Here comes a weekend.

Remember to avoid the sensory as a problem-solver. Sensory engagement is not your problem-solving gift.

Your inner caveman (or shadow) will tell you: React to your life full of problems by taking it easy this weekend. Drink, overeat, shop, run, write code, blast the music, draw pictures, watch movies. All weekend long.

But no, not a problem is solved there.

For others, yes. For us though, not usually. Sensation isn’t some kind of a big answer for us.

How to solve problems then?

Your gift for problem solving means extending and opening your thoughts to things that are causing your stress.

Don’t avoid them even though it is a weekend. You will benefit and enjoy the weekend more if you take simple steps now to understand your problems better. Write down your thoughts about them. Then, write down some possible approaches. If you get sucked into actually solving them, remember you’ll feel a LOT better afterward, and not just a fleeting sensory “better”, but a genuine feeling of release.

Remember your hyperbolic sensory function wants you to be extreme and seek the best of the best sensory experiences. Take a calm line there. Your real gifts are in perception and analysis. So perceive! Analyze. Do research. You got a problem? Run the numbers. Spreadsheet it. Diagram it. Mind map it. Through this kind of effort you will get life’s cheat codes handed to you.

Some sensory relaxation is important. But too much is quite common.

We also push ourselves as INTJs to use our senses to chase an amazing career. The weekend becomes our big practice session. Woo hoo, non-stop coding! Illustrating! Woodworking! Whatever it is, understand that you’re not using your first two functions here. Or your third. This is your fourth function, inferior extraverted sensing. Use it more than just a little bit for fun, and it will punish you.

If you must push it, remember that it is improvisatory. It doesn’t like all of your deep planning. It wants yo to just dive in and perform. That will make things easier.

Still, expecting to spend your whole weekend doing productive sensory/detail work is a fool’s errand for most INTJs. Especially the young ones who think they need to be a billionaire in order to match what their inner vision tells them about themselves. Do the math—there’s a part of your brain that’s quietly protesting that. It wants you to do the math. Run the numbers. How much will ever be enough?

Remember that anxiety can get bad on Sunday night. If you struggle with compulsive, anxiety-driven behavior, the stuff you’re not happy about, that’s when it’ll tend to really come out.

Thoughts of Monday are stressful. Especially if you haven’t thought about Monday yet. Don’t avoid it. Use Monday planning as a way to allow yourself to relax. Look at your Monday schedule with a little bit of distance. Say, “It won’t be so bad. I’ll do this and this and it’ll be OK.” Take just five minutes.

Five minutes, maybe ten max. Your weekend will be better after that, INTJ. Get your thoughts out of your head.

Enjoy the weekend guilt-free.

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INTJ Business Tips

I’ve been a business owner for 15 years, and an INTJ for almost 40 years. Here’s some of what I’ve learned, tips first, traps at the end.

• Networking is worth your time
  • It’s not hard and painful like an insect mating ritual.
  • It just doesn’t seem important to you because you’re an INTJ
    • INTJs are vulnerable in the area of building relationships and rapport
    • It is our blind spot
    • We don’t even notice others’ feelings most of the time
      • “It was in his eyes the entire time—some vague feeling of pain. Why didn’t I just ask him about that first? Now we’re in a big mess.”
  • Networking doesn’t have to be hard
    • Barebones networking ideas:
      • Just talk to your competitors, you need each other anyway (more below)
      • Just send an email asking a question
      • Just call and ask about the services they offer, see if you can come visit and talk
      • Just drop by and walk in when you’re in the area
      • If you literally can’t say “hi” to people, put yourself in positions where people eventually have to say “hi” to you. Raise your hand and ask questions when the time comes.
      • Take classes, seminars, etc. aimed at NTs, so other NTs will find you. It’s easy to start with NTs.
      • From there, move onto ST things like a hiking club, NF things like a “getting in touch with the universe within you” seminar. These people are different from you. This means they need your help more than NTs do.
      • Push yourself: Accept new ideas, accept new people who are different from you, even try to look past logical fallacies when they are screaming in your face (it’s not really a huge risk most of the time, you’re just biased to think it is)
  • Keep notes on people you meet
    • Their brother likes McDonalds? Write it down!
    • Their business is failing? Write it down!
    • They have a cat? Write it down!
    • You can follow up on all of this later.
    • This stuff will also help you figure out their personality type
  • To remember peoples’ names
    • Ask for a business card
      • This means you should make your own
      • Avoid a common INTJ trap: Spend a minimal amount of time on your business card. To start just use a common template if you have to.
    • Ask for the name of their business
      • This reduces your chances of forgetting their name in a way that you can’t just look up later
    • Ask where their business is located
      • Again, if you know the location, you can look it up on Google Maps later and find out the business name and usually the contact’s name too.
    • Figure out which industry they work in and ask questions about it
    • Tada: It’s now much harder to permanently lose the contact’s name.
• Get a consultant
  • Know their personality type
    • Try to find an NT consultant. They’ve been where you are.
      • But regardless, just try everything they suggest.
      • Your brain likes to shoot the message down, shoot the messenger, etc. You’ll pick it apart for logical fallacies. You’ll compare it to things that you read somewhere. Stop doing that and just try new things. Allow the consultant to know more than you do about things.
• Work with people who value your work
  • If you don’t get along, don’t try to fix it by yourself
    • Chances are it’s a waste of time—if a client feels you are trying to fix the relationship single-handedly, they’ll often get really defensive and feel bad
    • Be diplomatic, try to find an alternate solution that genuinely helps them, and get out.
  • If you get along well, you’ll see a single customer turn into thousands of opportunities.
  • I advise studying Socionics to understand more about relationships and the types of relationships from which you can anticipate positive growth
    • Most of the Socionics information is available for free online
    • Crap clients are just crap relationships, and crap relationships call for psychology study. Psychology study calls for quick wins (so you don’t get sucked in deep), and Socionics is a useful, quick model. A broken model, like any other model, but a useful, quick one.
      • Haven’t found any good books on Socionics yet, just the online material (let me know if you do)
• Take measurements on your business.
  • Always have your exact numbers in front of you
    • Prevents hallucination
      • Either excitement-induced hallucination (positive, overestimation) or stress-induced hallucination (negative, underestimation)
• Give your business years and years of runway
  • Get free rent if you can (through family, friends, apartment complexes needing managers, etc.)
  • Business is hard at the beginning.
  • Attorneys opening new practices are advised they’ll need 5-7 years to get established
  • You are not the exception—hang in there
• Try to stay in business until you have good clients.
  • It will happen
  • Pretty soon you will be turning away good clients.
    • Tough but necessary.

