adaptation between users and technology. Intellectica.
Pass, F., Renkl, A., Sweller, J. (2003). Cognitive Load Theory and Instructional Design: Recent Developments. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 1–4
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