What percent of your time at work do you spend thinking about how to do something, as opposed to actually doing it? I am talking about the type of thinking where you twirl a pencil and doodle while trying to solve a difficult problem, not "What's that excel shortcut again?" thinking. I am curious how this breaks down by industry.
Lately I have found myself thinking up to 70-80% of the time, which makes progress painfully slow, and I have little to show for my well-thought-out work. I keep telling myself that I am learning by thinking. May or may not be true.
What helps you think/turns the wheels a little faster? I find pacing helps, and also minute distractions, such as going to get a coffee.
Going to take a fat shit always seems to help, a few minutes of brickbreaker clears the head right up....
fresh air and a walk help...so does asking others for help so you do not reinvent the wheel
Probably spend about 40% thinking and 50% doing.
10% is wasting time on WSO.
So why do people say banking is mindless?
I am not in banking (corp strat), and neither is everythingsucks (consulting) and we are the only two who posted a %. But I am sure those in banking spend a fair amount of time thinking too.
Took me 7 minutes to figure out what sandwich I wanted today so....7 minutes
It depends. Sometimes you just do, sometimes you just think. Sometimes all you want to do is think, sometimes all you want to do is do, like those late nights at 1 am when you just want to get it done and go home.
When you're an analyst, though, your thinking usually is pretty mundane and low-level - how can I build that chart, how can I pro-forma this comp for an acquisition, how can I find all this information they're looking for, how can I make my analysis fit the pre-selected viewpoint of my MD. I'm guessing the healthy ratio is 20% thinking / 80% doing for analysts. Any more thinking and you simply won't get anything done.
What about simultaneously thinking AND doing? E.g., when you're connecting the depreciation schedule to the rest of your model, at least be conscious of the accounting involved. Or, go even further by thinking about the specifics of that company’s capex, and how capex generally works within the industry? OK, I admit the latter might slow you down a bit.
If you’re fresh and have some brain energy, which I admit is probably rare for analysts, why not try to get something out of your work? It’ll at least serve as a mind game to subconsciously make you more interested in your work.
I purposefully try to separate the two. In my experience, thinking while doing reduces accuracy to the point that you then spend much more time looking for your mistakes. Although I suppose in your example you would have to think a bit to figure out what to link up to.
Linking up your depreciation schedule involves thinking the first 5 times you do it, then it's just repetition...
Depr sched was an arbitrary example. But, I guess your statement applies to most IB modeling...
Is modeling any more involved at MMs or elite boutiques where, supposedly at least, analysts have more "responsibility"?
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