At Taurus we are examining the power of 3 to increase productivity. Spiritually speaking, three is the number of alignment.
Applying The Power of Three (sometimes referred to as the Rule of 3) to your daily life can be a life changer; a natural personal force multiplier, a great personal empowerer, a way to always be on top of what you need to do, a way to clarity, to see the woods from the trees, a great life simplifier and way to better cope with the bane of modern life; sensory and information overload.
Steve Jobs used this approach to describe the iPad 2 launch when he said it is faster, thinner, lighter. The media picked up these three powerful yet simple adjectives, and it was a big win for Apple because it communicated in the simplest terms why the iPad was different and better than the original iPad.
The Rule of 3 follows the brain’s mapping rules which makes things much easier to remember. Once a pattern is formed, the brain can easily digest the information and process it in memory. When marketers follow this way of constructing their promotions, they can make anything persuasive. In a world like ours today of short attention spans and countless competitions, the power is in 3.
The good news is it’s easy to use The Power of Three to stay on top of your day, week, month, and year:
- Every night before going to bed make a list of the three most important things you need to do the next day. You can have more than three items on your next day list as long as the most important items are the top three
- Every Sunday, make a list of the three most important things you wish to do in the coming week
- At the end of every month make a list of the three most important things you want to do by the end of the following month
- At the beginning of every year make a list of the three most important things you want to do in the coming year and set up a diary reminder to review your progress at the end of every three months
- We grew up being exposed to The Power of Three.
In the bedtime stories we listened to, Three Blind Mice, The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and later in life we discovered Three Wise Monkeys, The Three Stooges. The Three Amigos. Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God, Queen, and Country. Sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. Liberté, égalité, fraternité.
And all about us every day we come across the deliberate application of someone using the Power of Three to more effectively communicate and imbed messages in our usually inattentive brains – Start, Middle, End. Ready, Steady, Snap, Crackle, Pop. New, Improved, Free! Put Labor Last! Vote 1 Liberal. etc.
- Sets of three are easy to take in and recall.
The secret of effective communication is in applying The Power of Three. Why? Because we find three things easier to remember and a story or message easier to follow when we break it down to three key things. The reason? It comes down to the way we humans process information. The brain’s mapping rules make things much easier to remember if there is a simple pattern, and a pattern of three is the simplest of patterns the brain can easily digest and recall in its memory.
In today’s world of short attention spans and countless competitors clamoring for attention, the power is in 3. When we use the Power of Three to communicate, we Simplify the message in a logical way which makes it easier for our audience to be engaged and stay connected.
- Power of Three invites people to pay attention to your message.
As soon as you say, ‘The three most important things I would like you to know today are …‘, you grab and hold people’s attention because you have taken the trouble to organise and deliver your information to your audience in an easy to remember format. It’s surprisingly simple, but if you want more effective communication, then try using The Power of Three to simplify, clarify, and make your message stick.
Remember, the human brain likes simple patterns and the simplest pattern of all is a set of three. Use the magic of The Power of Three so your audience remembers your writing and your message.
“If you want something stuck in someone’s heads, put it in a sequence of three.” — Brian Clark, Founder of Copyblogger.
