Attend to Numbers in Time Commitments

Devoting two hours per week isn’t the same as devoting 120 minutes per week for a client setting out to achieve an objective. People we persuade to take on the challenge will organize their efforts differently depending on how we specify the recommended time. The Erasmus University and University of Navarra researchers who identified this difference also found that the “minutes per week” formula results in people both getting to work and achieving the objective sooner.
     The explanation is in how people respond to larger compared to smaller numbers. The “120” feels much more abundant than the “2,” so the person is more likely to subdivide the overall project into steps. Those steps make the effort less daunting, so initiative and then momentum build.
     For this to work, however, we need to head off a danger presented by subgoals: The achiever might be so pleased at the benchmark completions along the way that self-congratulation sabotages subsequent efforts. For this reason, as we coach the consumer through the process, keep their attention on the overall objective.
     The focus of attention has a role from another angle, too: Yes, “120” is larger than “2,” but “hours” are larger than “minutes.” The effect depends on the person thinking more about the numeral than the unit. Past research has found that most people do this automatically and in a variety of contexts. The difference in warranty lengths between 72 months and 84 months is perceived as larger than between 6 years and 7 years although both differences are objectively identical.
     Dividing up the bothersome effort in order to achieve a desired outcome can be implemented in other ways. A University of Toronto study found that being told how long a bad experience will last makes it seem less tolerable. Then a companion study by the same researchers went on to suggest a way to ease the agony a bit: Encourage the person to unpack the time estimates, guessing on their own how long each step will take rather than accept a time for the total given by somebody else.
     This happens because we dislike spending time on unpleasant tasks, so we tend to predict we will get them done quickly. It works the other way around for a list of experiences a consumer finds pleasant. Here, when the time estimates are unpacked, the total predicted duration grows. We think it will take longer.

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Unpack Unpleasant Experience Time Estimates