Directives: create clarity on what you should do

A few years back I read about an idea from Derek Sivers called directives.

Compressing wisdom into directives — (“Do this.”) — is so valuable, but so rarely done.

A directive is taking ideas, thoughts, and recommendations and compressing it into an action-oriented command. Instead of having to remember paragraphs of advice, you only have to remember one command.

For example instead of having to remember all of the details and math behind order sizes, customer retention, profit, etc, you can just remember: "increase order sizes by giving customers a reason to buy more".

I have thousands of directives I've created since I started. Every few weeks I read through them and still learn new things.

Directives are written in a direct way that might feel pushy or bossy but I've found that's actually a feature. Their directness cuts through mediocre and wishy-washy advice.

They aren't absolute truths though. You can and should ignore them when they don't apply. It's also perfectly fine to have contrasting directives too. The context of the advice matters (much more than people give credit to).

With how much I use directives on my own, I've decided to start adding them to my articles. Hopefully every article will get one to summarize the action points (along with a story to help you remember) but realistically some won't have a clear directive.

Directive: Summarize what you learn so future-you can have an easier time remembering it.

Eric Davis