There’s a lie baked into nearly every piece of business advice today: follow “best practices” and you’ll get more done, grow faster, and strike that mythical balance between work, life, and whatever shiny trend is burning through your feed this week.
But here’s the inconvenient truth:
Most “best practices” weren’t built for you.
They were designed for corporations with deep pockets, massive teams, and the luxury of throwing entire departments at problems. Not for solopreneurs juggling six tabs and a 50-hour engagement cap. Not for lean teams in isolated departments, cut off from central resources. These so-called best practices were designed for aircraft carriers, not tugboats.
And yet, somehow, you’re still expected to operate like a Fortune 500 machine with a crew of one.
Time to throw that nonsense out.
We don’t have ideal conditions. We don’t have infinite margin. We’re threading the needle every single day. And if you’re going to survive, let alone thrive, everything you produce has to work harder. Every hour must matter. Every output must punch above its weight.
That’s where the 3X Rule comes in.
If it doesn’t triple dip, it doesn’t ship.
The Real Problem: Best Practices Don’t Fit
Too much business advice assumes invisible resources: time, budget, bandwidth, tech infrastructure, and cross-functional support.
That’s not the world lean teams live in. That’s not the world solopreneurs, freelancers, or even some enterprise teams operate in.
Plenty of enterprise departments are duct-taping systems, pitching ideas solo, and delivering without backup. These teams are running one-dimensional plays in a three-dimensional game, chasing standards that were never designed for their circumstances.
The result?
Burnout. Bottlenecks. Stagnation.
Always behind. Always reactive. Never caught up.
It’s not just inefficient. It’s unsustainable.
The Shift: From Linear Execution to Strategic Hyper-Threading
This is the pivot point. You don’t need more hacks, frameworks, or borrowed checklists. You need a new operating system. One that replaces single-use execution with strategic hyper-threading.
Everything you create should serve three distinct purposes.
Not one. Not two. Three.
You’re not spread too thin. You’re playing too narrow.
Too linear. Too disposable.
You’re stuck playing checkers in a chess match. It’s time to change the game.
Enter the 3X Rule
The 3X Rule:
👉 If it doesn’t triple dip, it doesn’t ship.
Every deliverable must do all three of the following:
- Client Value – Deliver the outcome your client pays for.
- Public Value – Create a story, insight, or asset you can share.
- Strategic Value – Codify IP, reinforce your POV, or strengthen your ecosystem.
If it only hits one or two? Rethink it. Reframe it. Or cut it.
The real key is to plan for the triple dip upfront.
Build it into your projects. Map it into your process. Bake it into your tools. Because you don’t magically extract leverage later. You architect it from the beginning.
This is how you create compounding momentum.
This is how you run deep with lean resources.
This is how you thread the needle – and win.
Every Engagement Is a Hidden Goldmine
You’re probably already doing brilliant work. But most of it is hidden in private decks, stale project files, Slack threads, and internal docs no one will ever see again.
You’re sitting on gold. You just haven’t mined it.
Example 1: Digital Strategy for a Nonprofit
You’re embedded in a purpose-driven nonprofit helping them modernize. Along the way, you identify:
- Tension between mission and tech
- Cultural resistance to metrics
- Dysfunctional digital hygiene habits
That’s not just a deliverable. That’s an ecosystem of assets:
- A blog post: Why Purpose-Driven Orgs Struggle With Digital Transformation
- A microguide: Faith & Flow: A Field Guide for Nonprofit Leaders
- A whitepaper: Digital Liquidity for Mission-Led Organizations
- A stealth onboarding tool disguised as an email course
One engagement. Four leverage points. Four doors to your brand.
Example 2: Utility Supply Firm in Legacy Chaos
You’re inside a family-run energy firm trying to modernize without alienating legacy leadership. You’re not just building a CRM. You’re mediating a culture war.
That becomes:
- A blog: How Tribal Knowledge Is Killing Your Family Business
- A visual: Legacy Friction Scorecard Template
- A case study: Modernization Without Mutiny
- A toolkit: Digital Liquidity in the Energy Sector
Now that one project is a client win, a content asset, and a credibility builder across verticals.
Artifacts as Portable Experience
Artifacts aren’t just deliverables. They’re portable experiences.
In experience design, an artifact is anything that captures, conveys, or influences the client or user journey. Slide decks, Notion pages, Miro boards, Trello cards, Slack threads, emails – they all count.
If you want people to care about your work and grasp its value, start here:
- You’re in the experience design business.
- Every artifact shapes that experience.
- Every artifact gets forwarded to your next opportunity. Act accordingly.
Artifacts anchor trust in the present and signal value to future prospects.
They’re trust signals in circulation. Silent sales reps. They echo.
That’s why you don’t ship lazy decks or sloppy emails, even if your client would accept them. Assume every artifact ends up in a decision-maker’s inbox you’ve never met.
Artifacts are your reputation in drag-and-drop format.
Design accordingly.
Don’t Just Deliver. Extract.
Here’s the mindset shift:
Every win, completed task or project is a prototype. Every solution is a seed. Codify it.
Did a workshop go great? Cool. Turn it into:
- A Notion template
- A 5-slide “greatest hits” deck
- A blog walkthrough
- A Twitter/X visual hook
- An Insider Brief
If it doesn’t become a tool, insight, or asset, you just wasted a great idea on a one-off.
Systematize your wins.
Name your tools.
Build your ecosystem.
Turn deliverables into IP. Turn IP into growth.
Build the Backward Funnel
Most funnels are forward: sell X, deliver Y, move on.
With the 3X Rule, the funnel loops backward.
Every engagement feeds:
- Your narrative
- Your frameworks
- Your credibility stack
- Your next sale
- Your info product pipeline
Delivering a CRM? You’re also creating:
- A case study
- A podcast talking point
- A book section
- A downloadable tool
- A webinar topic
Don’t stop at delivery. Begin the second life of your work.
Bonus Play: Build Books from Client Work
Why not write your next book from actual experience?
Each chapter = one engagement
Each insight = tested in the wild
Each quote = lived reality
It’s not just a thought leadership move. It’s an authority accelerant.
You’re doing the work. Might as well document it.
Your Next 3 Tactical Moves
1. Audit What You’ve Already Built
Ask:
- What assets already exist?
- What insights have I overlooked?
- What can be reframed or reused?
2. Embed 3X Into Your System
In Notion or your project tool, add fields:
- Upcycle Idea
- Strategic Insight
- POV/Framework
- Content Link (tie to Content DB)
Create “Gold Mine” filtered views across Tasks, Projects, and Docs.
Drag and drop the leverage in real time.
3. Require 3X For Every New Project
Every time you start a new initiative, ask:
- What’s the core deliverable?
- What’s the public-facing content?
- What’s the long-term IP?
If you can’t answer all three, reframe the work before you start.
Weekly Ritual: The Extraction Pulse
Every Friday, ask:
- What did I ship?
- What insights emerged?
- What new public assets can it become?
- Where does it live in my ecosystem?
In your dashboard, build “This Week’s Wins” views by database.
Don’t sit on frozen gold. Ship it.
Final Word: From Mercenary to Miner
You don’t have a focus problem. You have an extraction problem.
You’re doing real work, solving real problems, producing real insights. But they’re getting buried. Trapped in email. Lost in Slack. Stuck in files no one will ever see.
Dig once. Extract three times.
That’s the Heroik way.
Ready to mine what you’ve built?
Let’s go.
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