How a Post-It Gets People To Do Things

Do you ever have trouble getting people to do things for you? Well, turns out there may be an easy way to change that, but you’ll need one important tool – a post-it note. 

Yup, a new study out of Sam Houston University found that when asking someone to complete a task for you, you’ll have a better shot at getting them to do it if you make the request on a post-it.

The study sent surveys to three groups of 50 professors; one group’s request to complete the survey came with a handwritten post-it note, another had a handwritten message on the cover and a third had a cover letter with no handwritten message. What they found was that 76 percent of professors who got the post-it completed the survey, as compared to less than half of those who got the regular handwritten note and 36 percent of those who got just the cover letter.

While there’s no definitive answer as to why the post-it works, researchers suggest they make the request seem more like a favor than a demand, making people more willing to participate.

I wonder what these people think of the study?