The 0 to 10 rule is a rule that I borrowed from the world of psychology to the world of decision making. Originally, I learned this tool when I was a psychology major, and then masters, and then PhD. And we used it with people that are depressed to measure depression.
Because when someone’s depressed, everything is gloomy and black. But if you can tell me that yesterday was a 3 and today is a 4, that’s progress. Let’s see how we can get you to a 5. And maybe that’s as far as it gets, but that’s progress.
And so I said, what if I take this tool, and I borrow it, and I bring it to the world of decision making, and it’s going to help me? I was thinking about me. Figure out how to manage my time. I have a full-time job. I have three little kids. And I’m a full-time student. I don’t want to drop the ball.
And so the 0 to 10 rule says something very simple. In the span of your day, you only have 100,000 things to do. There’s too much to do. If you ask the 94 percenter, you’re gonna see that they’re busy, busy, busy, doing, doing, doing, but they’re doing a lot of the less important things, the twos and the threes. They don’t even get to the tens, the most important things that day.
The six percenters are incredible at prioritizing their time. They define to themselves what matters the most, and they’re gonna get it done no matter if the world turns upside down.