INTJ Business Traps

• Don’t do everything by yourself
  • Especially the creative work
    • INTJs get sucked into doing the creative work themselves (inferior Se). Workaholism recipe. Anxiety recipe. Avoid.
    • Creative work doesn’t mean “graphic design.” It means creating something. Writing out a company rule book. Writing a novel. Writing a software package.
  • You’ll spend the rest of your time learning to delegate, after you’ve completed your therapy sessions.
    • See? This blog post will save you time AND money.
• Don’t make up excuses
  • You are allowed to say, “sorry, this isn’t working.”
    • I learned this from an ENFJ. If it’s not working, call it out early.
    • Let things happen how they will happen, but be honest with yourself
    • Excuses turn you into a self-blamer. A lot of the time it’s not your fault at all. It’s that you think it is, and you’re pushing yourself harder than a normal person would.
  • “Sorry, this isn’t working. I’m not sure why.” is way better for you and your customers than an INTJ disappearing act, or a lie, or endless excuses.
  • If you are making up excuses, you are probably too involved in the creative work.
    • Get your head back in the clouds. Delegate more of the creative, oversee it, and stay in strategy and systems mode.
• Communicate early
  • Something inside you likes to get out of touch with reality
    • Spoiler alert: Its your gift of subjective perception. Gift and curse for sure.
  • To counterbalance your built-in subjective filter, take measurements, make a framework
    • Measurement: “I have 25% of my time left. Am I really 75% done with the project?”
      • If no: Now you have a new task—communicate! Stop working on the project and immediately plan your communication
    • Framework: Develop “Rules for Handling Disasters with Clients”
      • This should be your own thing. Don’t look up what others do.
      • Refine it as you get more experience
      • I have lots of these frameworks, and they help a lot.
• Don’t surprise people
  • “It’s done! You wanted it red, but it’s black because most of the new widgets these days are black, not red.”
    • Practically invites a customer breakdown
    • Screams for more objectivity in the INTJ’s work
      • Develop standards with the client so your work result is predictable on both the customer side and your site.
• Don’t expect some objectively improbable reward for your efforts
  • After 15 years of self-employment, I just got a bit of “society” recognition for my efforts this year
    • However, it’s still been fun
  • Stop trying to make a billion dollars
    • HUUUUGE INTJ trap.
      • Exchange your time and peace of mind for sensory perqs
      • What is more likely, that you’ll make a billion, or that you’ll get killed in a car accident today? Do the math—seriously. And start driving more safely.
• Don’t look at your competitors as enemies
  • They’re not
    • You can learn from them
    • You can benefit from them
      • If you are reading this thinking, “but there are anti-trust laws!” stop doing that. You and I both know what you’re doing. It doesn’t apply here, this is not corruption. If you can’t separate this kind of talk from corruption themes, you need help. Find an objective, outside measure of corruption, collusion, etc. You’ll be more educated as a result and more risk-tolerant.
    • You can relate to their problems
      • Feels really good to talk about that stuff with a competitor
    • You can help them
      • Be generous.
  • Competitors will have to send referrals to someone eventually
    • They’ll probably consider you
    • You want them to do that
      • Even if they think the client is crap, unless their psychology is the exact same as yours, that crap client could be very compatible with you!
  • Competitors want to like you
    • They see you as a “better them”
    • Just let them like you. Be the nice one.
      • This kind of thinking will feel good to your introverted feeling attribute (Fi)
  • If you think they might be dangerous to your business
    • What objective measure would help you find out?
      • You are losing X clients every Y days to this competitor. Run the numbers?
        • Absent numbers showing that, you’re probably telling a tale to yourself.
    • What objective plans are called for?
      • Remove all bias toward destroying the client and dominating them. Keep it objective. Don’t let your temper flare.
• Don’t think you’re better than your competitors
  • You’re just different
    • Chances are, you need each other
  • NEVER talk yourself up around your competitors. Talk them up, find their strengths. If they compliment you, laugh like it’s absurd, ignore it and move on to another subject.
    • This is very hard for some INTJs. Do it anyway (and not just around competitors). Inferior Se can make you come off as a braggart to others, so downplay it for sure.

Well, I’m tired. I might update this later. But that should be enough for now.

Owning a business as an INTJ is rewarding and worth considering. Don’t fear it—explore it, research it.

