Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
75 lines (47 loc) · 2.58 KB

simple_rules.md

File metadata and controls

75 lines (47 loc) · 2.58 KB

Simple Rules

By Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt, Simple Rules is a guide to create a simple framework to navigate the world.

Simple Rules are Easy and Not Too Restrictive

An example of good, simple rules are Michael Pollan's diet rules:

  1. Eat Food: eat real, natural food rather than processed foods
  2. Not Too Much
  3. Mostly Plants

Living with these rules will decrease your risk of heart attacks, diabetes, and obesity.

Since these rules are easy to follow, they're more likely to be followed.

Since these rules aren't too restrictive, they offer guidance without killing creativity.

Simple Rules Coordinate Collective Behavior

Simple rules can also guide collective behavior. Think about Zipcar, which could create complex rules to handle their car rentals. Instead they have 6 simple rules for their members:

  1. Report Damage
  2. Keep it Clean
  3. No Smoking
  4. Fill the Gas Tank
  5. Return on Time
  6. Put Pets in Carriers

When all members follow the simple rules, it creates a successful car sharing network.

How to Make Better Decisions

Create these three types of rules to make better decisions:

Boundary Rules help users answer yes or no. Eg for robbers, don't rob a house with a car parked in front.

Prioritizing Rules help users rank options. Eg invest your money in one third land, one third merchandise, one third in hand.

Stopping Rules help users know when to stop. Eg stop eating when you're starting to feel full.

How to Improve Performance

Create these three types of rules to improve performance:

How-To Rules advise users how to proceed without restricting them. Eg sports announcers will give scores regularly/succinctly followed by sharing interesting historical/personal facts.

Coordination Rules advise users how to respond to social cues. Eg improv actors will respond to everything with "Yes, and..." to continue the show.

Timing Rules advise users when to do things. Eg get up at 6AM every morning or always floss immediately after you step out of bed.

Create Your Own Simple Rules

A great way to create rules is by figuring out a critical action (what will help you achieve a goal) and then determining a bottleneck (what stands in your way).

For example, I want to lose weight:

  1. The critical action is to eat less
  2. The bottleneck is late night snacking

Know this, my rules would be:

  1. Eat snacks from a small bowl instead of a bag
  2. Don't stockpile snacks in the cupboard

Use your own experience to create simple rules. After establishing your rules, refine them over time based on further experience. Rules shouldn't last forever.