The thing about small things.
So here I am, working away, recovering from 3 weeks of illness. And my list of tasks is rather long. Some client work, some business tasks, and some things that I have had on my list for months. Things that will make my life and my staffs lives easier when I roll them out. But the thing is, its a lot of things.
Small things add up.
Small things stack on each other and then it feels like a bunch of big things. 100 small tasks is still a lot of tasks. And let’s be real, that starts to feel heavy and impossible. So you are tempted to give up.
Small things add up.
Yeah, we covered that. But what about flipping this around? What if we just focused on what we could accomplish, not the full list, just a chunk. 5 at a time maybe. Get that list, sort it from most important & urgent to least. I say important AND urgent on purpose. We have plenty of shit on our lists that are one or the other but only a few that are both.
The power of 1
There is a concept I learned many years ago about the power of 1, and the idea is that we can make small changes to daily practices that can add up to have a big impact. The number 1 is more like a “one thing” vs an actual value. Sure if I could lose 1lb a day that would be a great effort to my weight loss goals, or add 1 new signed contract a day to my sales goals. The real idea here is to find one thing that you can change, and when I say can, I mean can realistically, consistently, have the authority and willingness to change. You can’t change how physics works, but you can change your approach angle.
The power of 1 is designed to think about small changes every day that impact your goals. We are going to assume you have crystal clear goals here. In 2002 the British cycling team was terrible. I mean the WORST. Never winning anything. for like decades. Sir Dave Brailsford became the head of the team and he immediately started making small changes. Some of his approaches were rooted in the Japanese concept of Kaizen, which I LOVE. But the idea here is to make small changes, that are impactful to the goal. On their own, you would snub your nose at these changes. How in the world would better handwashing help a cycling team win more races? Well as Brailsford shares, a healthier team year-round, in training, and in race season means fewer missed days, fewer missed opportunities, and less backtracking on overall progress.
Now stack these small changes up. Just like how my to-do list stacked up on me to the point that it feels insane to tackle at once, these small positive changes add up to a winning team. In 2008 at the Beijing Olympics, the British cycling team won gold in 7 out of 10 events. All from small changes. Better hand washing, better nutrition, small changes in the bikes, small changes in the kit fabrics & stitching (the lycra uniform cyclists wear).
Small changes add up, for the good or the bad. You don’t need a list of 20 things to improve, how about just 3? I’d also suggest reading Brailsford story here on HBR. Inspiring for even the non-cyclist nerds.
