The 8-minute trick that skyrocketed students' grades (and can help you too)

Photo by saeed karimi on Unsplash

When my book Time Wise was published in 2022, I was constantly being asked to give advice on topics like procrastination, prioritising deep and focused work over checking your social media feed or email, and how to have more effective and efficient meetings.

Multiple times a day, in meetings with clients, interviews with journalists, and in conversations with friends, I would be asked to solve these problems.

At the same time, I became aware of a strong need to take my own advice. For the most part, I did. But I also had days when I found myself tumbling down the rabbit hole of social media, feeling like Alice in Procrastination Wonderland. Thankfully, fear of being a fraud motivated me to get back on track with how I was using my time.

Receiving advice can be a gift. I know I’ve received a lot of great advice from mentors, friends, my family and from guests on the How I Work podcast. But perhaps counterintuitively, giving advice can be just as powerful as a tool for change.

In a large-scale field experiment, Professor Angela Duckworth and her colleagues from Wharton looked at the impact of putting someone in the advice-giver role. A group of students involved in the study were asked to take part in an advice-giving activity.

For around 8 minutes, the students answered question prompts such as ‘How would you avoid procrastinating?’ and ‘Can you write a note to another student who’s struggling to do better in school?’

They were then asked to write a motivational letter to a younger student who wanted to improve their grades.

Compared to a control group, this simple activity led to the advice-givers achieving higher marks in maths and in a self-selected class where they were hoping to improve their performance over the course of an entire academic quarter. All this from just 8 minutes of advice giving – a big reward from a little amount of effort.

The research highlighted that when someone wants to change, it’s not for lack of insights. Rather, it’s often due to a lack of self-confidence. And a simple confidence-boosting trick is to transform yourself from advice-seeker to advice-giver. Channel your inner Yoda and embrace the role of the wise mentor, and suddenly, confidence becomes your middle (albeit slightly unusual) name.

So the next time you learn something (like you have by reading this post!), teach that thing to a friend or family member or someone else in your life who might benefit. You’ll potentially reap more of reward than had you never spoken to anyone about what you learnt. You’ll start to feel more certain in your knowledge in the area you are sharing advice in, which will make you more likely to apply the advice and create change in your own life.

In addition, you’ll probably feel a greater sense of obligation to take the advice you give. For example, you don’t want to suggest to a friend that they go to bed and wake up at the same time every night to improve their sleep (a very effective sleep strategy I wrote about in The Health Habit), while you’re binge-watching the latest TV drama until 3 am. This hypocrite avoidance motivation (as I like to call it) is a form of accountability. When the person you gave advice to asks how your sleep is going, it feels pretty awkward to admit you’ve been channelling your inner couch potato.

Put it into action

1. Think about the behaviour you plan to change and who in your social circles could also benefit from it.

2. Remember: unsolicited advice is often received as warmly as a snowball to the face on a freezing winter’s day. So start by sharing with your friend that you learnt a really helpful strategy about Topic X. Ask if they would be interested in hearing the strategy. If they answer ‘no’, chastise them for their lack of curiosity and end the friendship immediately. Or a less extreme option (and all jokes aside, the best option): find someone else to bestow your advice upon.

3. Assuming your friend says ‘yes’, as most people probably would if the topic is of interest to them, share the piece of advice. Explain why it resonated with you.

4. It’s important to adopt the right tone. Changing our behaviour is hard work. So instead of adopting Teacher mode, adopt Caring Friend Who Knows Heaps of Useful Stuff mode. The chances of your message being well received will be infinitely greater.

5. Ask your friend if they have questions and have a chat about how they might be able to apply the change in their life.

6. After you have given the advice, check back in with your friend regularly. This will serve as a useful reminder to check in with yourself too, so you don’t become the plumber with a sewerage problem.

Today’s post is an edited extract from my book The Health Habit (out now!) Thank you to all the subscribers who have already purchased a copy - your support means the world to me.