Your MindTime® Thinking Style Report

Unlock the power of your thinking

This report is designed to begin a conversation, not to label you. It will describe and explain how you think. In it, we provide you with information and insights with which you can develop your understanding of thinking and learn how to better navigate life given your Thinking Style. These insights will also help you manage the differences in motivations and behaviors between people, and understand what is important to each of you.

Essence

Curious. Explorative. Resilient. Quick-thinking. Informed. Problem-solver. Idealistic. Cautiously optimistic.

You are curious about your world, melding the new and the old together. You are in many ways a sense maker, a person who can appreciate new ideas and add grounded thinking to them which changes the nature of the idea as it begins to make sense to others. In this way, you are an innovator and able to weed out the poor ideas from the ones most likely to succeed.

You want to know if ideas are possible and you look for answers. However, you will go with your intuition if there’s no time for proper research. However, you will avoid unnecessary risks and often second-guess yourself about decisions you’ve already made.

You bring Possibility and Certainty together. You enable your new ideas to be understood and evaluated by doing your homework.

Strengths

You are full of creative, innovative energy and ideas that are often grounded in data or first-hand experience. You have the gift of putting words to ideas using metaphors to help others get on board. This makes you an interesting person who can articulate well what is going on in your thinking.

Challenges

  • Making things concrete
  • Second-guessing your own ideas because you lack solid evidence
  • Completing what you’re working on before moving on to the next thing
  • Goal setting and staying the course.

The 3 Perspectives of the MindTime Framework

Your Thinking Style is the result of your specific blend of the three perspectives of time—Past, Present, and Future. Each of time’s three perspectives gives rise to certain specific kinds of thinking, which can explain why you do just about everything you do.

This perspective moves towards Certainty as a priority. It orients itself around understanding, meaning, facts, data, and research. It cares about what is factually true and how that information applies to current issues or decisions. Its core need and virtue is to know and protect what it believes is the Truth.

This perspective moves towards Probability as a priority. It orients itself around norms, order, structure, schedules, and stability. It cares about maintaining the status quo and making sure that things are working normally. Its core need and virtue is to feel and bring Harmony.

This perspective moves towards Possibility as a priority. It orients itself around opportunity, change, novel ideas, and inventiveness. It cares about the big picture and staying open to what is possible. Its core need and virtue is to find and bring Hope.

The Intensity of Each Perspective in Your Thinking

In this section of your report, we focus on the actual intensity of each of the perspectives and the degree to which it shapes your thoughts and behaviors. It is the vital piece of information you need to understand your thinking to the fullest level. These three numbers reveal your true MindTime Thinking Style.

Past — Prioritizes Certainty
Present — Prioritizes Probability
Future — Prioritizes Possibilities

The Intensity of Each Perspective in Your Thinking

In this section of your report, we focus on the actual intensity of each of the perspectives and the degree to which it shapes your thoughts and behaviors. It is the vital piece of information you need to understand your thinking to the fullest level. These three numbers reveal your true MindTime Thinking Style.

Past — Prioritizes Certainty
Present — Prioritizes Probability
Future — Prioritizes Possibilities

The higher you score on a given perspective the more strongly that perspective manifests in your thinking and behavior. The lower your score on a perspective, the more anxiety, stress, and even dread you might feel when called on to put it to work. It’s what makes you mentally go “Ouch”. Low scores are experienced as resistance to the kind of thinking and behaviors produced by that perspective.

Interpreting your Scores

This core priority is responsible for:

  • How much Risk you tolerate (the higher the number the LOWER your tolerance)
  • How much Time you need to reflect on new information (the higher the number the more time you need)
  • How much Information you need to feel like you understand the risks (the higher the number the more information you need)

This core priority is responsible for:

  • How much Chaos you tolerate (the higher the number the LOWER your tolerance)
  • How much Organization you need in your affairs (the higher the number the more organized you need to be)
  • How important stability and security are to you (the higher the number the more important)

This core priority is responsible for:

  • How much Change you are comfortable with (the higher the number the greater your comfort)
  • How much appetite you have for pursuing Opportunity (the higher the number the more opportunities you seek)
  • How much Resilience you have for coping with adverse conditions (the higher the number the more resilience you have)

Interpreting your Scores

This core priority is responsible for:

  • How much Risk you tolerate (the higher the number the LOWER your tolerance)
  • How much Time you need to reflect on new information (the higher the number the more time you need)
  • How much Information you need to feel like you understand the risks (the higher the number the more information you need)

This core priority is responsible for:

  • How much Chaos you tolerate (the higher the number the LOWER your tolerance)
  • How much Organization you need in your affairs (the higher the number the more organized you need to be)
  • How important stability and security are to you (the higher the number the more important)

This core priority is responsible for:

  • How much Change you are comfortable with (the higher the number the greater your comfort)
  • How much appetite you have for pursuing Opportunity (the higher the number the more opportunities you seek)
  • How much Resilience you have for coping with adverse conditions (the higher the number the more resilience you have)

The gift of your particular Thinking Style

The value of your Thinking Style lies in the ability it gives you to know when an idea sounds or ‘feels right’. This form of knowing—intuition—which amounts to subconsciously using past experiences to understand current circumstances, when used while at the same time holding an open, curious, and inquisitive mind, is powerful thinking, and it is your go-to approach to much of your day-to-day decision-making. Curiosity leads you to uncover new things, while your need to find evidence and validate facts helps you determine the soundness of new ideas.