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I’ve been an INTJ parent now for almost seven years. Here are my notes and reflections:

• I think INTJs make great parents.
  • We love to relax. Kids love it too.
    • It’s fun to relax with kids at the end of a long day.
    • I love my giggling videogame tournaments with my son
    • I love letting my daughter make me comfortable, she brings me pillows, puts a blanket on me, asks if I want something to drink. ENFPs are great at hospitality, it’s an inborn trait.
    • I enjoy taking photographs of my ISFJ son’s Lego creations. Yesterday he made…a printer. lolololol. But it was an awesome printer, you could slide the “paper” pieces right through it, very low friction. I tried to “print” with it and made a bunch of candy spill out—a simple magic trick. We laughed and ate candy.
  • We respect our children as unique individuals
    • I know my kids’ type so I can help them find their gifts!
    • I want them to be the best them they can be.
    • I have zero interest in my kids being like me
    • I just want my kids to enjoy life and humanity.
      • Holy crap, it rhymes like one of those old 1800s self-help books!
  • We can see the big picture
    • We’re good at putting mistakes in perspective
    • I can foresee relationship issues between my kids that will exist for the rest of their lives (thank you, Socionics). This informs my advice to them now. I help them keep distance from each other in areas that cause strong conflict, and I help them come together in areas that help them relax.
    • We’re good at planning for our kids’ future. Problem ahead? We already knew about it, figured out how we’d solve it, and prepared ourselves.
  • We love helping kids learn exciting new things
    • Even a new video game or a TV show can hold discoveries about life
    • I have stayed awake many nights answering questions from my kids: Where do babies come from? Where do teeth come from? Why is poop stinky? etc.
  • We love teaching kids to be independent.
    • Just last night: “Dad, I want to suck on an ice cube.” “OK, I want you to try to get it yourself now. I know you can do it.”
      • Now my kid knows how to get himself an ice cube, score.
      • It’s the little things, seriously.
• So many INTJs don’t want to be parents.
  • Fine. But: Are you closing your mind to the thing, or really exploring it and then deciding it’s not the best path for you? Ni+Ni (yuck) vs. Te+Ni (well-informed). This is so often the typical INTJ thing: We can close our minds to a thing because of our vague, subjective perceptions, and then not even consider looking into objective data on the actual thing itself.
  • EVEN if we can find objective data that says it’s worth looking into and even good for us in a lot of ways, we sometimes convince ourselves we’ll hate it.
  • Sure, listen to that voice if you want, but understand that hallucinating about something and actually doing it, having an influence over it, are two different things.
  • You actually do control your life—things won’t go into a death spiral with an INTJ at the helm. Don’t worry about it.
  • So: Closing your mind as a habit is bad news if you are an INTJ
    • Take Bruce Lee’s advice: “Empty your cup.” Revert to the beginner’s mind.
    • Being continually open to objective data makes you an even smarter judge, not a dummy.
• I didn’t really want kids super bad before getting married
  • When my wife asked me about kids I kind of went, “sure, I mean, I guess I could go either way. I don’t want a huge family or anything though.”
  • But part of me hoped inside that IF it happened, I could be an awesome dad somehow
    • I always liked the film Cheaper by the Dozen
      • This is the story of Frank Gilbreth Sr.. and his family. Gilbreth was an NT personality. (Right down to going to work rather than continuing with college :-)) INTJs should look up this guy and his work for inspiration and enlightenment regarding their own gifts.
• In the beginning I was concerned about everything
  • Will I be a bad dad
  • Will I be neglectful
  • Will I be downright evil
    • I know I have a temper! (Spoiler: Everyone does)
  • Will I be able to feed all these mouths?!
    • ROFL. If anyone can do it, it’s an INTJ, the ultimate contingency planner
  • Etc.—too many to list, really.
• I’m not really the evil dad I feared I might turn into
  • When you mess up with your kids, you apologize, you reflect, you slowly change and become a better person.
    • Which is how all of life works, with kids or without kids
• Practicality: Kids turn you into a super productivity ninja
  • Suddenly when you’re not getting much sleep or when your kids need your time to do homework, you start getting much faster at getting things done.
    • Multiple third-party friends and acquaintances have mentioned this as well.
• Have not noticed a huge burden on my finances
  • Sure, it’s probably measurable if I bothered to measure it.
  • Sure, I probably won’t be able to retire as early.
  • However, at this point I feel it is more than worth the tradeoff.
    • I have more close relations. Every INTJ basically has a relationship deficit from the get-go, so that’s really nice.
    • I will (probably) have some extra hands to take care of me when I’m elderly.
      • Yes, I have heard senior citizens without kids wish they had them. This is very sad to me. We all need to do better to support our elders.
• Kids are super fun.
  • They want to be interested in the things that you like.
  • They actually cooperate with you the vast majority of the time
  • They might, genetically, even be little INTJs.
    • I don’t have any INTJs, but I know my children and their gifts, gifts that I don’t have, and they blow me away.
• Your kids’ friends need a good example to look up to :-(
  • When your kids’ friends run up and give you a big hug when you’re dropping your kids off to school…and you always thought you were a big unemotional guy :’-( Wow.
    • One of the best feelings in life
• This is all a natural part of life and as INTJs we can be a part of it, influence it, learn from it, benefit from it.

The notes above don’t even touch on the subject of adoption, and we adopted our first child. Again, the most helpful thing to remember is that closing your mind to various options is easy for an INTJ but often not the healthiest route.

Moving forward from here, I’m excited to apply my Te and Ti studies to parenting. I really want to have fun with my kids, and I see Te and Ti filling an important role in helping me minimize struggle and maximize chances of having a good influence.

If you’re an INTJ parent I’d love to know how your experience has been!

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After working with Fe-doms for a while, I was looking for ways to better relate to them. I knew they might not make any particular effort in return, but for me, when I’m in a relationship, it’s important to know that I’m doing my best to improve my own health and understanding within that relationship at the very least.

This is one of the factors that got me interested in Fe, extraverted feeling. According to Socionics, we INTJs will tend to downplay the importance of Fe, even ridicule it.

Well, fine—after reading about it for a bit, I understand why it’s important.

But how do I develop some myself? Is it possible?

“No, it’s dangerous to develop functions outside of your function stack,” came one reply.

“I’m pretty sure that’s impossible,” came another.

“You wouldn’t be using real Fe though. It’d be your Te imitating Fe,” said someone else.

As far as I can tell, that’s all “just opinion,” which is putting it nicely.

In order to answer my questions, I finally turned to the most objective authority on the subject who has written a book that happens to sit on my bookshelf. And that person is Dario Nardi, the author of 8 Keys to Self-leadership, available on Amazon and also in PDF format from his Radiance House Publishing website.

