Yesterday’s Instagram video blew up. It’s flooded with comments, all positive. But you are almost unable to shrug off that one comment, worded just sharply enough to sting. Your thumb is hovering, ready to reply. Every time it collects a like, your heart beats harder. So do you clap back? Or delete it and pretend you never saw it? Perhaps screenshot it and send it to a friend to hit back? Well, this is exactly where you may have to lean on the 10-10-10 decision-making rule.
What is the 10-10-10 decision-making rule?
Suzy Welch, a three-time New York Times bestselling author and NYU Stern professor, developed this framework, which some of the best minds in the world absolutely swear by. This is a strategy to prevent impulsive decisions. When life throws you impossible curveballs, you may want to hold on to this framework. So what exactly is the 10-10-10 rule? Before committing to a choice or making a decision, you ask what the consequences look like in 10 minutes, what they look like in 10 months, and what they look like in 10 years.Before making any decision, ask yourself: will this decision you make now matter in the next 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years? Each question pulls a different emotional register. If it only matters for the next ten minutes, this decision is about immediate relief or discomfort; the ten-month answer shows the likely consequences, and the ten-year answer will tell you whether the decision really matters in the long run.
You can apply this rule almost anywhere
According to Suzy Welch, who coined the framework, this formula applies to almost every field. You can perhaps apply it to almost every kind of decision you make, from career moves to relationships to everyday dilemmas. For instance, a founder can use it to weigh a product pivot. A parent can use it to decide whether to cave on screen time. Someone weighing a job offer with better pay but a worse commute can use the same three questions and arrive somewhere clearer than a pros-and-cons list would take them.Though it sounds simple, the 10-10-10 rule helps you weigh challenges and impact without getting confused by pressure. Most people do not lack good judgement. They lack the ten seconds it takes to reach it.But of course, this is not a universal fix. Some emergencies do not wait ten minutes, let alone ten years, so you may need to act quickly and make the right call. However, not every decision you make is time-bound. Some are mundane, and others are high-stakes dilemmas. Either way, instead of not taking a decision and letting the spiral eat up most of your time, maybe give this a try. The questions do not tell you what to choose. They simply give you a snapshot of what it means in the next few hours, months, or years.So, what conclusion did you arrive at? Are you responding to that one message that’s bothering you?
