Mini Habits and Marginal improvements
Mini habits
If you have a goal that looks like : 20 minutes of meditation every single day - reduce the time from 20 to 2 minutes.
Mini habits are habits where expectations are so low that you can do them every single day.
e.g. 1 page of a book, 2 minutes of exercise, 2 minutes of meditation, breathing practise, ….
Mini versions of work expand into longer versions. This will get us better results in the long run.
Keep the goals small - never miss a day. Make the goal so small that you cannot fail.
Marginal improvement is the key to success
Youtube:
How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals | Stephen Duneier | TEDxTucson
Summary: Marginal improvement is the key to success
What stands between us and our most ambitious dream is not magical skill or talent but more with how we approach problems and make decisions to solve them.
Marginal improvements are the key to be better. Stop becoming a spectator and become an active participant of your actions and decisions.
Take big assignments and break them into smaller tasks.
Speaker says in college he used to not think of completing 5 chapters but reading 3-4 paragraphs at a time for 5-10 min then do something else for couple minutes and then come back. He was a straight-A student all through college- dean’s list.
You have to break big goals into smaller achievable goals.
Practical examples where breaking down big tasks into smaller ones helps
- Balancing ledger files every week (at least, for the heavy hitter accounts) makes it much more easier to reconcile them at the beginning/end of the month.
- Loading the dishwasher throughout the day makes it easy in the evening - compared to doing it all at once.