Dr. Nardi knows a lot about personality type and is himself an INTJ, as he confirmed on Reddit some time ago. As I browsed further into the back of his book than I had in the past, I found his opinion on any dangers around learning the various functions. And, basically, his opinion seems to be this:

“It’s better to be your best you than to be a jack-of-all-trades. There is a tiny risk that you become someone who’s just mediocre at everything.”

Beyond that, my INTJ senses detect that he’s also saying, “SERIOUSLY GO FOR IT GUYS, THAT’S WHY I WROTE EVERY EXERCISE FOR EVERY FUNCTION IN THIS BOOK.”

At that point, clutching Dr. Nardi’s book to my heaving chest, I cried out with relief.

OK, not really. In the following weeks I did some Fe exercises and put myself in others’ shoes, found ways to empathize when I would have otherwise been pretty unaware. And you know what, Fe isn’t bad at all.

Getting more bold, I tried Fe on some of the people I work with. Not to be manipulative, just to give them some of what they need.

And BOOM. My first problems came up.

1. Holy cow, I sound like a big cloying moron when I’m trying hard to be empathetic.
2. This stuff is kind of exhausting. Like, remember that time you were out running in the middle of nowhere and thought it’d be fun to run backwards for a while? That kind of annoying.

Like a true INTJ, I had started on level “advanced”—attempting to test some brand new idea on people who were very important to me. These relationships were fragile in the first place, so in retrospect this was kind of a dumb idea.

I should have given myself more time to practice. By not doing so, I may have showed people a side of me that may in fact will only come out rarely. I mean, IF it was even a good side at all.

I’m definitely not a Fe native. I’m more like a Te barbarian squeezing out loud farts in the Fe Salon and shouting “EXCUSE ME.” to cover for it.

“ARE MY EXCUSE-ME WORDS WORKING?” the barbarian wonders. Later with his barbarian friends, he digs himself deeper. “THIS NEW SIDE OF ME YOU ARE NOTICING, MY FRIENDS, IS CALLED EXTRAVERTED FEELING.” Idiot.

I mean, I’d be riding along in a car with a Fe dom, and they’d say, “When we got to the hotel, my wife and kids headed to the swimming pool, and she was so sweet—she told me I had a long day of driving and I should just relax and watch some TV. You know, I love watching TV in hotels, man.”

“Oh my gosh. YES. I love watching TV in hotels too. Aww, man. That must have felt really nice. And with no kids around. That was super considerate of her. Watch anything good?”

batman-slap-meme.jpg <—- SERIOUSLY. Who the frick did I even think I was, talking like that? ROFL. “Super considerate.” Hahahahahahahaha.

I mean, I do love watching hotel TV. But I could have just kept it at, “Oh yeah, I love watching hotel TV too. Watch anything good?” But no. I had to go full feeler, or something. Man I sounded annoying.

So my advice to my future self here is to give yourself 20 years to get better at using Fe. Don’t pour it on like syrup and expect life to magically become pancakes.

You can certainly change your behavior in small increments though, and from what I can tell it does help. I mean, who wouldn’t appreciate that you revised your email a bit to be more empathetic, to mention a special word of thanks or congratulations?

“Dangerous” it isn’t.

The other point—the exhaustion: Well, I should have really been backing up Fe with Te, to be sure. I should have taken measurements on my progress and kept tabs on it. That would really be helpful in the future, because I’d be able to detect when I was running at way too many Fe RPMs for my little psychological engine to handle.

My Fe practice eventually culminated in a sleepless night in which I felt sorry for myself and pecked a mini-essay into my phone about how hard it is to work with Fe-doms. Pout, pout. (This writing activity is actually pretty helpful though; us INTJs can usually benefit from putting our thoughts down somewhere)

Later I shared some thoughts with my wife and I could feel her rolling her eyes. “You are way too hard on yourself.”

Yes, I am, I concluded, as I probably stuffed my mouth full of chocolate or something. Can’t remember. Won’t remember.

Would I do it all again? Yes, at a slower pace. I still catch myself looking for ways to show empathy and concern. And I believe in it—it’s an important practice to me, not anything fake at all. Fe, I am coming for you.

Slowly.

I notice I’m slow, too. With other functions like Ti, I look at Ti-doms and think, “holy smokes. They are good at this.” I’ve simply never had that practice before. Maybe that’s due to Linda Berens’ “Be Like Me” concept—we simply do not normally think of people as having a good reason not to be like ourselves, and in that frame of thinking, other people tend to look like they suck at being good at things.

So far, my favorite function to practice outside of my normal stack is definitely Ti, though. Maybe more on that later.

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Holy cow, this is awesome.

It’s been about 8 months of solid progress in shorthand use and I LOVE IT.

Since I frequently answer questions about shorthand practice, and since INTJs tend to appreciate the shorthand concept, I thought I’d share an update here.

I started learning shorthand for these reasons:

1. I like writing by hand but I type so much faster. Couldn’t my handwriting be made faster, closer in speed to my typing?
2. I was testing my theory that technology doesn’t really go obsolete in the way we think it does. Shorthand may not, by objective measure, be used much anymore, but I had a hunch that it would give me a crucial benefit in some situations.
3. I liked the idea of being able to write in obfuscated language. I frequently write in my notebooks in public—in church, on airplanes, etc. and I like to write without wondering if what I am writing is of any concern to the person who’s reading it over my shoulder.
4. I enjoy reading about subjective frameworks like shorthand that were created back in the day by people who were chasing methods of improving their standards. This historical aspect felt like a real connection to my spirit, something that made sense on a less-conscious level.

After making little progress with Gregg shorthand over the period of a year or so, I started to search for simpler shorthand systems and came across Ford Improved Shorthand. If you want to learn shorthand, I can highly recommend it. Especially if you are an INTJ or Te (extraverted thinking) user. If you’re more of a Ti user, you might have already developed your own shorthand system, for all I know.

