The Rule of Threes

“aerial view of bridge with cars crossing” by Fahrul Azmi on Unsplash

I love generalities because it makes it easier for the simple human mind to focus and work on items when they are categorized in nice boxes. Make the math easier. Makes it easier to eat elephants. Recognize that now you are reading through this, your filter is going to show the rule of threes to you everywhere. You will also find that these “rules” will make things easier, flow better, and even provide results sooner.

The Rule of Threes happens to be my favorite guideline for all things, for all time. The Rule of Threes shows up everywhere — in work and life. Most certainly because my mental filter is set to find those patterns, yet nevertheless, it works and makes better sense of the world. The Rule of Threes makes it easier to get stuff accomplished by helping understand the ratios of requirements for different subjects or how to approach work. You can use it for estimations, allocations, resource management, profit margins, and slicing pizza. Threes are everywhere, you just need to recognize them and apply them to your actions. It is similar to (a generous interpretation of) the Pareto Principle, yet has more flexibility. Yet, I often use both of them depending on what topics I’m working on or what story I want to tell.

The Rule of Threes is simply breaking items down into one third — one third — one third. Depending upon the topic, a mix would be the simple math of 2/3 and ⅓ but the “3” remains in the denominator. Simple math. For instance, a quick and dirty estimate of business profit can fall under the 1/3 rule. One-third of your revenues should be profitable. One-third of the work you need to complete will probably require one-third tools or one-third materials and one-third labor. Success in sales calls conversation rates easily falls into the one-third rule. Human behavior even falls under the one-third rule.

Probably the most important application or attribution of the Rule of Threes is with humans*. More than ⅔ of our interactions daily is with humans. We need to work on those relationships to be successful. The rule of threes as it applies to human behavior — Grouping humans into three buckets, carts, camps — whatever your population may be. The three groups are:

1. The ones that will — meaning this group of people will always be on board, no matter what. They will always be involved, engaged, ready to buy, etc. These people will always be on your side, no matter how poorly you treat them, how much you charge them, how much you ignore them. They will always be there.
2. The ones that are on the fence — this group of people is your “profit” margin. The group of people you are really trying to convince to switch to your product, your argument, your team
3. The ones that won’t — these are the sticks in the mud, the pain in your neck. The ones that will not change for anything. The ones that will fight with more energy to prove you wrong, than it would be to just accept the change or the new thing and move on. No matter how good it is, no matter how nice you treat them, what incentives you give them, what threats you make. They will never switch sides.

The Rule of Threes as it applies to project management is WHO does WHAT by WHEN. The three things needed for successful project management. It can also be applied to speed, quality and cost.

Manager-tools.com breaks down project management planning with the Rules of Threes by their One-Third Planning Rule — segregating time into one-thirds depending on who needs to do what for “simple” management planning of projects and tasks.

The Rule of Threes as it applies to prioritization. Pick NINE items and break them down into three groups. Then the first three items are the most important items on the list. Ranking them at that level of prioritization helps set your workloads and lets you remain focused.

You should be sleeping 8-hours a day (⅓ of your allotted 24 hours)

Big business uses it for sustainability targets.

Artists and photographers have been using the rule of thirds for ages to help draw the eye and set the composition to provide the most pleasing aspects of the images it captures.

Have you heard of a trimester?

On the middle-third rule in engineering?

Understand how the Rule of Threes applies to the world around you. Learn how to use the Rule of Threes in everything you do. Apply it for a successful life in everything you touch.

Go forth and be brilliant.

*ask three people and you will probably get three different answers