Specific times get remembered

Make people pay attention by using exact numbers

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that specific numbers and in particular specific times
can be more memorable and seem more legitimate than round ones.

(00:27):
If you know that, you can use it to your advantage.
So whenever I see a round number for something, I
get a little suspicious. Lately it was a slew of
CEOs declaring that AI was doing twenty percent or thirty
percent of the work in their companies. Really, do we

(00:47):
have a good way of measuring everyone's exact output? And
how fascinating that the number was round as it is.
I suspect these are just guesses, just as if someone
claims an eighty hour workweek, it's probably not exactly right.
But here's the thing. If someone told me that time

(01:08):
to product delivery had dropped twenty seven percent in one
unit because of AI, that would seem plausible. Specific numbers
feel like they must be based on something, so they
seem more believable. They are also more memorable. What does
this have to do with time? Well, when I wrote

(01:29):
about the problem with round numbers on Vanderhak's My Substack, newsletter,
a reader mentioned that she would often tell her family
they needed to leave at a very specific time, like
one twenty three, not one fifteen, not one thirty, no
one twenty three. I love this, and I think it

(01:50):
is a great tip. A round number like one fifteen
or one thirty is thought to be round, as in
it's not exact, and so people get it ready around
that time. Those who are generally ready early will be
ready early. People who are always late will be late.
But when you tell people one twenty three, first they

(02:12):
will remember it, and second they will assume that there
is an actual reason for that time, and so they
might not aim for around one point fifteen. They will
know people are aiming for exactly one twenty three. It
just might make everyone more punctual. I think the same
thing could work with a meeting agenda. It is so

(02:33):
odd that almost every meeting is either thirty or sixty minutes.
Isn't it strange that every manner of business decision can
be reached in exactly thirty or sixty minutes. Of course,
that's not actually true. It's just that those are convenience
scheduling blocks. But if you send people an agenda with
exactly forty seven minutes accounted for. We are dealing with

(02:57):
something entirely different. People are going to assume this is
really well thought through. They're going to know that you
truly are aiming for forty seven minutes and you are
not planning on wasting their time, which is a good thing.
So if you can come up with a specific number,

(03:18):
do it. You might have people treating their minutes with
a little more care. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've

(03:41):
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
the iHeart Udio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

(04:03):
to your favorite shows.