I’m still learning Gregg slowly when I have the time. I have also since picked up dscript and like to write with it sometimes.

To get to the common concerns:

It doesn’t look fast. It looks like it uses lots of straight lines. Isn’t cursive longhand faster than this?

Nope, it’s still faster than longhand. Try it!

Doesn’t this make your handwriting worse?

My handwriting has improved dramatically. Want to know how? Grab the free PDF on handwriting repair from the Operina website. You can learn nicer handwriting and fast shorthand at the same time, as I did.

But this is impossible to read, or at least very slow to read. You won’t be able to decipher it.

Some very intelligent people have asked about this. At this point though it’s so common a point of disagreement, and my experience has been so much the opposite, that I am starting to think it is an example of dysfunctional Ni in INTJs.

But I, too, felt a little bit of the fear myself when I was starting out. What if I write it down and then can’t read it?!

It’s like JPEG compression, right? Lossy compression! I’m losing more meaning the faster I write!

Well, that was wasted fear. I can read my shorthand almost as fast as I can read my longhand.

I have found myself unable to decipher hastily-written words at times. However in those cases, I have the wider sentence and even page context to help me. So let’s say I never figure out the word (which has happened once, maybe twice in 8 months). Well, it was part of the final to-do list of Project X, which was completed to my satisfaction just yesterday. The project meets all criteria for success. Thus: I don’t care about the word anymore anyway.

So it’s kind of like compressing a high-resolution JPEG with quality set to 99 or something. Lossy? Yes, and very happy with the result.

Finally, I actually don’t need to go back and read my notes very much. In the case of notes I take for work, I transcribe them once and then never read them again. In the case of most other notes, they were simply helping me organize my thoughts at the time and when I go back and read them they don’t hold my interest for long.

But no one else can read it—not your wife, not your kids [implied: After you die]. Right?

I still keep journals in “normal” writing and update them from time to time. Anyone who wants to read more of my day-to-day thoughts (examples: How many calories I ate today, reminders to myself to do mundane task X, things I want to research) will need to learn shorthand.

But.

After my dad’s passing I find that no one really spends much time reading his journals. And he was an INTJ and someone who was a really respected thinker. People just have other things to do.

I did read about one guy who buys old shorthand journals off eBay. He buys them from families of deceased shorthand-writers and noted that most family members won’t bother to try to decipher your shorthand. I guess as a counterpoint to that though, there are people who occasionally post shorthand letters for deciphering on e.g. community sites like Reddit.

But this is obsolete. People use laptops or audio recorders for transcription now. Right?

This is a really strange conclusion. The fundamental difference between interacting with a laptop and a pen, or an audio recorder and a pen, or a phone and a pen, is huge.

As one example: In my work, I often draw shapes on paper for the client or for myself. I never even enjoyed doing this on a tablet, it’s very awkward to do on a laptop (not casual at all, and it starts to transition into graphic design), and an audio recorder allows only audio descriptions of shapes.

In practice, it’s quite handy to be able to take shorthand notes. You can write in tighter spaces, too.

Where I’m at now:

• I timed myself and I can write something like 2x-6x faster than normal, depending on the circumstances. I find it very easy to determine how much I will shorten words while writing. However, I can also see where a system like Yublin would help me increase the speed even more. Still, with where I’m at now, I don’t see speed increases as super critical. I write very fast and it works just fine.
• I can comfortably read my shorthand.
• People ask me about shorthand all the time. Some just like to look at it. Others have taken classes and forgotten it. One told me, “I took typing and shorthand. I remembered the typing. I never kept up the shorthand practice. But to this day (retired government official) I wish I would have kept up my practice with the shorthand.”

Finally I wanted to mention that some INTJs hesitate to write in a journal because others will read their thoughts and e.g. ridicule them or gossip about them. In the past I wrote in Japanese for this purpose. But Shorthand is a simpler cure for that. It is a shame for INTJs not to feel free to write their thoughts, because Te and writing go hand in hand, and Te is our problem solving function. It’s critical that it be used freely whenever and wherever.

So: Highly recommended. Would not change a thing.

If you want to casually slip into shorthand practice, cnsdr drppng vwls frm yr sntncs whn y wnt t wrt fstr.

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[A.K.A. Dropping a Te-bomb]

I have a question.

I’m trying to learn how think. Do you just sort of…think…oh wow. Crazy how well this brain thing works.

OK so let’s say you’re thinking now, right? The trick is to, what, just think about things? Anything in particular? I guess that’ll probably come with time, right? And if it doesn’t, I go see a therapist, right? Probably that or a psychiatrist. Yep. Oh, I know a good psychiatrist, so I’ll go see him.

Thanks!

[Pause while others wonder whether a question is even being asked, or if it has already been answered]

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TL;DR: Be very cautious about pursuing a career as a person who makes things. Programming is sometimes a better fit as an INTJ hobby. And if you’re trying to learn through academia, that’s sometimes double-hard for INTJs, who generally learn best through hands-on, real-life projects and build theory from the ground up via experience. I’ve included learning tips and relevant details below. Also be sure to read to the end, because TL;DR isn’t really a great learning paradigm, right?

How can you be super successful as an INTJ computer programmer?

Related Article: An INTJ-friendlier Introduction to Programming

The Problem

For many INTJs, the answer seems like: You can’t. And the longer you stare at online developer portfolios and see what everyone else is doing, the longer you watch your goals outstretch your worst-case deadlines, the more you talk up your goals when your friends ask about them, the more you will tend to wonder why.

Why can’t I do this? I know others who do. Those guys are idiots compared to me. They didn’t even know about framework X when we talked tech at lunch last week. Framework X is the best framework available right now.

I already know that. I’ve been building a…building a…build. Build, man. Why can’t I build anything?

I talk the talk but I procrastinate everything. Am I lazy?

