EXPERT OPINION BY JEFF HADEN, Jul 1, 2025
Ask yourself three questions, each involving the number 10, and research shows you’ll nearly always make the right decision for you.
Decisions — especially complex decisions — are much easier to make when you apply a framework. Jeff Bezos? He uses the two-way-door rule to identify reversible decisions and embrace a bias toward action. Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher? He used the one-question rule to make decisions within seconds. Matthew McConaughey? He tries to be a quick “no” and a slow “yes.”
Me? While I don’t belong in their company (hence the new paragraph), I follow the two-week rule when I try something new.
Frameworks are great.
Until your willpower reserves run low, and your determination gives way.
When your emotions work against you, not for you, and you struggle to make a decision you normally would make, what happens?
Maybe you hear two of your best employees arguing at the end of a difficult day, and decide the problem might solve itself. Maybe you open a customer complaint at the end of a long day, and decide to respond tomorrow. Maybe your alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning, and you decide to hit the snooze button and give your morning routine a miss.
When you aren’t at your mental, physical, or emotional best, short-term decisions can fail to support long-term goals.
Unless you do this.
The 3-10s Rule
Here’s the framework. Before you make an impulsive or expedient decision, ask yourself three questions:
- How will I feel about this decision 10 minutes from now?
- How will I feel about this decision 10 months from now?
- How will I feel about this decision 10 years from now?
It’s easy to think you’ll feel reasonably good about a decision 10 minutes from now, especially when conflict avoidance or instant gratification is involved. (In the moment, I can rationalize a lot of things.)
Ten months from now, though? It’s harder to think you’ll feel good about the decision not to deal with a conflict between two great employees if one or both of them leaves. It’s harder to think you’ll feel good about the decision to not immediately deal with a long-term customer’s complaint if that customer took their business elsewhere.
Ten years from now? The leadership culture you create will be deeply embedded. The lack of customer focus you establish will be deeply embedded. The 3-10s rule brings your future self into play, re-establishing the link between who you are today and who you want to be 10 months and 10 years from now.
And that’s crucial, because research shows your future self makes much better decisions. A study published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes found that people with greater present-future continuity tend to behave more professionally and personally ethically. A study published in Judgment and Decision Making found that people with greater present-future continuity tend to be more financially prudent. A study published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied found that people with greater present-future continuity tend to exercise more.
Best of all, a study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that the degree of continuity you feel with your future self predicts your overall life satisfaction and well-being 10 years later. (Coincidental, but I’ll take it.)
As the researchers write:
When people are better connected to their future selves, they have an enhanced ability to recognize the consequences of their present-day decisions on their future selves.
And that’s going to help them put the brakes on these behaviors.
The more connected you feel to your future self, the more likely you are to consider emotions you will feel later, not just now. Like regret. Or guilt. Or disappointment, especially in yourself.
Take the interpersonal issue between two employees. Ten minutes from now, walking away will still feel OK. Ten months from now, when the conflict has escalated and spread to other people on your team, as it always does, you’ll wish you had dealt with the problem. Ten years from now, at least a few of your employees will still remember the example you didn’t set, and will follow that example.
Think about how that will feel, apply a little emotional intelligence, and you’ll be more likely to make a smarter decision in the moment.
And as a result, be more likely to become the future self you envision: because who you will be in 10 months, and in 10 years, is the result of the decisions and actions you make and take today.
Consistency, not intensity, produces long-term results. Every choice you make either works for or against your goals and dreams for future you. Every choice will someday affect how you feel about yourself.
If you want your future self to be kinder, or smarter, or more successful, or more generous, or fitter — whatever you hope your future self will be — apply the 3-10s Rule to the choices you make, especially when you’re physically or emotionally tired.
Because who you will be 10 months from now, and 10 years from now, starts with the decisions you make today.
And every day.
Story from INC.com
Jeff Haden
Jeff Haden is a keynote speaker, ghostwriter, LinkedIn Top Voice, contributing editor to Inc., and the author of The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win.
