You might have heard advice from people include disclaimers like these:

• "What worked for me might not work for you"
• "It depends"
• "Just do whatever works for you"

What do you do with this? You must ask, what does the answer depend on?

Look for circumstantial variables. Between any two similar situations, there's usually one or a few key characteristics that totally steer what the effective response is.

Here is an example. Imagine somebody asks you, "Between teaching an employee how to do a task and structuring the task to be easier for the employee to accomplish, which should I do?"

Well, there is no one answer because it depends on the following --

• How long would it take to train the employee?
• What is your chance of them leaving in the long term, causing you to need to train a replacement?
• How much time and effort does it take for you to restructure the task?

These questions are some of the circumstantial variables, and the answers to them steer you to the circumstantially appropriate solution.