I just took a super long lunch. I mean, I got the job, they like me. The boss has been asking about that big project I promised to make progress on.

But here I am on this park bench and I’d rather be doing just about anything else. This morning from 10 to 10:30 I sat in the quiet corporate bathroom on the other side of the building and read Dostoyevsky.

Who’s this guy? Don’t make eye contact. Wow he looks like…

One Solution

Hi there.

I’m future you.

You’re using your gifts right now, you know that? Sitting on this park bench, listening to your perception.

You are very gifted when it comes to perception.

Have you thought about perception as a career? Forecasting? Strategy? Research and analysis? Contingency planning?

I know, programming is none of those things.

But one implication of your interest in programming is, you may think you need to be programming, creating things by hand.

Programming can be a mental stand-in, symbolizing scheduling. “Get with the program.”

So, try scheduling things more often, see if you’re still interested in programming.

The act of programming itself may not really be where your main gifts are. It’s a part of you that might even be pretty weak. You might get anxious when you try to do it more than a tiny bit at a time. So be sure to feel out this skill and look for objective ways to evaluate your progress.

In general, INTJs can also be biased to think they need to be the ones to do all of the things by themselves. No systematization, no delegation—just you, doing it all. You should also determine whether you need to be that involved in the “little picture,” or if you’d rather find a way to base your career on the INTJ’s “big picture” gifts: Planning, strategy, and so on.

After all, when the waves of details come up and bury you, you might feel crushed. You wanted to put on a good show, and instead your hands became tied again.

This is also a good time to mention: If you’re looking into such cold, logical, mechanistic things, please also start taking better care of yourself. Hard must be supported by soft, so to speak.

When things are hard, learn to let them feel hard. Feel it! Then go home and relax. Allow yourself to take breaks, evenings and weekends off, and schedule vacations.

When you’re ready once again to dive in, start doing research. Attack the problem. Add in some analysis—theories of what would be good for you. Make a simple list of next steps. Put effort into that. It won’t get as hard nearly as fast as programming will. There’s no guarantee it’ll make you a billionaire, but none of the really mature, happy INTJs need that stuff anyway. (I know, I coach them. They’re amazing, but mostly they want to feel like they are solving problems and learning things.)

Eventually, you’ll build your own frameworks and rule sets for success in various areas.

And as you refine those rules and frameworks, they’ll start to work even better.

You were right to come to the park bench. And the bathroom time was well used, believe it or not! Your body knows what it needs. Don’t blame yourself. Hang in there.

[Note: This first part of the article was a compilation of my thoughts and experiences around the phenomenon of many, many INTJs being ground to bits by university-level CS programs, or by new jobs in the field. I hear from them all the time. If you are reading this and feeling deja vu, get in touch please, as I’d love to hear your experience]

Another Solution

Let’s say you’ve come up against this problem, but you need to be programming right now. Or you’re already a programmer and want to improve.

Here are the keys I’d encourage:

• Fix what you (intentionally) broke
• Constant Brain Dumps
• Ongoing Rule Refinement
• Remaining Open to Delegation and Oversight Roles

First: Fix what you (intentionally) broke

You may be familiar with INTJ Mark Zuckerberg’s original Facebook motto, “move fast and break things.” The motto was later changed to something less risky, but I thought the original was a good lesson in how INTJs can learn to program.

Here are the steps:

• Intentionally do something that won’t work
• Think: Damn, it’s broken! On purpose, but still broken!
• Use your logic & research skills to figure out what’s broken
• Fix what’s broken

Eventually, you’ll learn to program backwards, which is important for INTJs. While a university CS department will probably teach it to you forwards, starting with a bunch of tiny little definitions of abstract concepts, you probably need to start with the big picture in mind. You need a big blob of stuff with problems.

If you’ll be programming using a framework, download the framework, get it configured, and let it sit there. Later on, list what your next steps are.

If you’ll be programming from scratch, you probably at least need a pile of pseudocode to troubleshoot. So start writing comments—and then attack the pseudocode that seems most interesting OR easy to you.

And: Start googling up solutions like there’s no tomorrow. Your pseudocode says “detect if the user submitted a form”? Then google, “how to detect if the user submitted a form.” Start copying & pasting and seeing what sticks.

This is a fantastic way to start fast, with broken stuff that kind of works! Congrats, you are moving fast and your stuff is broken!

Over time, you’ll learn to make it yours. And then you’ll discover first principles. And then you’ll probably be able to create new programs by starting from first principles, if you want.

(And look, I’m not here to tell you how to ideally learn how to code. I’m telling you what will probably work for somebody with cognition like the INTJ.)

Second: Constant Brain Dumps

In order to be most effective, the INTJ brain needs opportunities to dump information. You might do this in:

• A journal (example: Jordan Mechner’s Prince of Persia and Karateka development journals)
• A text file (example: John Carmack’s .plan files)
• A website or web page (example: JWZ’s web pages and blog at jwz.org)

Personally I feel these are least effective when done for an audience. You should feel very little pressure to compose for some public blog audience, and spend most of the time getting information and ideas out of your brain.

It’s crucial to eventually bring your writing around to the most daunting items that you need to accomplish. If you write thousands of words and avoid those things, your brain dump isn’t really a brain dump.

Once you have externalized the most stressful items, you should start to explore them, ask questions about them, prod at them. This is known as extraversion and is critical for us introverts. This kind of extraversion will help us solve problems in the exact way that avoidance won’t.

[Personally, I keep a text editor open at all times, and write down whatever comes to mind. Away from the computer I keep a pocket notebook with me.]

Third: Engage in Ongoing Rule Refinement

You should also begin to treat your workday as a laboratory. An ongoing experiment. You can do this by:

• Proposing new ideas that will better your work
• Testing those ideas
• Finding and extracting key leverage points
• Refining the ideas into a framework that is reusable

For example, let’s say you just spent your first week at your new programming job in complete desperation: You highly dislike one of your closest coworkers, the technical documentation is a mess, and you keep getting your lunch stolen.

