Simplicity Rules

When I was young I had trouble deciding what gift to buy for a friend’s birthday. Truth is, I had trouble with a lot of decisions then. Though I’ve become better at it, I’d say it’s still a struggle. Perhaps the birthday conundrum stays with me because my mom had great advice that somehow simplified it for me.

Mom’s approach, as I stood indecisive in the toy aisle, was for me to choose the gift that I would like to receive. I could simply pretend to pick a gift for myself, then give it to my friend. This mental shift saved me from the paralysis of wondering what my friend might like. And since it wasn’t really for me, I didn’t have to worry about regretting my choice, either.

I can report this trick doesn’t work as well for gifts into adulthood. I could buy myself most any business book off the shelf, for example. That’s less likely to appeal to my wife. While we can’t use mom’s exact advice, a reverse approach can help anyone make decisions.

Give Advice to a Friend, Then Take the Advice Yourself

If you’re struggling with a choice, simply imagine the advice you’d give a friend in a similar situation. The book Decisive calls this “attaining distance.” You might not think you’re capable of tricking yourself this way, but many people do give others advice they wouldn’t give themselves. In one example from the book, people are given two choices:

1. An uncertain path with the possibility of long-term happiness
2. A safer choice of the status quo

When deciding between the two for themselves, 66% select that first path of potential happiness. When advising others, 83% of people suggest the first path.

There’s a famous story, also retold in Decisive, about how Intel switched its business to microprocessors (how they’re best known today). The change had an uncertain path, but included a possibility of long term happiness (i.e., success for the business). Their historical market was in memory and was a safer choice only because they were the leader.

Intel’s exec’s were having a hard time deciding between those paths when one asked the other: “if we were fired, what would the new team do?”

By pretending to advise someone else, it was clear the answer was to take the risk on microprocessors.

My Favorite Interview Question is About Weaknesses

The answer to the classic weakness question in job interviews is painfully predictable:

“I work too hard, I care too much, and sometimes I can intimidate my co-workers by being too good at my job.”

Asking someone their weaknesses requires them to not only be self-aware, but also honest. That’s a lot to ask in a scenario where everyone is trying to show their most positive attributes.

The book Who suggests a reframing of the question. While discussing a previous supervisor, you ask “if I talked to them, what would they say are your biggest strengths and areas for improvement?”

We used this question when I worked at Orchestrate and it was amazing how much better the answers you get with this change in perspective. Sometimes people were maybe even a little too honest. It’s much harder to give the weakness-that’s-a-strength reply when you’re answering on behalf of another person, especially someone who the interviewer might talk to if they check references.

Be Objective, Make Better Decisions

Whether you’re struggling with a personal choice or making a hire for your company, objectivity is your friend. It’s hard to be truly objective and even harder to force that on a candidate. You can frame questions–to yourself and others–in a way to nudge the answerer to flip their perspective. How would someone else answer this question? How would you answer this question for someone else?

Your favorite baseball team is down by three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning. This is rough anytime, but during the playoffs, this can be demoralizing.

What luck! The leadoff batter squeaks a hit through the infielders. The next guy singles into right field and there are runners on the corners. Your team is still down three runs, but any fan will tell you it’s different now.

Momentum has swung in the direction of your team. Now they aren’t working to avoid a loss, they’re constructing a victory.

You don’t have to be a baseball player, or even a baseball fan, to get this kind of momentum. You can create it.

Working out: Every Day or No Way

Two years ago I was having a hard time getting to my three hourly visits to the gym each week. I tried the usual trick of putting it on my calendar. But it required a 90 minute block, which often meant it got shoved aside due to urgent work. Mike Vardy at Productivityist recommended a 30 minute workout five days a week, but making time every day seemed even harder.

A year ago I finally took Mike’s advice and it’s made all the difference. I don’t need to think about whether it’s a workout day, because every workday is a workout day. And I can more easily fit a shorter workout into my day. It’s an hour round trip. And once I’ve gone a couple days in a row… I’d miss it if I didn’t go the next day.

via GIPHY

Among the things I do at the gym is this funny-looking exercise called a kettlebell swing. It’s a little awkward the first few times, but it’s all about momentum. You drive the kettlebell back between your legs. As the pendulum moves forward, you stand and drive your hips forward. When the kettlebell falls backward again, repeat.

