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It’s been three times since Kardel asked me about the same issue at work. Every time he brings up the same problem, I ask if he tried the exact resolution, and he says he will implement it.
Kardel, a long-time friend working as a senior software engineer, is coming again to ask me for advice. It’s always the same problem, in the same state and with the same questions.
Does he believe my advice is wrong? He is saying it can actually work, and that is why he will do it.
Does he implement the suggestion, and the result is not ok? We are discussing the same state of things. No change appears each time.
Does he only want to vent? He explicitly said he needed solutions.
Does he hate me? He is constantly returning to talk to me.
This is how my brain reacts and how my thinking process goes.
Is it a problem with me? This is not the first person with whom I have these thoughts.
It took me a long time to realize that some people don’t take things seriously enough to make progress. They might want the solution to a problem, but they aren’t willing to put in the effort to make it a reality.
Do you ever find yourself ignoring all the good advice you come across? You’re not alone. As adults, we tend to save bookmarks, highlights, and to-read lists with the best intentions, only to let them collect digital dust. But what if I told you I’ve discovered a way to turn that advice into action? It’s true. I’ve developed a superpower and am excited to share it with you. In this post, I’ll explain how I did it and share some of the best advice I’ve ever received. I can, at least for me, guarantee that you can make tangible improvements with some effort.
Why we don't act on advice
Many people struggle with following life advice because they misunderstand what it is. We tend to treat life advice as a trivial fact, like someone’s name, which we briefly acknowledge and then forget. However, life advice is not just a single factoid; it is a set of instructions for behaving in different situations. Unlike the instructions we learn from textbooks in school, to truly implement life advice, we need to practice and drill them until they become second nature. The best way to remember and apply life advice is to contextualize it to a specific problem or situation we are currently facing.
The second reason for being lazy about taking advice is the inability to handle the overload of available advice. As a society, we tackle innumerable problems and create countless bits of advice to solve them. There are so many of them that it becomes overwhelming. Moreover, even if we consider our problems to be universal, each one of us faces different challenges. My way of dealing with this is to approach life advice as something I can remember only a few at a time and retain only what I can use frequently.
Here's an example of advice from Karen Lamb: "In a year from now, you will regret not starting today."
So why am I able to remember these and not other pieces? Both are actionable rules. I call this type of advice a Rule: a shortcode lodged in my brain for making decisions daily. We will explore what makes a Rule good later; stick with me till the end.
But we know that we need to prevent reason two from happening. So, let’s define a maximum number of Rules you stick to. Let this number be six. This aligns with Miller's Law: "The average person can only keep 7 (plus or minus 2) items in their working memory."
When you commit six Rules to memory, something critical happens: you remove the friction that makes advice unlikely to be acted on. You no longer have to look at your notes nor rely on motivation to do the right thing in the moment. By predetermining your actions in tight situations and deciding when you are clear of mind, you have made it easier for yourself to act upon your advice.
Another change happens with adopting the Rules. A more profound realization, however, is that adding a new Rule redefines your identity. These become your intuitions for what the right thing to do is. They influence how you treat others. What you work on. What you value.
Let's look at Rules you may want to add to your memorized list.
Principles and possible Rules, from others
- You can be twice as rich by deciding you need half as much. —Sahil Lavingia
- If you rethink this from scratch, what would this look like if it were easy? —Tim Ferriss
- In a year from now, you will regret not having started today. —Karen Lamb
- To suffer before it is necessary is to suffer more than is necessary. —Seneca
- Most hard work is a form of laziness. The real hard work is in finding a way to make it easy. —James Pierce
- Does the amount of attention I’m giving this match its importance? —James Clear
- Today instead of tomorrow. Moving fast compounds so much more than people realize. —Sam Altman
- There is no value in winning when the game doesn’t matter to you.
- We create stress due to our perception of what we must do.
- Compete with yourself—not with others. There will always be someone with more.
What makes a rule good?
How do you know when to swap a new rule for one of your six? When it meaningfully changes your behavior. The more a principle changes how you feel or behave (for the better), the more valuable it is. If it fails to do this, it was advice you were already following or irrelevant to your daily life. Don’t let it take one of your precious six slots.
For advice to truly change your behavior, I’ve found that it must resonate both emotionally and intellectually:
- Emotional alignment is when your experiences and beliefs align with a situation, making sense of your past. You can identify situations where it could have been applied differently.
- You can determine logical alignment through the first principles of reasoning. With enough time and logic, you can conclude it’s the right action.
Let’s follow the principle of “Honor your word. People remember.” This principle is logically valid, as you can easily explain why it’s essential to be reliable. You stand out when you consistently keep your promises because most people tend to break them. This principle is also emotionally true as you remember the times when you were reliable for your friends and how it strengthened your friendships.
Advice only becomes meaningful if it relates to your past experiences because you are less likely to want to repeat the same mistakes. Our past behaviors shape our learning and fortify our future principles. This gives us conviction and makes us more likely to act on our beliefs. As I mentioned a few paragraphs above, we are unique, so our past is also unique. So advice from others will be less likely to be implemented by us.
On the other hand, if we spend most of our time watching Netflix and not actively experiencing life, it becomes harder for principles to resonate with us emotionally. We become an empty shell and lack a foundation of experience. Maybe this is why children find it harder to follow advice, as they don't have as many life experiences to relate to. The advice they receive may only resonate logically and not emotionally, making it less likely to stick.
Rules suggest living a varied life with unique experiences to avoid a childlike relationship with advice.
What is the difference between a rule and a value? I consider values a rule that guides virtuous or emotionally fulfilling behavior. For example, “Always be good to your neighbor.” It's a strategically beneficial rule and "the right thing to do," so it's a value rule.
What to do now
There are many implications to Rules. These are my favorite two:
- Rules justify your actions and help you feel at peace with your choices. You know why you’re doing what you’re doing and are not simply a robot.
- Adding rules adds a game layer to content consumption. You must consume good content from YouTube, podcasts, and books to create good rules. A few digital cleanups per year do make a difference.
The Rules framework looks like this:
- Write your six Rules on a sticky note. Make a few copies, one on your desk, one in your wallet. Not sure what to have as your phone wallpaper or lock screen? Now you have a suggestion.
- Look at your six throughout the day when working on challenging problems. Let them guide you toward solutions. Keep doing this until they're memorized.
- Collect more advice and iterate on your six over time. Feel free to think of others or change the current ones. The more one changes your behavior, the more it belongs on your shortlist.
If all this is too much work, start with three Rules and add to them over time.
