Page 116 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

104 COACH YOURSELF TO A NEW CAREER

Both sides of the spectrum come with pros and cons. The
short-term thinkers may not think about saving for their retire-
ment, while the long-term thinker may be putting things off
today—why rush when there is plenty of time? This is why some
people are proficient at tactical or short-term planning but hope-
less when asked to think about where they will be in ten or twenty
years.
My husband is a tactical thinker and is brilliant at dispatching
tasks, whereas I think approximately twenty years into the future
and tend to put off the daily duties. When I met him, he didn’t
have any retirement savings at all. As a team, we balance each
other out, although I can drive him crazy going on about possible
scenarios in the future, to which he comes back at me with, “Let’s
just get this handled for the present and worry about the future
later.” Typical for someone with a time frame of six months!
Again, take a few minutes to think about where you fall on this
spectrum. (Tactical: Zero- to five-year time frame. Strategic: Five-
to ten-plus-year time frame.) If you are in the middle, you can
imagine the impact of your actions about one to five years out.

FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND
MY RATING COWORKERS RATING
Tactical % %
Strategic % %
Total = 100% 100%

One Thing at a Time Versus Multitasking

Almost all of my clients think that they are multitaskers—that
they thrive on having a number of things to do at once. This ten-
dency may be a result of living in a multitasking world. We often
have to multitask, so we end up doing it, but that doesn’t mean
it is actually our natural or preferred style. In fact, according to
The Universal Language DISC by Bill Bonnstetter and his team at
Target Training International, at least 50 percent of us are single-