• Regarding the coworker, start to propose & test ideas for making the relationship work, even if it’ll never be the best. Dive into the research.
• Regarding the documentation, start to propose & test ideas for learning what you need to learn. Perhaps, for example, you think it’d be worth trying to write your own documentation as you go along.
• Regarding the stolen lunches, perhaps you brainstorm a few different ideas: Letting your boss know about it, asking people online, marking your bag, keeping lunch in a cooler inside your car. The cooler turns out to be great! You discover that keeping lunch in your car reminds you to get outside and take a brisk walk during lunchtime. That is known as a leverage point. It goes a great distance toward helping you solve the problem, perhaps even surpassing the original goal. Maybe the goalposts are now moved forward a bit, into “how to have the best lunchtime” or similar.

With each point, the process is the same: Propose, test, look for leverage points, refine. You now know how to develop frameworks that give you huge amounts of leverage over your problems.

Finally: Remain Open to Delegation and Oversight Roles

Eventually it’ll be time to detach from the same day-to-day work you’ve always done. If not completely, at least in some ways, this is going to be crucial.

For example, let’s say you continue coding, but your in-house framework is giving you headaches.

A lot of INTJs would, at that point, figure that the problem is them, and not the framework. This often turns into “let’s keep using the broken framework,” or potentially even worse, “I must quit my job.”

But it’s a good idea to keep an open mind. Perhaps you decide to gradually phase out your in-house code framework and bring in a simple, flexible third-party framework to help you out. And maybe you also contact the company that develops the third-party framework and get referrals to contractors who can help you focus on what’s most important, while they fill in the details here and there.

Keeping an open mind also means pushing a bit. It’s healthy to negotiate with the people on your team—your boss, your coworkers. You can tell them your thoughts, tell them what you don’t want to do anymore, give them potential solutions, and make sure the problem is in everyone’s lap, not just yours.

Conclusion

As an INTJ, your gifts, maximized, are very impressive. Objective measurement coupled with subjective framework-building should get you very far.

But don’t forget to take care of yourself—let your inner ESFP (all four letters, flipped) help determine your life development path. Don’t suppress the inner lazy guy forever. Learn to listen to your heart and be OK with “I’m just done with this.” Have fun, and make sure others know you’re having fun.

If you’re not having fun, I hope this article helped. If you are having fun, I hope you got some new ideas here.

By the way, if you want more concrete programming-learning tips, be sure to check out An INTJ-friendlier Introduction to Programming.

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The various branches of Jungian psychology give us healthy models against which we can compare ourselves. In the case of the Meyers-Briggs INTJ (Socionics ILI, etc.), I believe a Tony Stark vs. Iron Man comparison makes it easier to offer an “unhealthy vs. healthy” visualization.

INTJs as Tony Stark [Unhealthy]

This person is a slave to their compulsions, driven by their senses.

• Showy and blunt (“I did/can do amazing thing X”)
• Driven by big payoffs
• Haunted by compulsive feeding of the senses
• Physical thrills: Drives fast cars, fast. Big weapons. Probably loves e.g. martial arts.
• Sexual: Needing lots of pretty women around
• Other sensory engagement: Needs to build really cool stuff, by himself
• In defeat, sees compromise of own work as a personal failure and vows to rebuild and make it bigger and better next time
• In success, sees opportunity to gloat and force the world to give them their prized (Kiersey) deference
• Does not consult the deeper self; acts impulsively
• Liable to be insulted and strike back
• Avoids the important and the mundane, especially if combined

Note that “driven by” and “being a slave to” are different from “enjoy this activity” and “like to do this activity periodically for relaxation”.

INTJs as Iron Man [Healthy]

• Driven by logical mission parameters
• Consults an inner advisor (J.A.R.V.I.S.) on strategy and measurements (Ni+Te)
• Slightly distrusts negative thinking, all-or-nothing thoughts, or really disruptive thoughts (especially his own), no matter how alluring it seems (J.A.R.V.I.S. programmed to provide objective data when mistakes are about to be made)
• Patient and methodical in reviewing objective thinking / information—understands eventual convergence toward the single best conclusion (Ni)
• Consults actual measurements and objective data (Te) in order to drive decisions toward higher impact (Se)
• Recalls patterns from a deep pool in order to act on objective information (Ni+Te)
• Relies on contingency thinking to ensure mission success (backup weapons, other backup systems)
• Systematizes (Mk. I, II, etc.) and delegates (J.A.R.V.I.S. remote-controlling the suits in Iron Man III) in order to scale up his effectiveness
• Comprehends yet is not harmed by insults due to a strong objective thought filter
• Seems to need little attention or deference in order to exist; just “is”
• Systematically accomplishes the important and the mundane
• Goals are based on use of built-in gifts (Ni+Te for perception and analysis, with Se being present but less dominating)
• Solutions come easy (uses gifts rather than constant use of inferior function Se)

Well, I get the feeling the metaphor will break soon. But I think it’s worth watching the way Iron Man solves problems (even if it literally just appears to be Tony Stark inside a suit) vs. how Tony Stark the man attempts to solve problems.

One question worth considering is, say you’re an INTJ and you’re haunted by typical INTJ inferior Se problems like:

• Compulsive web surfing
• Binge-watching TV
• Procrastinating
• PMO
• Drugs
• Overeating
• Over-exercising

Your anxiety is over the top, and beyond that you’ve got a nice layer of depression weighing everything down.

So how do you get to Iron Man? You feel like Tony Stark with his hands tied.

I think I’d suggest measurement, first.

• How much of your time is spent procrastinating and indulging those things?
• At what time of day?
• What kind of projects or work are causing this stress? Is it detail-oriented, hands-on work?
• How do you feel on days when this kind of thing is happening?

