{"id":4825,"date":"2026-03-04T08:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/?p=4825"},"modified":"2026-03-04T08:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:24:11","slug":"productivity-tip-rate-things-1-10-without-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/quick-tips\/productivity-tip-rate-things-1-10-without-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Productivity tip: rate things 1-10 without 7"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>TL;DR<\/h2>\n<p>I started using a simple rule: <strong>rate 1\u201310 without 7<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Because 7 (for me) usually means one of these:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>meh<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m being polite<\/li>\n<li>I don&#8217;t want to think too hard about it<\/li>\n<li>I don&#8217;t want to make a decision right now<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m thinking of staying home instead of seeing a doc. Will check in with myself tomorrow&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, now I force myself to choose:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>6 =&gt; not so great actually (wouldn&#8217;t recommend \/ wouldn&#8217;t go to the doc)<\/li>\n<li>8+ =&gt; I genuinely liked it (would recommend \/ would go see a doc today)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This actually helps me make a decision instead of shrugging it off with a 7 \ud83e\udd37\u200d\u2642\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>Anyone else using a rating\/feedback &quot;trick&quot; like this?<\/p>\n<h2>!TL;DR<\/h2>\n<p>If someone asks you to <strong>rate something on a scale from 1 to 10<\/strong>, you pretty much know right off the bat if it&#8217;s something like a 1 or a 2, and if it&#8217;s 9 or even a 10.<\/p>\n<p>But, what do you usually do when you&#8217;re like:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Well, not bad.<br \/>\nNot great.<br \/>\nNot sure.<br \/>\nNot ready to hurt their feelings&#8230;<br \/>\nLet&#8217;s just go with &#8230; <strong>7<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Newer generations might just say:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>you know, 67 \ud83e\udd37\u200d\u2642\ufe0f<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>But, I digress.<\/p>\n<p>The fact is, this shows up everywhere:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&quot;How was the restaurant?&quot; \u2014 <strong>7<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>&quot;How was the talk?&quot; \u2014 <strong>7<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>&quot;How&#8217;s the new feature?&quot; \u2014 <strong>7<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>&quot;How would you rate this candidate we just interviewed?&quot; &#8211; <strong>7<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>&quot;How do you feel about your own work this week?&quot; &#8230;also, <strong>7<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve ever answered with a 7, you&#8217;re not alone. Whenever I don&#8217;t want to make a decision, I&#8217;d say 7. But here&#8217;s the thing &#8211; most of the time, <strong>7 doesn&#8217;t mean &quot;good&quot;<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It means: <strong>&quot;I don&#8217;t want to think too hard about this right now.&quot;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So here&#8217;s a simple trick that makes your ratings way more useful: <strong>rate on a 1\u201310 scale\u2026 but pretend there&#8217;s no 7<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s it. Remove <strong>7<\/strong> as an option. Uninstall it from your OS (<em>I know, references are cringe<\/em> \ud83d\ude2c).<\/p>\n<p>Because <strong>7 is the default<\/strong>. It&#8217;s what we say when we&#8217;re uncertain, polite, rushed, or trying not to offend.<\/p>\n<p>If there&#8217;s <strong>no 7<\/strong>, you&#8217;re forced to choose:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>6<\/strong> \u2192 &quot;Not so great actually&quot;<\/li>\n<li><strong>8+<\/strong> \u2192 &quot;Oh yeah, I genuinely liked this&quot;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And that single &quot;restriction&quot; helps you in actually making a decision faster.<\/p>\n<h2>Why this works (and why 7 is sneaky)<\/h2>\n<p>A 1\u201310 scale looks precise, but we don&#8217;t treat it that way.<\/p>\n<p>In practice, most people use it like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1\u20134: bad<\/li>\n<li>5\u20136: meh<\/li>\n<li>7: <em>safe meh, but with a smile<\/em> \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<li>8\u201310: good \/ great<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So 7 becomes a <strong>dumping ground<\/strong> for anything we can&#8217;t be bothered to classify.<\/p>\n<p>Removing it forces you to answer one key question:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>Would I recommend this&#8230; or would I warn someone?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If you lean &quot;recommend&quot;, you&#8217;re probably at <strong>8+<\/strong>.<br \/>\nIf you hesitate, it&#8217;s probably a <strong>6<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion \/ Recap<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>7<\/strong> is usually a placeholder for uncertainty<\/li>\n<li>Pretend there&#8217;s <strong>no 7<\/strong> on a 1\u201310 scale\n<ul>\n<li>Choose <strong>6<\/strong> if it&#8217;s not actually great<\/li>\n<li>Choose <strong>8+<\/strong> if you truly liked it<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And voil\u00e0: your ratings stop being polite noise&#8230; and start being honest (and sometimes brutal) signal.<\/p>\n<p>Next time someone asks &quot;How was it?&quot; and your brain reaches for 7, just smile and say:<\/p>\n<p><strong>&quot;Well, from 1-10 and if 7 isn&#8217;t allowed, then&#8230;&quot;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hope this tip serves you well \u270c\ufe0f<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TL;DR I started using a simple rule: rate 1\u201310 without 7. Because 7 (for me) usually means one of these: meh I&#8217;m being polite I don&#8217;t want to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-quick-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}