Thing Theory:
A Philosophy of Adulthood
I have a philosophy of adulthood I call “Thing Theory.” A Thing is something you need to do or fix that you can’t do or fix yourself. A rattling noise coming from your fridge is a “Thing.” So is an achy knee.
Things are always being added to the Things column, and they stay there until you move them to the Not a Thing column. If you ignore a Thing, it turns into a Big Thing.
The key to moving Things into the Not a Thing column is having a Guy. A Guy is anyone who can help you fix your Thing. “My taxes were a mess this year, but thankfully I got a Guy.”
Things are different from Chores. A Chore is something you can fix or do yourself. Making dinner is a Chore. So is mowing the lawn.
Chores don’t require Guys. But if you avoid a Chore long enough it could turn into a Thing, in which case you might have to hire a Guy. And if the Guy isn’t good, then the Chore that turned into a Thing could turn into a Big Thing.
If you can afford to hire Guys to do your Chores, you’re doing well in life.
I call Thing Theory a philosophy of adulthood because when you’re a kid, you have to do Chores but you don’t have to deal with Things—that’s what parents are for. Being an adult is really a test of how quickly you can deal with Chores, and move Things into the Not a Thing column.
If you’re smart, you’ll spend your twenties and thirties collecting Guys, so when you’re in your forties and fifties you can say, “I gotta Guy for every Thing.”
Last week I fielded a sample of 150 Americans 18+. I described Thing Theory—respondents read a condensed version of what you just read—and asked, “What’s the most recent Thing you’ve had to deal with?”
I also asked everyone if their Thing turned into a Big Thing and if they got a Guy. I analyzed their responses and visualized the output.
140 Things, sorted by whether people got a Guy and whether it became a Big Thing
Respondents (n=140) answered, “What’s the most recent Thing you’ve had to deal with?” Each label condenses one person’s response to its smallest useful form, then sorts it by whether the Thing became a Big Thing and whether they got a Guy.
A two-by-two coordinate plane of 140 shortened survey responses. Things are in the left column and Big Things are in the right column. People who did not get a Guy are in the top row, and people who got a Guy are in the bottom row.
Everybody I surveyed had a Thing. Some Things were minor, like “Broken phone screen.” Others were serious, like “Kidney stones.”
There was some confusion about Things. Someone said “Returning library books.” That’s a Chore.
The most common category of Things was home and appliance repairs, followed by car issues and personal health problems. Responses that mentioned money, bills, taxes and legal items were also common.
For about a third of respondents, their Thing turned into a Big Thing. Nearly half got a Guy for their Thing. For people who didn’t get a Guy, their Thing became a Big Thing at a higher rate—39%, versus 27% for people who did.
Thing Theory emerged from my observations as a parent. But it’s also a philosophy of market research.
I use surveys to figure out the Things people are dealing with. That way brands can decide if they sell Chore-relief, Thing-prevention, or both.
Typically I do this by describing Thing Theory first—just like I did for the survey I fielded for this newsletter—and then asking people about the category. It’s slower than firing off a question with a five-point scale. But it’s a much better way to get useful answers.
There’s a lot of jargon in market research. Thing Theory shows that simple language works. Everybody gets what I’m talking about when I talk about Things.
That’s what I look for when I Roast a survey: not methodological errors but whether the questions are written in a language a real person would recognize their own life in.
If market research is turning into a Thing, I’d love to be your Guy.
Send me your survey draft, and for $145, I’ll make a 15-minute Loom video with copy-and-paste edits and suggestions for your survey.