D·06
Decisions & Judgment
10 / 10 / 10
How will I feel about this in ten minutes, in ten months, and in ten years?
- Evidence
- untested
- Topic
- Decisions
- Things to do
- 3
- Read
- 1 min
untestedHow strong is the evidence?
Not a tested claim. A way of thinking that is useful and widely used, but that nobody has actually put to the test — so it is not dressed up as evidence here.
- Suzy Welch, 10-10-10 (2009)
- grounded in temporal-distance research, Trope & Liberman, 2010
Check it yourself: find this on Google Scholar
A correction to this entry
A decision rule from Suzy Welch's book. The temporal-distance research it leans on is real, but the rule itself has not been tested, so it is no longer graded as evidence.
Why it works
Short-term emotion is loud and small. Putting the same decision at three distances separates what is urgent from what is important, in about a minute.
What to do about it
- Use it in the moment of flare — before the reply, before the resignation, before the purchase.
- Write the three answers down. In the head, ten years quietly collapses into ten minutes.
- If the ten-year answer is “I won't remember this”, act accordingly and stop spending on it.
Where people go wrong
Applying it only to big decisions. Its real value is on the twenty small ones a week.
Read next
- Whether-Or-Not Is Not a DecisionA choice framed as one option with a yes/no is the worst-performing shape a decision can take.solid
- Advise Yourself in the Third PersonPeople reason more wisely about other people's problems than their own — and the gap closes when you address yourself by name.solid
- Two-Way Doors Deserve Two MinutesSort decisions by reversibility, not by size, and spend your deliberation accordingly.untested
- Sleep Sets the Emotional BaselineOne night of deprivation raises amygdala reactivity to negative images by about 60% and weakens the prefrontal control over it.proven