My job is getting people to do things. The way I want it to work is that I tell people one time what needs to get done, emphasize its importance, and then it gets done. That’d be nice, right?

As far as I can tell, if you tell people something once, it’s as though you never said it. It doesn’t matter how loudly you say it or how important you say it. Saying it once doesn’t stick.

What does work? Saying it over and over again. Not even loudly. Quietly works too.

This is pretty rational. We all have moods and reactions to things. When I tell someone something once, who’s to say I’m not just in an unusual mood? Who’s to say the thing that I think is so important right now is going to be important to me in a week or a month? There’s a good chance it won’t be. But if I say calmly that something is important today, tomorrow, next week, the week after, the month after… You know I mean it. You know I’m serious, and you’ll be serious too.