Start even smaller with nano-actions.
I'll often come up with something catchy, only to find out that it's been said before and, more importantly, I've read it before.
That was what happened when I arrived at the term “micro-action” to describe a small thing that we can do to:
- move the needle,
- work on ourselves,
- to give ourselves some self-care, or
- just get out of a rut.
I heard Carl Richards, the mind behind The Behavior Gap, speak at a financial conference a number of years ago. A quick Google search on the term returned his article on the power of micro-actions.
His micro-actions were … pretty big.
The example Richards uses in his article deals with him overcoming his internal objections to working out on travel:
When I travel, I often don’t feel like exercising, but I know I’ll feel way better if I do. So, I take a micro-action. I put on my gym clothes and commit to walking to the hotel gym. That’s it. The trick I use to make it happen? I just say to myself, “I wonder what the gym in this hotel is like?” ~Carl Richards
That's an example of his micro-action.
That seems awfully big.
The actions I seem to struggle with are a lot smaller than that.
Enter the nano-action.
Forget walking down to the gym, or even entertaining the question of going there.
I'll be working at my desk, and it's covered with empty water bottles, coffee mugs, papers, pens, plates, you name it.
I'll look at it for about five seconds and … leave it all there and stare at the screen again. Maybe watch a movie clip I've already seen a hundred times.
My bar for action needs to start a lot lower.
I need to take nano-actions. Eventually I'll work my way up to micro-actions.
A simplified processing cycle
Some time ago I watched a LinkedIn course by Dave Crenshaw on task management. In that course, he asks three questions of each item to be processed:
- What is the next step?
- When will it be done?
- Where is its home?
Most tasks that we do are multi-step and require some kind of system to do effectively.
But not all of them. Some of them are dead simple.
Consider clearing off my desk. First item is an empty coffee mug.
- What is the next step? Pick the coffee mug up.
- When will it be done? Right freaking now.
- Where is its home? In the bussing tub 7 feet away from me (which will be taken to the dishwasher when it's full).
Next is a bottle cap from a plastic water bottle.
- Pick the cap up,
- right now, and
- throw it in the recycle bin.
These nano-actions take literally 4 seconds each. If I keep doing them my desk will be clear in under two minutes. But even if I don't do any more than that, I've gotten my desk slightly more organized and I'm ahead of where I was.
Nano-actions count!
I'm convinced that absolutely any motion forward is a win.
Working on myself or for myself every day helps me to sleep better at night.
Even a slightly cleaner desk is better than nothing. Less mental fog to clear out on the way to working productively.
A cleaner work area is more inviting and more conducive to creating the kind of content that helps people.
What do you struggle with?
Maybe it's not organization or overcoming the smallest inertia like it is for me.
If you can put words to it, you can take the tiniest of nano-actions to get through what's holding you back.
Thanks for reading!
Hi, I'm John and I encourage people to work for themselves, and on themselves, so they can sleep better at night.
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header photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash