tenfold
Ten goals, in an honest order
A list of thirty things is not a list of priorities, it is a list of wishes. The tenfold method asks for exactly ten, written by hand, put into a single line where each one genuinely comes before the next, and the first one split down until a step is left that you can take this week.
This does not fix a life in one afternoon, and nobody should sell it that way. What it does is smaller and more useful: it forces you to decide what comes first, and it turns that decision into something you can start.
The book
tenfold: El método de las diez metas (Spanish) · Il metodo dei dieci obiettivi (Italian)
M. Henning · 81 pages
Eighty-one pages, no filler: the Raymond Hull story, the complete method step by step, and four real lists worked from the blank sheet all the way to the step of the week. It reads in an afternoon and gets used for years.
Every chapter makes clear what comes from Hull and what is ours. A book about a borrowed method that will not say who it borrowed from has not earned your trust for the rest.
Availability: The book exists in Spanish and in Italian. There is no English edition yet, and it is not on sale anywhere yet either. As soon as it can be bought, the links will be on this page. In the meantime the complete method is below and in the one-page PDF, and it can be followed end to end with pen and paper.
The method, step by step
Write ten by hand
One hour, one sheet, ten lines, no editing while you write. Most people name three or four without hesitating and then stall. What arrives after that stall is usually the most accurate thing on the sheet.
Cut down to ten
Ten is a limit, not a round number. Its work starts when you have eleven candidates and one has to go. What falls is not thrown away, it waits on the bench.
Order them in pairs
Comparing ten things at once beats anyone. Comparing two is easy: which would you keep if you could only have one? About twenty-five questions, a quarter of an hour, and the line is done.
Write the done-day sentence
The sentence that will be true on the day the goal is complete. Checkable, in your own words, no adjectives. If you cannot write it, the goal is not yet a goal.
Split number one down to a step
Only the top goal, level by level. The test is the same each time: could someone start this without preparing first? If not, there is another level underneath. At the bottom there is almost always a phone call.
Keep the rhythm short
One minute a day on a single goal. The top three, once a week. And everything rewritten on paper once a month, or whenever something in your life moves. Between rituals, the list is left alone.
Where it comes from: Raymond Hull, 1969
The handwritten list, the honest ranking and the periodic rewrite come from Raymond Hull (1919-1985), a British-Canadian writer based in Vancouver and co-author of The Peter Principle. He published them in How to Get What You Want in 1969.
His observation was that most people are not held back by ability or effort, but by never having settled what they want and in what order. His book is still under copyright, so tenfold is neither a translation nor a summary: it is attribution, with a method of its own built on top.
What is Hull and what is tenfold
From Raymond Hull
- The list written by hand, not typed
- The honest ranking, one single line with no ties
- The periodic rewrite on paper
From tenfold
- The limit of exactly ten
- The pairwise tournament that orders them
- The done-day sentence
- Splitting the top goal down to this week
- The daily, weekly and monthly rhythm
Hull's book also carries self-suggestion exercises that read differently today. Those stay out.
The method on one page
Print it and keep it next to the paper. The six steps, the rhythm and the check questions on one A4 sheet.
The app, if you want the errand done for you
The whole method works with pen and paper, and that is still the recommendation for the first list. For the long rhythm there is a free app from Freshlab: it keeps count during the tournament, serves the question of the day and puts a date on the rewrite. No account, no ads, encrypted on your device, open source, and no AI inside.
Open in the browser App Store (iPhone)
Everything about the app at freshlab.es/tenfold →
Frequently asked questions
Is this Raymond Hull's book?
No. Hull's book, How to Get What You Want (1969), is still under copyright. tenfold explains what it takes from Hull, which is the handwritten list, the honest order and the rewrite, and what it adds on its own, with clear attribution in every chapter.
Do I need the app to use the method?
No. The whole method works with pen and paper, and the book is written that way. Our recommendation: the first list by hand, the long rhythm with the app if it suits you.
Why exactly ten goals?
Because a list that refuses nothing is not a list of goals. Ten is small enough to know by heart and large enough for a whole life. The limit starts working the moment you have eleven and one has to go.
Is there an English edition?
Not yet. The book exists in Spanish and Italian. This page is in English so the method is readable either way, and the one-page PDF is in English too.
Write your ten this week
One hour, one sheet, ten lines. The rest of the method can be learned afterwards.
If you came looking for the other books
While You Create is also a series of three books about creating with artificial intelligence, for children, for teenagers and for families.