Breaking Tasks Into Tiny Steps

I finished reading Atomic Habits a few days ago and throughout my time reading the book, I was able to employ small little experiments to test the hypotheses and assumptions made in the book.

I’ve been a big fan of incremental change when it comes to specific tasks (e.g. dog training), but less inclined to employ those same strategies when it comes to tasks orders of magnitude bigger (e.g. starting a new business).

If there’s one thing that James Clear’s book does well is that it provides perspective. His thorough explanation of his hypotheses set against a series of anecdotes helps to drive his point home — it doesn’t matter the situation, context, or circumstance, breaking big things into little things is the building block of ensuring good outcomes.

I spoke with a friend of mine today who has been working on a side hustle, but would easily get distracted or inundated by work and not progress with the project. Thinking about it from an incremental change, he needed a win from the side hustle, something that gives small wins to keep him coming back for more.

In this case, instead of setting a goal to finish the app, you could set a smaller goal of finishing a feature, or even smaller writing a line of code, or even smaller opening your project in your editor.

The smaller you go, the less impactful it may seem to the final goal, but tiny changes beget larger changes, and eventually bring you to the finish line — or at least tell you when you should stop.