#11 Don't Snack Too Much At Work
Recently, I finished reading a book on leadership called Staff Engineer by Will Larson. There’s a chapter titled “Work on what matters” that really resonated with me. It discusses how to focus on work that is more impactful, or as the book describes is, more energising for you, and teaches about “Snacking”. While the chapter is primarily for helping senior engineers understand where to focus their efforts, I believe its insights can apply across different roles and industries. In this post, I’ll explain what Snacking is and how we should approach it at work.
Introduction
We all know that too much snacking is bad for our health. We enjoy a snack every now and then because it satisfies our cravings and gives us that instant gratification. We’re also aware that relying on snacks as our main source of food is unhealthy, as it lacks the nutrients and protein our bodies need.
Let’s apply the same idea to our work. Every now and then, we come across easy tasks that we can finish quickly to get that instant sense of accomplishment. However, doing only easy tasks is “unhealthy” for our careers, as it lacks the challenges and opportunities we need to improve our career posture.
At work, this can show up in statements like:
“This task will take only 30 minutes.”
“I’ll finish it in half a day at most.”
“This one is easy, it will only take me less than 2 hours.”
Most of us like to pick up easy tasks now and then because it helps us tolerate the harder ones in our day-to-day work. Work is already challenging, so why not reach for some low-hanging fruit every once in a while? However, we need to be mindful of the impact on our careers if we constantly choose easy tasks—just as we know that too much snacking can negatively affect our health. With moderation, you can have a healthy, growing career just as you can maintain a healthy body with occasional snacking.
So, how do we know if we’re “Snacking” at work? That’s where the impact/effort graph comes in!
Impact/Effort
In 2016, Hunter Walk, co-founder of Homebrew, had a conversation with Intercom’s Head of Growth where he drew the impact/effort graph which later became everyone’s favourite reference.
His graph divides work into four quadrants based on two factors: impact and effort. The top two quadrants represent high-impact work with varying levels of effort, while the bottom two quadrants represent low-impact work. The “perfect quadrant” is the top-left one, which showcases work that is both impactful and easy to complete (ah if only we had more of them!). However, the “perfect quadrant” is often rare in mature organisations, so high-impact work is typically accompanied by high effort (i.e., the top-right quadrant). This high-effort, high-impact work is where business strategies live. It’s where your team identifies key objectives and plans out how to achieve them.
Now, let’s turn to the two bottom quadrants. Most businesses are cautious and avoid the high-effort, low-impact work, and you should too. This type of work demands a lot of effort for relatively little value.
These could look like:
Spending days to weeks on documentation with no clear business objective.
Refactor an entire codebase for days with no strong reasons behind it.
Now let’s zoom in on the bottom-left quadrant — Snacking.
Snacking
Hunter Walk referred to doing work that is both low-effort and low-impact as Snacking. It’s the easy choice of doing work that requires less effort based on your skills, but also provides less value to your organisation or team.
When working in an organisation, you’ll eventually run out of “perfect” tasks that are both high-impact and low-effort, which forces you to choose between:
High-impact, high-effort (top-right quad), or
Low-impact, low-effort (bottom-left quad)
Which decision should you make?
The low-impact, low-effort option is often easier to justify. After all, it “only takes a little time,” whether it’s X minutes or Y hours. But continually choosing easy tasks is not a great long-term strategy. Eventually, it will reflect that you haven’t grown much in your role. Worse, a team that snacks too often becomes a low-impact team.
The default position for an engineer or team without a clear plan is to snack.
If you’re always working on high-impact, high-effort tasks, occasional snacking can help keep you motivated between projects. But you have to be intentional (and honest) about how much time you spend on high-impact versus low-impact work.
In other words, snacking is okay because it’s psychologically rewarding, but don’t expect to learn much from it.
💡 Tip: Sometimes, your “snacks” can serve as a great development opportunity for others. If you delegate these tasks, it becomes a high-impact opportunity for team empowerment.
Signs of Snacking
Examples of low-impact work vary depending on the organisation and your role. A senior engineer’s snacks are different from a junior engineer’s. As a general rule, snacks are often represented as tasks that are relatively easy to complete but are not highly valued by the organisation.
Here are a few examples:
Also, here are some general examples (but do take them with a pinch of salt):
Organising files and folders in a large codebase.
Your team might appreciate this, but if they are low on development velocity and there's a tight deadline approaching, it might not be the right time to snack.
Writing extra documentation
This might be essential in some cases (e.g., if the team is onboarding a new member), but if it’s not contributing directly to the outlined goals, it’s worth asking if we should put this on hold.
Updating versions of dependencies
This sounds like a useful task, but is it a critical one? If this can be handled later, maybe we can put that as a future snack?
Refactoring a codebase
Refactoring might feel like snacking, but if the existing code is creating technical debt and slowing the team down in future sprints, a strategic refactor could be necessary here.
Conclusion
In summary, while it’s tempting to snack on easy tasks, it’s important to be mindful of how often you choose them. Just as over-snacking can harm your health, too much snacking at work can hold back your career growth. By balancing high-impact, high-effort work with strategic snacking, you can stay motivated without losing sight of your long-term goals.
When thinking about low-impact / high-impact work, consider this guide for choosing between snacking or tackling high-effort, high-impact tasks:
Does this task align with my team’s priorities?
Does this task contribute to my development goals?
Will completing it now free up time for more impactful work later?
Do I have some free time to snack between projects?
And finally, if there’s one key takeaway I’d like you to have from this post, it’s this:
Don’t let all your work be sizzle with no steak.
I reserve the snacking for the end of the day, when I know I'm still online, but my brain is a bit more mushy. I do the real work with a higher impact early in the day when I am refreshed.