It won't be the first time I praise Will Larson's books (directly or indirectly), but they deserve all the recognition they get, so I have no remorse. Anyway, I think it was "Staff Engineer," where Will has named two fascinating phenomena. They were not new to me, I guess I could call them pretty familiar (so can you, most likely), but I've never heard them named (until then) explicitly: "snacking" and "preening." Today, I'd like to cover the 1st one, while the 2nd has to wait until a subsequent post.

What is "snacking" (in the professional context of creative/knowledge work, especially for more experienced people)? I'll try to put it in my own words (this is not an exact quote):

Snacking is spending time and effort on work that is both low-impact and low-effort (at the same time). We typically snack to fulfill our internal desire to sense progression or accomplishment.

Why do we snack?

Reasons do vary, but here are the ones I've seen most often:

1. A new leader's problem - we're used to doing things by ourselves (as former ICs), and a different kind of work (by leading/amplifying/empowering others) sometimes doesn't feel like "real work." Hence, we trick our brains with activities that we've done in the past (that got us recognition/satisfaction before).
2. There's a job to be done, but everyone seems so busy that we're uncomfortable forcing this task upon anyone. "OK, I'll do that myself. Let's call it - leading by example!"
3. We're exhausted by particular aspects of leadership/management, such as delayed gratification or taking accountability for potential implications of high-impact strategic decisions. It's just so tempting to do something more straightforward that doesn't require such a deep focus, doesn't inflict that much stress, and immediately rewards us with a "done" signal.
4. Or maybe there are more fundamental problems to be faced: we have issues with delegating, we don't trust our subordinates, or (potentially the worst) we have a very limited understanding of how we can contribute to the greatest degree (as the role has overgrown us).

Examples of snacking

How do people snack? Well, that's very individual, but I can call out some patterns as well:

• Doing IC work that could have been done by someone else (w/o a clear, rational purpose - like seeing a particular problem by yourself)
• Wasting time on administrative work that doesn't add value / can be automated (but looks "managerial"); this category contains all the non-critical meetings & ceremonies, useless mail (& other types of communication)
• Selfishly cherrypicking what's interesting for you personally (research/try-out, architectural/technology challenge, creating a spike for something brand new)
• Micromanagement ('nuf said)

Consequences of snacking

But is snacking such a big problem? Should we get crazed about 100% optimally utilizing our time? Maybe the broader spectrum of activities will actually broaden our perspective and provide more insights to act upon?

Well, it's not that I'm trying to be a zealot here, but ...

• As leaders, we're at the helm, and it's a very visible position. People will keep asking themselves questions like: What is my leader doing? How does my leader support me and my work? Is that person genuinely solving my most pressing issues/constraints?
• What do such activities (low-impact, low-effort) say about the leader's causative power and the direction (s)he sets for the rest of the crew?
• Last but not least: time is not made of rubber, and our energy is not unlimited, so while we're snacking, the truly important topics are getting dust on backlog shelves (that will inevitably lead to frustration, not to mention the crippling effect on the organization)

How to avoid snacking?

There are three separate areas that may require some deliberate action: (1) awareness, (2) prioritization, and (3) deep focus time management. Let's tackle them one by one.

Awareness (1) is basically being self-critical about our choices; you could call it "self-feedback." My tools of choice are daily journaling and visualizing the work (as stated in the principles of the Kanban method, not to be trivialized down to a Kanban board). By writing things down (in a structured, easy to track way) and having a single overview of both priorities and actions, I can objectively evaluate retrospectively the ROI of my decisions — did I focus on what was most important, what was the price of delaying some decisions/actions, what value did my choices bring to the org, the team or whoever else? One more remark: this part is, IMHO (by far), the most important of these three.

Structured prioritization (2) is also essential; fortunately, with the help of a suitable mental model, it can be made simple and straightforward. Nearly everyone is familiar with the Eisenhower method, MoSCoW model, or Impact vs. Effort matrix — these three are very simple yet, in many cases, absolutely sufficient. My favorite one is the RICE framework, though. It requires you to think about as much as four separate factors (that contribute to overall priority): Reach (scope, breadth, blast radius), Impact (how strong will the effect be), Confidence (what is the probability the action is needed), Effort (how much effort would be required). In my case, combining these four is the intuitive way to perceive prioritization decisions, but you have to evaluate if it's the same case for you.

And finally, we have to address situations where your daily schedule is so busy, and you have so many interruptions and context switches that you just can't comfortably work on anything that requires deep focus time (3). That's probably a topic for an entirely separate article, so I'll only briefly mention here a few techniques I use myself: blocking calendar timeslots (for focused work), clear collaboration rules (Working with Claire.docx) - esp. regarding async work response times and emergencies/escalations, disabling all notifications (except those used for emergencies/escalations) and other distractors (e.g., with Freedom), using information radiators and pub-sub approach as main methods for async written communication.

Do you have any other life hacks when it comes to battling your internal snacker? Feel free to share in the comments below. The following blog post in the series (about "preening") will be published within 2-4 weeks.