Mastering The Small Things

Over the last several years, I have preoccupied myself too much over thinking about “the next big idea” or “the next big launch” I want to tackle.  I have agonized for countless hours, weeks, even months on what I wanted to work on that would truly be big, and truly set a marker on my map of accomplishments.

I am sure you have had similar thoughts and experiences.  Times when you waited or stalled your actions because you wanted something to be just perfect before putting it out in the world.  You and I both ignored the advice of the motivational voices of the business world who have long told us to just just ship it, just post it, just go for it!

However it is human nature to make the mistake we have.  We want our peers to appreciate our hard work and admire our accomplishments.  Especially this day in age where our work lives on forever in a digital time capsule, and more importantly, has the potential to reach countless individuals through the power of our personal networks.

The idea and possibility of your work reaching a large audience is scary to most that I know.  Let’s say you know or are connected to 1,000 people, and those 1,000 people each know 1,000 people, and those 1,000 each know 1,000.   That means you and your work’s reach are one step from a million, and two steps from a billion. This is the network effect. To some of us, that feels like pressure to deliver your best on the biggest of projects.  Even those who have large influences and reach have noted in interviews that there is a tremendous amount of stress on consistently delivering milestone products, services, or projects. It is human to feel that no matter who you are.

Recently I have tried to change my thinking around this.  Your work and life is not the big launches or projects. Those are a moment in time, one-off occurrences, exceptions to what you do on a daily basis.

Your work and life is actually a combination of things that repeat every day.  The emails you read and write. The status meetings you attend. The reports you run and analyze.  Making your bed. Eating right. Kissing your spouse every day. Helping your kids with their homework.  These activities make up 90% of your work and personal life.

These seems like mundane things.  Things that we do in passing without even thinking about them.  But instead, we should strive to get those mundane things right, those things you do everyday, concentrate on them, make them pristine.  If you get those things right, you have 90% of your work and life put together. Then those little things add up and start influencing bigger actions.  Then your work starts to have a network effect in that its reach becomes bigger and stronger.

Like the wings of a butterfly can cause a tornado (Edward Lorenz coined the term “Butterfly Effect”), small causes may have large effects.  The small things you do today and every day from here on out will create new, much larger things.

These little things in front of us, they are not so little and they are hard to set right.  So many people don’t make their bed in the morning. Why? Because it is hard. Habits are hard.  It is easy to offer a half-thought out idea in an email. It is hard to set yourself on the direction to make your communications more meaningful.  If you set them right, they have a ripple effect and fast. Way faster than we think.

Before you know it, the mastery of the small, mundane things changes your patterns and habits, and introduces you to ideas on ways to make other improvements. Then others start to notice, and they might be inspired to make small changes.

It is our responsibility to put things out in the world.  Even the littlest things. All of the good in the world has been caused by individuals, everyone, contributing what they have to offer.  All of the bad in the world has been made worse by in-action.

When you do something you shouldn’t do, it is worse than you think.  When you do something you should do, it is better than you think.

I challenge myself and you to think about what we should be doing every day.  Focus on perfecting the small things. Doing them right. Focus on the 90% and the rest will come.