Led by this intuitive guidance system, you take visionary ideas and add depth, detail, and substance to them. Your true gift is one of envisioning the future and evaluating its possibilities; you foster a culture of open-minded exploration.

Your location on the MindTime Map

In order to visualize the relative differences in people, and all of the possible blends of the 3 perspectives of time—Past, Present, and Future, we created a map. The map is a useful tool to help build agreements based on the relative differences in points of view—Thinking Styles—between people.

The yellow dot in the map represents your Thinking Style.

The stronger you score on any one of the perspectives the more it ‘pulls’ your location towards that corner. In this way, every location, and therefore point of view, expressed on the map is relative to every other location. We are all on this map somewhere, and now we have a way to visualize our relative differences.

Therefore, in every situation where there is more than one person, this map can be used to explain the thinking dynamics that will arise between people, whether they are couples, friends, families, teams, or entire organizations. This saves enormous amounts of wasted time and energy, and often goodwill. This is because it helps everyone get on the same page in their understanding of what’s going on and where every individual is coming from. It changes how people set their expectations of each other and the role they are naturally going to play.

Your location on the MindTime Map

In order to visualize the relative differences in people, and all of the possible blends of the 3 perspectives of time—Past, Present, and Future, we created a map. The map is a useful tool to help build agreements based on the relative differences in points of view—Thinking Styles—between people.

The yellow dot on the map represents your Thinking Style.

The stronger you score on any one of the perspectives the more it ‘pulls’ your location towards that corner. In this way, every location, and therefore point of view, expressed on the map is relative to every other location. We are all on this map somewhere, and now we have a way to visualize our relative differences.

Therefore, in every situation where there is more than one person, this map can be used to explain the thinking dynamics that will arise between people, whether they are couples, friends, families, teams, or entire organizations. This saves enormous amounts of wasted time and energy, and often goodwill. This is because it helps everyone get on the same page in their understanding of what’s going on and where every individual is coming from. It changes how people set their expectations of each other and the role they are naturally going to play.

Same map, different contexts

For any given context you might find yourself in, there are words, and specifically, adjectives, that describe how the various Thinking Styles will behave. Let’s add a layer of general adjectives to demonstrate this.

The words closest to you are the ones that most describe your thoughts and behaviors, the further away they are the less they are likely to resonate with you. And, because it is a complete map of all possible Thinking Styles, your colleagues, friends, and family members are also located somewhere on this map.

Think about how you work on a team. Can you see how your Thinking Style influences both the role you want to play and how you interact with others? By understanding how the 3 perspectives of time form your own and others’ behavior, you can learn to communicate and collaborate more effectively.

The combination of the three perspectives of time in your mind determines your fundamental desires and motivations. These shape your emotions, values, personality, experiences, and how others perceive you. Your Thinking Style plays a major role in determining your natural tendencies and how you react to and participate in life. It also explains why you are good at certain things, yet struggle at other aspects. By becoming familiar with your own Thinking Style you can learn to maximize your unique value in your personal and professional life, and reframe how you view your weaknesses.

You can also learn how to connect to others with more ease because you can predict where they are coming from and what their needs are. Knowing your own Thinking Style will enable you to make better decisions in every aspect of your life, whether it’s a career choice, who to hire for the job vacancy in your office, or which of your friends you should invite to go backpacking through India for a month.

Here are two maps that highlight Thinking Styles traits in different contexts. In each context, there is something we can learn of value by applying the MindTime Framework.

The value you bring

What stresses you

How you learn best

Your blind spots

People that have the same Thinking Style as you:

  • are drawn towards the ideas and activities that push boundaries and the limits of what they know
  • have the ability to sort the best ideas, and supply sound reasons
  • have an intuitive sense of risks and rewards
  • require evidence before making major decisions or committing themselves
  • desire to do things ‘right’, which may not be the most economical way

We hope that you have found your Thinking Style report insightful and valuable. This is just the very beginning of a journey to explore how this common human phenomenon of thinking is at work in your life. As we pointed out at the outset, our intention is not to label people but to promote healthy conversations about our differences, the value we can all bring to life, and how to respect and build on these differences in every human endeavor.

Your MindTime key

Want to revisit your report later? All you need to do is visit www.mindtimetools.com/redirect and enter the MindTime key you used to access the survey.

Your Key is unique to you. Our website uses keys to recognise your Thinking Style without having to know who you are.