The Kaizen Way
What's the smallest step that leads to another?
I remember an example from a great little book (One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer). As I remember it: two groups within the same office were given different challenges to get healthy. One group was given year memberships to the gym across the street which included access to a personal trainer. Another group was challenged for one week to go to the stairs (instead of the elevator) and take one step. That was it: one step a day for one work week.
A year later the one-steppers were vastly more engaged in exercise and had better health than the folks with the gym memberships. The conclusion was that the one-steppers could hardly help but take the stairs once they got to the first step in the stairwell. They went that first week easily exceeding their health goal. Momentum grew. [The group with far more support/resources, still had to overcome a pretty big first step of going to the gym for a workout with a new trainer. It was easy to delay and let the whole year slip by.]
A couple of friends and I were talking over some quotes from Stephen King (from his book On Writing) yesterday. During the conversation there was some energy about getting creative and I thought back to the one-steppers. What was the smallest viable starting point for a writing habit? Long ago I had a habit of thirty minutes of writing six days a week. It was powerful. Writing got both easier and better because I was growing.
I knew this principal from my pre-dad life. However thirty minutes a day seemed like a big step in this new era. For years I didn't write.
Back in January I started this blog with inspiration to give less than my best, but something. (See my first post about the old lady in Zelda)
Yesterday, with those two friends, I thought back to the power of daily writing and I combined it with the one-step story. I took a guess at what might be the smallest viable step--ten minutes.
I already had a little ten minute sand timer and I put it next to my keyboard. Yesterday (the first day of the challenge), I wrote well past when the sand ran out. Today, again, the only sand on the top half clings with the power of static in defiance of time and gravity.
Both days I wouldn't have written without the friends and the seven day challenge. Its small enough it is hard not to start. Its easy to exceed.
Like hoping on a bike over a gentle down slope. The wind feels good against the cheeks. Let's get some speed before we make a climb.