Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that specific numbers and in particular specific times
Speaker 1: can be more memorable and seem more legitimate than round ones.
Speaker 1: If you know that, you can use it to your advantage.
Speaker 1: So whenever I see a round number for something, I
Speaker 1: get a little suspicious. Lately it was a slew of
Speaker 1: CEOs declaring that AI was doing twenty percent or thirty
Speaker 1: percent of the work in their companies. Really, do we
Speaker 1: have a good way of measuring everyone's exact output? And
Speaker 1: how fascinating that the number was round as it is.
Speaker 1: I suspect these are just guesses, just as if someone
Speaker 1: claims an eighty hour workweek, it's probably not exactly right.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. If someone told me that time
Speaker 1: to product delivery had dropped twenty seven percent in one
Speaker 1: unit because of AI, that would seem plausible. Specific numbers
Speaker 1: feel like they must be based on something, so they
Speaker 1: seem more believable. They are also more memorable. What does
Speaker 1: this have to do with time? Well, when I wrote
Speaker 1: about the problem with round numbers on Vanderhak's My Substack, newsletter,
Speaker 1: a reader mentioned that she would often tell her family
Speaker 1: they needed to leave at a very specific time, like
Speaker 1: one twenty three, not one fifteen, not one thirty, no
Speaker 1: one twenty three. I love this, and I think it
Speaker 1: is a great tip. A round number like one fifteen
Speaker 1: or one thirty is thought to be round, as in
Speaker 1: it's not exact, and so people get it ready around
Speaker 1: that time. Those who are generally ready early will be
Speaker 1: ready early. People who are always late will be late.
Speaker 1: But when you tell people one twenty three, first they
Speaker 1: will remember it, and second they will assume that there
Speaker 1: is an actual reason for that time, and so they
Speaker 1: might not aim for around one point fifteen. They will
Speaker 1: know people are aiming for exactly one twenty three. It
Speaker 1: just might make everyone more punctual. I think the same
Speaker 1: thing could work with a meeting agenda. It is so
Speaker 1: odd that almost every meeting is either thirty or sixty minutes.
Speaker 1: Isn't it strange that every manner of business decision can
Speaker 1: be reached in exactly thirty or sixty minutes. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's not actually true. It's just that those are convenience
Speaker 1: scheduling blocks. But if you send people an agenda with
Speaker 1: exactly forty seven minutes accounted for. We are dealing with
Speaker 1: something entirely different. People are going to assume this is
Speaker 1: really well thought through. They're going to know that you
Speaker 1: truly are aiming for forty seven minutes and you are
Speaker 1: not planning on wasting their time, which is a good thing.
Speaker 1: So if you can come up with a specific number,
Speaker 1: do it. You might have people treating their minutes with
Speaker 1: a little more care. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
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Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.