Once you have it down, momentum carries you through. If I get stuck, I can start again. It requires a little extra effort, but I know from experience that the motion of the exercise will create the movement on its own.

Consistently starting allows me to see progress, whether it’s another set of kettlebell swings, a new week at the gym, or any project I want to see be successful.

Fundraising: Show the Movement

How many times have we seen a friend share their fundraiser, only to see nearly $0 raised? Be honest: how much does that make you want to donate?

Some people might want to provide that first donation to help, but the majority will not be motivated. This is something professional fundraisers know. They’ll quietly gather donations from insiders before publicly acknowledging progress.

There’s a good chance you’ve never seen an empty “fundraising thermometer” in official materials from a sophisticated non-profit. Wired Impact’s best practices for encouraging donations with social proof specifically makes this point:

It’s nice to create a sense of progress before you launch the fundraising thermometer. An empty fundraising thermometer can hurt you more than it helps you. When it comes to donations, people don’t want to think that they’re the first. They want to see that lots of other people have trusted your nonprofit with their hard-earned dollars.

People want to support forward progress. The same thing that works with someone else’s fundraiser can also help with your own projects.

Blogging: Plan What You Publish

Though my personal blogging has been spotty, I’ve been doing it professionally for more than 10 years now. Many times I’ve been the one who created a publication plan, laid out an editorial calendar, and worked with writers (including myself) to execute.

Every time there is effort needed to start, but consistency creates momentum. It doesn’t take more than two or three weeks of publishing for it to take on a life of its own. Ideas get easier to come up with, posts become easier to write. It’s like the baseball team that gets a couple hits and suddenly feels in the game again.

When I speak at conferences or do trainings on technical content strategy, I always recommend an editorial calendar, but stress that the tool you choose doesn’t matter. What you need is a way to plan your posts in advance, so everyone on the team knows what’s coming.

Importantly, your plan for upcoming content has to look like a real headline, not some placeholder gunk. I think one of the reasons this works so well is that it helps you start at the ending.

It marks out the future as if it’s already happened, which means you can already feel the momentum.

Overwhelm: Overcome it With Action

All of this sounds great to someone with the motivation to start. We all get overwhelmed, which makes it much harder to take advantage of the simple trick of momentum. Alex Theis has a short, impactful episode of his podcast for exactly this situation.

There’s not really a replacement for taking action, but Alex shares some ideas for getting unstuck. Things like making a list of everything you need to do, because knowing the full story is always better. Then choose the things that are most nagging you and do those. Again, you’ll feel the momentum.

Alex tells a story of how he turned overwhelm into one of his most productive days. You can do the same by using momentum positively. As you write the blog posts, go to the gym, or make your ninth inning comeback, look for the ways you can see the momentum.

If you spend as much time in email as I do, you’ve probably seen many email signatures. These bits of text (and sometimes images) are automatically added to the bottom of every email to identify the sender. Often, the signature is also used to promote the person’s company or latest projects.

For at least the last two years, my signature has looked like this:

Find me: adamd.org – @adamd – adam.coffee

Though instead of direct links, I used Bitly to track the clicks. That was because I wondered whether anyone actually read and followed the content in my signature.

Well, over the years I’ve learned that people definitely notice the signature. One element of it specifically has received attention in replies, as well as in person.

People Love adam.coffee

Though I try really hard not to buy domains I never use, I lined up on opening day of availability of the .coffee domain extension to grab adam.coffee. At around $30 a year, it felt like I should use the domain rather than just sit on it (sadly, over 60% of .coffee domains are parked, meaning they aren’t being used). I’m not enough of a coffee snob to review coffees or perform tastings. Without any more creative ideas, I simply hooked it up to my calendar and let people book time wth me on certain days.

Frequently, I’ll get replies like this to emails:

"I want to sign up for coffee with Adam! I just followed the adam.coffee link and that’s cool.”

"I’ll use your coffee link (which is brilliant btw 👌)”

And periodically, friends lament the robotic approach of spending time together:

“I assume I now have to navigate your adam.coffee link. 😛”

People Indeed Click the Links

Every three days or so, one of the links in my signature gets a click. The coffee site and my vanity website both get about the same interest. My Twitter page gets about half as many clicks. That could be because it has middle position, or because it’s the least interesting.