A good notebook is an excellent tool for getting at those measurements.

Once you have the measurements, the solutions start to suggest themselves:

• If you’re spending 3-4 hours a day procrastinating, you are wasting an incredible amount of time—what elements of the situation would make things so hard? Is it really just you? Do you really think you’re just lazy? Could it be that you’re not using your gifts, and are relying on your alluring inferior function, Se?
• If this is happening in the middle of the work day, I’d hold the work day suspect.
  • First, you now have permission to do whatever you want in the middle of the work day. Better that than give into compulsive behavior, right?
  • Second, while under that temporary cover—some rough time management—if the procrastinated tasks seem detail-oriented, boom, you’re probably using your inferior function, Se, too much. Stop being a Tony Stark—no more doing it all yourself, no more vowing that you’ll show everybody and blow them away. This applies to INTJ graphic designers, INTJ computer programmers, INTJ dentists, etc. It’s all hands-on, realtime responses to sensory input: Detail work.
  • Third, no matter what the character of the work, you need to get above it and beyond it. Since you are by definition a systems thinker, you need to detach yourself and your interests from individual projects and into the systems level. How can you systematize what you’re doing? How can you delegate? (Example: “Boss, I found a local company that can design our marketing graphics for $X. Let’s pay them, and then I’ll be able to take on and manage additional efforts Y and Z, PLUS this one, at a strategic level. We’ll have a cohesive plan and won’t lose any time down in the details.”)

This is pretty rough thought. But for me the overall picture works. And of course, you get to be Iron Man. Who doesn’t want to be Iron Man?

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I hereby release myself from my inferior function’s need to do things by myself.

Needing to do things myself has been a huge mistake; I hope it’s not too late to fix all the problems this has caused.

Had I known about inferior Se, secondary Te, etc. I probably would have planned out my life much differently.

But we can’t go back in time, now can we? And I guess I’m the kind of person who thinks regrets are OK and normal.

From here on out I am a systems guy, I measure things, I analyze them.

If Se wants to come out and play for recreational purposes, perfect.

If Ni wants me to gather things I’m missing, those things are now suspect. Especially physical things. Especially things I buy in patterns.

INTJs are so bad at collecting things. We should never do that unless accompanied by an expert. It’s common for INTJs, I think, to gather things, the most optimal things, and then throw them away all at once. Talk about hyperbolic.

I threw away an optimal bicycle once. I thank my parents for not sticking me with the bill.

I’m thankful I’ve learned all this stuff.

I’m conscious that my life is about to change dramatically. It already has, physically. But waves of change are vibrating through me. Tears come to my eyes, anticipating the changes that have to follow this recent psychological overhaul. Studying Jungian psychology and its models has been a huge benefit. The weight loss was just a start. I’ve had crazy dreams lately, visions during the daytime. They’ve always been there in the background, but…

I have new tools to use now. I am sliding into my real self like I’ve been away from it for a while, like it’s a comfortable seat in a fighter jet.

[Are fighter jet seats even comfortable?]

[I had a professor who said “everyone should write a manifesto.” Mine’s done for now, felt pretty good.]

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This is not huge, but it is.

I believe an extremely perceptive person might have a chance of straightening this kind of course by themselves, without any particular psychology knowledge.

However, for me, I would have probably quit.

I was reporting to an ESTJ. This person was marked by the following:

• Si dress—hilariously efficient, could be mistaken some days for thrift store clothes, despite this person having a well-paying job
• Si concerns: Getting things done most efficiently—find any waste and it’s gone
• Si problems: Getting caught up in a sea of details, sometimes unable to separate the most crucial details from the rest
• Te-dom attitude “sorry, I just need to talk it out here, that’s just…how I work.”
• Ne fears “I just…I just don’t wanna have this turn out like this last project did, it was a disaster.” Catastrophizing
• Practically zero / empty presence on social media, some kind of trait among my ESTJ friends, and maybe ESxJ friends in general. I would not attempt to type someone based on this, but it did send up a red flag initially when I saw people reaching out to this person via social media as if they were expecting an extravert reply.

The Ne fears collided early on with my inferior function, Se. I could feel this person’s concerns about a previous project with some other person carrying into our relationship without any good reason. I had not messed up their last project, someone else had.

I had a real ownership stake in my work—that was the beginning of my problem.

Taking a bigger-picture view, I was focusing on contributing from my inferior function, one of the most sensitive parts of my psyche. The more I researched Se, my inferior function, the more I realized what my problem really was—this issue of ownership and pride in my own ability to provide a well-executed work product.

After that, I realized that this ESTJ really wanted to contribute their get-things-done gifts and do things. They wanted to really contribute to the details, which I wasn’t used to. I never had a direct ESTJ client before this.

My Se was getting in the way. I wanted to be appreciated for my work, rather than just see it through and appreciate the outcome.

Finally recognizing this issue, I made the decision to let this person do as much as they wanted to do. It felt like a revelation!

This shifted the project dramatically, from more stressful and confrontational, with both of our hands feeling tied, to a more fun, collaborative relationship.

ESTJ reflected on some physical stress symptoms they were having. This was alarming to me; if I had those symptoms I’d consider a complete career change. It seems to me now that this person is over-emphasizing their core gifts without achieving balance. They probably feel very raw inside, with no rest. They may have to learn to force themselves to rest.

I noted, too, that my Ni was asserting itself in our conversations—ESTJ would come up with an idea, and I would think (perceive) quickly and say, “ah, so what will happen then you do that is outcome X. What do you want to do about that?” I was drowning this person in details. Details they love, but don’t have time for. I could see it was causing them frustration.

That’s been another hard part: Watching an ESTJ who is in a leadership position where Ni is actually very important. They can’t give up control of the minor details, but desperately need to focus on the big picture.

I can’t solve that problem, but I think I contributed to the solution of our problem.

There’s much more laughter now. I enjoy working with this person.

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