Have you ever thought there might be something special or magical about the number 7?
Just think of the importance of the number in our society. We have seven:
- Wonders of the world
- Ages of man
- Deadly sins
- Days of the week
- Colors of the rainbow
… and many more.
If you ask someone to give you a number between 1 and 10, they will probably say seven and many people claim it as their lucky number.
One of the most important significances of the number seven was highlighted first by the 19th Century Scottish philosopher William Hamilton.
He wrote:
‘If you throw a handful of marbles on the floor, you will find it difficult to view at once more than six, or seven at most, without confusion.’
This may seem pretty obvious but he was drawing attention to a point that turns out to be quite important in understanding the human mind.
His observation was later confirmed by the English economist William Stanley Jevons.
When Jevons threw beans into a box and estimated how many there were, he found that he never made a mistake with three or four, was sometimes wrong when there were five, was right about half the time with ten beans, and was usually wrong with fifteen. So around seven was the point where things changed.
Magical Seven
This research was quoted in the famous paper “The Magical Number 7” published in the 1950s by American psychologist George Miller.
Miller observed that most people can consciously only deal with about 7 bits of information in their mind at one time.
Depending on the circumstances, they may be able to remember as few as 5 or as many as 9 so the range he gave was 7 + / – 2.
The exact meaning of a ‘bit’ varies depending on the circumstances but it could be something like numbers, colors or facts.
Not So Magical Seven
Clearly, it’s much easier to remember a six digit telephone number than it is to remember a ten digit one, for example.
Incidentally, Miller’s work is often misrepresented to ‘prove’ a range of points and his paper doesn’t suggest that there really is anything magical about the number 7.
He has, for example, commented that there is nothing in his work that made it necessary for Moses to drop any of the 10 commandments!
Nevertheless, it proves to be a relevant and valuable guideline in planning communication and marketing.
Improving Memorability
One of the theories of his work was that you could improve memorability by grouping different elements of information together and this led to the concept of ‘chunking’.
Chunking is about organizing information into a manageable number of bits.
You can use the concept of chunking in two ways. We can become:
- More specific and get more detail.
- More general and get a bigger picture.
Becoming More Specific With Chunking
If we are talking about cars, for example, we can become more specific by talking about makes of car such as Ford or BMW.
We can then become more specific still by going down to brands or models from each manufacturer.
You can continue this process to greater levels of detail.
The secret of making this work is asking the right questions. 
In the car situation, we might ask ‘what are some examples of this?’
If we are developing an action plan, we might ask ‘what specifically do I need to do?’
If you are writing or preparing a presentation, you can use this approach to highlight a point by asking yourself:
- What are some specific examples of this?
- How can I provide evidence of this?
- What is the significance of this to my audience?
Becoming More General with Chunking
Chunking in reverse is where you use this approach to link together a range of different ideas under a smaller number of topics.
In the cars example, you would start with a number of different models of car and organize them into related categories.
The question you would ask to do this is: ‘What is this an example of?’ or ‘What is the purpose of this?’
This process will help you arrange a lot of different ideas into a more manageable number.
This concept has been taken up in more detail in the field of NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming)
You can use the chunking process in reverse to connect related ideas into a more useful structure.
Questions you might ask include:
- What does this example demonstrate?
- Where does this point best fit?
- What does this prove?
Chunking seems very obvious as a concept but is the sort of discipline that most people don’t follow in practice.
When you use it deliberately, you can organize your ideas more effectively and get great results in your communication.
