Case Study
As a restaurant owner, Tom is *on it* when it comes to customer orders. He remembers details and makes it perfect just the way the customer wants it.
But everything else? He misreads constantly.

His manager sends a message about a staffing issue. Tom responds only to get a text back, "That answer doesn't make sense for the question."

His supplier sends specifications about a new product line they're considering. Tom reads through it, thinks he understands. Later realizes he missed half the details because he filled in what he expected instead of what was actually written.

His wife asks him to handle something specific with the house. He does something similar, but not what she asked.
It's weird because with customers, he's locked in. But the second, it's not about taking an order; his brain does this thing where it reads what it expects instead of what's actually there.

It's a Thinking Skill
Tom's pattern of misreading was his brain trying to work efficiently - filling in gaps, expecting patterns, and making assumptions.
But that “efficiency” is really… inefficient.

Many of us tend to do this in some way or another.
You see, with 28 thinking skills needed to do any task, naturally, you’re gonna have some thinking skills that are stronger and some that are weaker.

Your brain is gonna overcompensate for your weakening thinking skills so that you can do what you want to do. But it makes it hard and tiring to do the task.
Often, there is procrastination or a lot of mistakes.
Good thing it doesn’t have to stay this way, as soon as you improve the weaker thinking skill, the brain has an easier time doing the tasks.

In Tom’s case, he had a weak thinking skill in gathering precise data

Gathering Precise Data 
Gathering precise data means making sure you have all the precise information needed to do the task.
This could be making sure you have the exact phone number, email, or credit card number.
It could be having all your documents to file taxes.
Or it could be making sure you have all the details of what you need from the grocery store (and not being unsure if you need more baking soda or which brand of chocolate chips to buy)

Gathering precise data is relatively simple, yet if you *think* you know, you don’t really pay attention.

Like when Tom’s manager sends a message about a staffing problem. His brain goes: "Oh, she's probably asking about the schedule again, like last time." So he half-reads the message, not really understanding what she's asking.

Gathering precise data can feel slow in the moment as you have to take the extra moment to double-check, yet it saves SO MUCH headache and problems in the future.

Here are three ways we helped Tom improve gathering precise data:

1: Motivation

When your brain is motivated to do something, you’re WAY more likely to be precise in it. I actually never found someone who isn’t precise in something in their life.

In Tom’s case, he was super precise in customers' orders because he understood everyone likes their food slightly differently, and he wanted everyone to enjoy the food.

What we need to do is find that motivation for other areas of life where we don’t care as much. For example, Tom wasn’t precise in reading text messages, as he was like, “they’ll be able to figure it out.”

By bringing in the motivation of giving your team a more enjoyable work experience, Tom found it a bit easier to be more precise. He loved his team, and he wanted them to love the work.

2. Read it twice before you respond.

Tom's brain would read a message once, fill in what it expected, and respond to that instead of what was actually written.
So we build in a simple practice: before you respond to anything - a text, an email, a question someone asks out loud - read or listen to it twice.
In the beginning, this feels slow, but do it enough and pretty soon it feels like second nature.

3: Be precise in ONE area

Precision comes up all day in almost every activity, and that very quickly makes you go from “Okay, I’ll practice precision” to less than 24 hours later, completely forgetting about it.

So I had Tom pick ONE area of life in which he’s going to practice being more precise.
Tom chose communication with his team.

You pick what makes sense for you.
Maybe it’s in your LinkedIn posts or in writing your shopping lists for your husband. Doesn’t make a difference.

Once you find yourself being really precise in that area, you can put your attention on another area.

Your brain is already using precision somewhere. The question is whether you've trained it to use precision everywhere that matters.

Cheers to Peak Brain Performance!