The Smartest Decision-Making Tool Ever

It’s called the 10-10-10 rule, and it’s the brainchild of best-selling author and business mastermind Suzy Welch. In the April issue of Glamour, Welch explains that she developed the strategy about 10 years ago when she felt her life was living her, not the other way around. “My make-everyone-happy gig came to a head when I had the brilliant idea to take my kids along on a business trip to Hawaii. I thought, ‘I’ve cracked the work-life balance code!’” she said in the magazine. Unfortunately for Welch, everything that could go wrong did. Her daughter got sick, her son got heatstroke, and both kids barged into the middle of her client presentation. (Gulp!) That’s when she developed the 10-10-10 decision-making tool. It works like this: You measure every complicated or important decision by the impact it will have on your life in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years. For example, if you decide to leave your kids at home instead of taking them along to a conference at Disney World, they might pout for 10 minutes. But in 10 months you’ll be able to take them on a planned family vacation with the extra money you’ve made from giving 100 percent attention to the conference seminars. And, in 10 years, everyone will have forgotten that you were away for a few days because the trip would have been uneventful—much unlike Welch’s Hawaii experience. Welch says the confidence this tool has given her is so powerful that she applies it in all areas of life. So the next time you have to decide… Do you take on work from an “impossible” client because they are willing to pay you a premium?rnShould you spend $1,997 to attend a three-day motivational conference or buy a killer new fall wardrobe?rnWhich task items you should delegate and which you should do yourself?rnShould you splurge on tickets for what might be Bruce Springsteen’s last concert tour or invest the money in the stock market? …Consider applying Welch’s 10-10-10 rule. You can read more about it in her book, 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea. (And just for the record—as Toni will attest—the answer to the fourth question is to buy the tickets of course!!) So how do you make decisions? Do you have a creative approach that you’ve found successful? If so, we’d like to hear about it!