Page 73 - Hard Goals

64 HARD Goals

Let me offer a graphic (pun intended) example of this.
Researchers at Michigan State’s medical school looked at 234
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emergency room patients suffering from lacerations. Following
treatment, but before discharge, all patients were given home-
care wound instructions. Half the patients were given text-only
instructions, while the other half were given the text plus pic-
tures (cartoons illustrating keys points from the text). Three
days later researchers phoned the patients and inquired about
the success of their care at home.
Here are the statistical highlights from those calls. First,
patients who received the cartoons had a lot better recall of
the information given in the instructions than the text-only
group did. When quizzed, 46 percent of the people who got the
picture-based instructions answered all four wound-care ques-
tions correctly, compared with only 6 percent of the people who
got the text-only instructions. Additionally, the patients who
got the pictures had 43 percent better actual adherence to those
wound-care instructions than the text-only crowd. And, no big
surprise here, 24 percent more of the picture crowd had actually
read the instructions in the fi rst place.
I know this is a book about goals, but pictures will truly help
you sear anything into your brain—even something as mundane
as remembering your computer passwords. A study conducted
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in California looked at computer password recall. Most people
pick really terrible passwords for their online accounts. In way
too many cases, if you know even a little bit about a person you
can guess his or her passwords. For instance, say you have a
friend, Bob, who really likes wine. It might only take you a few
tries to uncover his password, “merlot.” But how easily would
you arrive at “S@uvignon9823”?