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Quick & Silly
🧠 The Worst Advice Office
Give hilariously terrible advice—then fix it by explaining what good advice would actually sound like.
What you need
A few harmless problems: waking up late, losing keys, forgetting homework, being bored.
How to play
- Choose a harmless problem.
- Give the worst possible advice you can think of.
- Explain why your advice is terrible.
- Replace it with one genuinely useful suggestion.
See one in action
Problem: “I am always late.”
Terrible advice: “Change all the clocks in your house so they are 20 minutes slow. Then you will feel early.”
Why it is terrible: It changes the information, not the habit.
Better advice: Pick a fixed departure time and prepare what you need the night before.
The funny part comes first; the useful reasoning comes from explaining why the bad advice fails.
Terrible advice: “Change all the clocks in your house so they are 20 minutes slow. Then you will feel early.”
Why it is terrible: It changes the information, not the habit.
Better advice: Pick a fixed departure time and prepare what you need the night before.
The funny part comes first; the useful reasoning comes from explaining why the bad advice fails.
10 ideas to try
Choose any one of these prompts and use the activity steps above:
- Problem: “I keep losing my phone.” Worst advice: “Buy five phones and hide one in every room.”
- Problem: “I press snooze too much.” Worst advice: “Put the alarm clock in your neighbor’s house.”
- Problem: “I get nervous before presentations.” Worst advice: “Avoid speaking forever.”
- Problem: “I forget people’s names.” Worst advice: “Call everyone Kevin.”
- Problem: “My room is messy.” Worst advice: “Turn off the light so you can’t see it.”
- Problem: “I am always late.” Worst advice: “Change all the clocks so you feel early.”
- Problem: “I spend too much money.” Worst advice: “Stop checking your bank account.”
- Problem: “I cannot decide what to eat.” Worst advice: “Order one of everything.”
- Problem: “I procrastinate.” Worst advice: “Make a detailed plan to stop procrastinating tomorrow.”
- Problem: “I forget my umbrella.” Worst advice: “Only go outside when it is sunny.”
Make it harder / funnier
Make the bad advice sound extremely professional before revealing why it fails.
Why it helps
Builds humor, reasoning, explanation, and the ability to compare weak and strong solutions.
Ready to use this skill?
Try it in Public Speaking →Take the activity into a full SpeakCoachLab practice session.