Ever hear the old joke about three men who are playing golf and telling each other all the things they had to promise their wives in order to get there? The list of honey-do’s is long, until finally, one guy says, "I didn’t have to promise her a thing. I just set the alarm for 5 am, and when it went off, I rolled over and said, "Golf course or intercourse? and she said, “Wear your sweater.”

This week’s tip is about trade offs and it’s called the ‘100 Pennies Rule.’

It’s a super simple, often overlooked, methodology. You learned it when you were a kid. Remember when your Dad said, “okay, son, if you want that, you know you have 100 pennies in your piggy bank, is this what you really want? It will cost almost all of the pennies in your bank.”

Same concept. The 100 Pennies Rule is used to recognize that we often have to make choices in the moment, and we need some simple way to acknowledge the choice, the trade-off, in order to learn if we’re making the right one.

Here are some examples. Let’s start with business. In public speaking, there’ s a very common application of the 100 Pennies. It has to do with the amount of material you can IMPART, versus the amount of material your audience can ABSORB. Naturally, you, being an expert, will always have boatloads more information than the normal person could ever hear about in a one hour speech.

So, how to prioritize? 100 Pennies. Boil down your material to the three points that can get you heard and paid. If you know your killer teaching point is on page 5 of your speech, make sure page five gets the most air time.

Not in the public speaking arena? Let’s switch to relationships. Whenever two people come together, over a period of time, and I mean after the honeymoon phase, there will often be two ways of doing something, two ideas about how to spend the bonus, two approaches to educating the kids, two ‘ideal’ places to spend the winter months, etc. 100 Pennies can come in mighty handy, especially for the people pleasers out there.

Here’s why. I often get a complaint that goes like this: “Of course, I love him, and I want to make him happy, but sometimes, I really want to do something different. Usually I’m happy to go with the flow, but not always, and it seems like my needs get forgotten alot.”

Okay there’s a bunch going on here, but suffice to say, a handy tool like 100 Pennies, can rescue this situation from its inevitable blow up. Agreeing upfront that the two of you will pass back and forth 100 Pennies, the conversation now goes like this: “I know you want to go to Las Vegas, and I’ll go, but it’s burning like 80 pennies, because you know it’s not my favorite. Is it really worth that much to you?”

Here the 100 Pennies is a non-emotional way to let your partner know, “hey this is a big deal.” It actually gets fun. I’ve had couples say to each other in their session with me, “Am I burning any pennies on this one?”

Last scenario, use it for yourself. We hide from ourselves so much. It’s human nature to do it, but it can cause some serious consequences. Use the 100 Pennies in situations where what you want to do, and what you know you need to do are widely different. Like what? Right now, make a list of the top 5 chores you hate doing. Top 5 tasks at work you hate doing. Now make the “I love it” list for both work and home. Now place pennies next to the amount of time you spend doing each one of the 20 items. If more than 60% of your pennies goes to the “nope, not so much” list…time to make some changes. We all have stuff we’d rather not do, but if the majority of your time goes there, life’s just not a hoot anymore.

Bottom line, the 100 Pennies has lots of applications. Stick it in your tool kit, bring it out when those meetings at work drag on, when your daughter wants the new iPad, when you’re just not managing your time properly. This is a great and efficient way to make some trade-offs and keep th elines of communication open.