Of course, I don’t send the same amount of email every month. Looking back over the last two years, I counted the number of threads in my sent folder. This isn’t quite the same as messages sent, but it’ll do for spitballing. September, 2016, I sent to the most threads (182) and my signature received the most clicks that month (25). However, a few months later in February, 2017, when I sent to 158 threads, only eight links were clicked.

Curious, I plugged the numbers into the CORREL spreadsheet function, and mustered the remnants of my statistics knowledge. The resulting 0.33 p value is a pretty weak correlation.

How Do I Track My Signature?

Reading this, you may want to perform similar navel gazing. Perhaps you have a professional or business reason to care about the clicks. That’s even better.

Here’s what you need:

• At least one link to embed in your signature
• A free Bitly account
• Patience while you wait for results

While logged into Bitly, create a new Bitlink, which converts the link into a shortened (and trackable) Bitly version. Now you’ll have something like this: bit.ly/1mWVMEg

Now you can create a signature in your email program. The best option is if you can have a rich text signature, which can include the link embedded. Remember to use the Bitly link, not the original link!

One thing to try for easy formatting is to create your signature in a visual editor like Word or Google Docs. Then copy and paste it to your email program—in many cases, the formatting will come along for the ride.

Maybe it’s the programmer in me, but I always like to test things out. Go ahead and send yourself an email with the new signature enabled. No need to send it to a different email address. You can just send it to yourself. While you’re at it, give yourself a nice pep talk, the modern equivalent of a conversation in the mirror.

When you receive the email, click the link to make sure it shows up in the right spot. Then check your stats for the Bitlink in Bitly (it may not be immediate—remember patience is required here).

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Did you create trackable links in your email signature? I want to see it! Send me an email and I’ll be sure to click.

It was the last day of the year, and I intended to end it with an empty inbox. The only emails left were strangers reaching out for help with API comparisons. I enjoy these conversations, but I admit I saw them at that moment as a blocker between me and Inbox Zero. As I prepared a succinct-but-helpful reply, something wonderful happened.

I had quickly searched for some documentation to answer the query. I skimmed the content, copied the URL, tabbed over to my email window… then tabbed back to the documentation, because my brain had noticed something familiar. On this same page was the answer to another question I’d been noodling on for a few weeks. A completely disconnected search led me to a solution.

Wouldn’t it be great if that kind of unrelated epiphany could be controlled?

Maybe it can be. You’ve probably experienced the benefits of going on a walk when you’re looking for a breakthrough. I often return to my desk with a new perspective. A 2014 Stanford study explained why, finding that walking increases creativity:

The overwhelming majority of the participants in these three experiments were more creative while walking than sitting, the study found. In one of those experiments, participants were tested indoors – first while sitting, then while walking on a treadmill. The creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when the person was walking, according to the study.

Walking must be like a reboot for your brain, clearing out the cobwebs. Maybe I got a similar jolt of mental energy from answering those last emails. I already enjoy helping people, but now I have another reason to assist. These often one-off basic inquiries are like taking a walk–they help my brain reboot and, maybe, find an unrelated epiphany.

It’s the most famous portrait of the first president of the United States. You’d have never seen it if the artist waited for it to be finished.

Gilbert Stuart’s 1796 painting of George Washington went on to be used for the $1 bill. So, if you’ve ever held a buck, you’ve seen his work.

Stuart also painted portraits for five other presidents, two first ladies, a chief justice of the Supreme Court, and Napolean’s brother. Yet, this George Washington portrait is his most famous work. But we rarely see the full canvas.

That’s because Gilbert Stuart decided it was “good enough” as-is. Good enough for him to copy more than 100 times on other canvases. Good enough, eventually, to be on multiple postage stamps. Good enough for US currency!

Even though this was 221 years ago, Gilbert Stuart was doing what The Paradox of Choice calls satisficing. Once the portrait met Stuart’s criteria, he was done. In this case, it had to be good enough to use as a template for other paintings.

The key there is determining the criteria and being willing to settle for far less than perfection. The original iPhone wasn’t that great, but they released it anyway. They had a chance to make incremental–and over time, major–improvements.

You can do the same with whatever you’re working on. Whether it’s a side project (remember the side project lifecycle), an initiative at work, or you’re cleaning the house.

Be willing to keep some canvas empty. It doesn’t have to be permanent.