The Power of Three

I have thought for a long time that the number three has a real magic for me. I won’t go into all the ideas about the Trinity and get all quasi-religious in this short piece, but three does seem to be a key number for the conscious mind. We are able to hold three things in our head without too much difficulty. I know for example that if I am going to the supermarket to get things, unless I use a written list or memory aid, I will almost certainly forget things if I have more than three things to remember. Ask me to list three work areas that I am focused on and it’s not a problem at all – ask me to list four or five and I will inevitably forget the last one by the time I get to it.

There is a lot to be found on the internet about the power of three as it manifests in marketing. In this post I want to focus on a couple of other applications which I use regularly.

Three things at the end of each day

I often suggest this technique to coaching clients. They may be struggling to see what they are achieving over a period of time, say the last 6 months. And they may also be feeling that they are stuck with tasks that are uninspiring and wondering how anything that they are doing is making a difference. I suggest a technique which I like to see as a form of Appreciative Inquiry. At the end of each day look back and identify three things that have made a difference. Write them down. Do this each day. It gets easier because the process itself means that the next day you will tend to select things to do that will make a difference as you look for your target of three things. It also acts as a prompt so that things that might not feel that significant can be seen in a new way; one is able to see the positives where they might not have been apparent before.

Try it for a couple of weeks and see if it turns things round. It can lift one’s whole perspective so that we are looking for positive things rather than dwelling in the negative.

And whilst we are playing with numbers, if we can find three things we do that make a difference each day that will be over 90 things each month, nearly a thousand things in a year. Just imagine what impact we will be having with a thousand small things that make a real impact.

Three key messages in a presentation / email / letter

Another use of the power of three is to ensure that presentations or important emails that are sent to people always have three key messages in them. This ensures that the message can be easily captured by the recipient and replayed at a later point. Complicated emails tend to be pushed to the bottom of the in-tray and never get attention anyway. By restricting the message to just three things we ensure that the message being conveyed can be held in the recipient’s conscious mind. It’s also then easy to give a verbal reminder of the three key issues raised the next time you meet that person.

Try these techniques and see what impact they have. Feel free to drop me a note and let me know if they are useful.