A Brain So Smart It’s Stupid

You’re a small business owner. Every day you have to make decisions. Sometimes those decisions need to be data or fact driven.

But what if you can’t remember the data point needed for making a decision?

Because you’re busy, you’ll probably do one of two things. Either you’ll delay making the decision because you don’t have time to research it right now, or you’ll wing it. Either option has pitfalls.

Being able to remember key details would be nice.

However, if you’re like me, you live in a mental cross section where overzealous signal suppression and perfectionism meet. I’ll explain.

The brain only processes and saves information that will be useful at a later date. And it allows the rest to pass by unnoticed. How?

As of 2019, MIT neuroscientists identified the brain circuit that helps us do that. The prefrontal cortex controls this circuit. It filters out unwanted background noise and distracting stimuli.

This is the signal suppression. Every healthy brain does this. It’s part of what makes our brains so smart. Until they’re not.

My brain seems to have an over eager efficiency. A panache for disposing of useful information. Then, and this is where perfectionism comes in, when I need it, I can’t remember the info in its exact correctness. And that bothers me. Because the details matter.

I’ll give you an example.

Here’s some specific, useful information if you’re analyzing your e-commerce conversions:

The average landing page converts at around 2.35%.
The sites in the top 25% convert at 5.31% and above.
And landing pages in the top 10% convert at 11.45% and up.

That’s some very helpful, highly specific, information.

Now, let a couple of months pass.

Then, in the moment that info would be useful, it’ll be on the tip of my tongue. (quite frustrating) Just vague enough to stop me from utilizing it.

What can you do? Is there a brain hack for this?

I’ve come up with my own 2 step system for dealing with this. It’s not perfect, it requires a compromise, but it does work.

Step 1: Generalize the info.

This hurts in the perfectionism department and is the compromise. You’re giving up some accuracy in exchange for being rememberable.

When it comes to figures, round to the closest memorable number.

Step 2: Tie the generalized info to a binary action.

What does binary action mean? You’re either going to do something or not. It’s yes or no. On or off. One or zero.

These steps are best demonstrated with an example. Let’s use the landing page conversion statistics from earlier.

We’ll apply step 1 to these statistics and generalize.

Let’s say I’m using these numbers to analyze some e-commerce conversion rates. First, I’m going to simplify it to only the top two numbers and forget about the “average” statistic. (Because, after all, if you’re only pulling average then something needs improved.)

Landing pages in the top 25% convert at 5.31% and above.
Landing pages in the top 10% convert at 11.45% and above.

Now, I’m going to round to the closest memorable number. Which means 5.31% becomes 5%, and 11.45% becomes 10%.

All I have to remember is 5% and 10%.

But what do those numbers mean?

I don’t know, or won’t be able to remember, until I do step 2. Tie the generalized info to a binary action. A trigger.

Let’s work from the top down with a focus on growth.

If the landing page is converting at 10% or better, stop optimizing. It’s only going to improve marginally and my time is probably best spent elsewhere.
Conversion between 5%-10% is good. Optimize until it’s over 10%.
Conversion of 5% or less, get help. There’s large room for improvement, so either study up or bring in an expert.

There, that’s a lot easier to remember. Plus, it’s got an actionable element.

Is it a perfect system? Not at all. It definitely has some inherent flaws. But in exchange for those flaws, I get two things.

It helps me remember things in a usable format.
It helps me move quickly through decision making.

This brain “hack” won’t work for everyone. And some people are already comfortable rolling forward with generalized information and don’t need this tip.

But if you’re like me and like to be accurate in a world where we already have so much to remember, this approach might be your ticket.

And if those landing page statistics stirred your curiosity and you’re wondering what might be the best way to optimize your conversion rates, then reach out. I’m always happy to help.