The Rule of Three

The Rule of Three is a powerful technique that if used right, will significantly improve the effectiveness of your communications.

So What is the rule of three?

As the name suggests, it’s where you use repetition, specifically in the quantity of three to drive home your message.

Using the rule of three will make your messages more memorable.

Think about these advertising slogans; slip slop slap, work rest and play, snap crackle and pop. Without me telling you the brand, you probably remember what products these slogans are for. This is the power of the Rule of Three.

The reason why it works is because three is the smallest number of elements that produces a pattern. And this works because pattern recognition is important to humans.

By recognising patterns, it allows us to predict and expect what’s coming. This is deeply ingrained in the human survival instinct, where if we see patterns of things with a bad outcome, it allows us to avoid the danger when we see that pattern. Our brains are hard wired to look for patterns and are very receptive to them. The rule of three exploits this trait.

It also works because of the “working memory” capacity of the human brain. The average person can only remember 3-5 things that have been presented to them. Working memory is “processing related” as opposed to “storage specific”. In technical speak, think of this as the RAM vs ROM. We use it for processing mental tasks such as problem solving, planning and language comprehension.

So when you communicate, the working memory of people is most receptive to receiving information in threes.

The thirdly, it works because of repetition - where the same word or phrase or idea is repeated. That’s all I have to say about repetition today, as there’s going to be a dedicated Success Tip for repetition.

So how do you use the rule of three to your advantage?

1. Split your messaging into a grouping of three - a beginning, a middle and an end.
2. Group the content into sets of three
3. Use a core set of three key ideas.

Let’s see this in practice. I’m going to use the fairy tale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears to illustrate the Rule of Three.

There’s three bears:

1. Papa bear
2. Mama bear
3. Baby bear

A pattern emerges and it immediately grabs your attention.

There’s the grouping of three:

1. The beginning, where Goldilocks discovers the bears’ home
2. The middle where Goldilocks uses bears’ possession
3. The end: where bears come home and discovers Goldilocks

There’s three sets of the bear’s possessions that Goldilocks uses:

1. The porridge
2. The chairs
3. The beds

And with each set, there’s three key ideas,

1. The porridge is too hot, too cold and just right
2. The chairs are too hard, too soft and just right.
3. The beds are too hard, too soft and just right

It’s a simple story, but its effectiveness to remain in our memories is due to its adherence to The Rule of Three.

Use the rule of three to increase the effectiveness of your communications and make your messages more memorable.

Image Credit: From The New York Public Library

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/6bd99b61-c993-b463-e040-e00a18066d1e

Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication (“CCO 1.0 Dedication”)