The Next Small Thing
The Next Small Thing
“How many steps was your marathon?” Asking a runner a question like that would likely result in a blank stare. Runners generally measure in time or distance, so why does a step matter? The steps matter because you cannot progress without them; runners always take things one step at a time whether they think about it or not. Similarly with work or other similar effort, we know quality things take time, but it can be difficult to focus on the next small thing.
The Reality
The reality is that a marathon is ‘done’ in an instant. What I mean by that is one moment you are running a marathon, and the next you have completed a marathon. It’s like that with any product, service, or other endeavor we see or engage with. The only real visible part is the switch being flipped on. The product appears to be a success because to the average person it simply didn’t exist the day before. Intellectually we all know there was a lot of effort put into it ahead of time, but psychologically that’s easy to dismiss because it’s more fun to look at the leap.
When it Clicked
I recently had a situation come up where a specific tool would provide an outsized benefit to me and several other people on the team. It wouldn’t be revolutionary, but it would be really valuable. I had looked into developing this tool months prior, but it was simply outside of my capability to develop, so I put it on the back burner. Last week, I decided to look into it again and to my pleasant surprise I was able to deploy a working prototype with what felt like minimal effort. Now, I had not been working towards this as a goal at all. It was on the back burner, but I wasn’t actively running towards it. My initial thought was external tooling and AI had simply improved to the point of it just being a much lower bar to clear. And while that was true to a small degree, the lion’s share of the change had come because I had been making small, incremental steps to streamline my workflow (fewer clicks, more automation). When I saw friction I tried to remove it, simple as that. And while I do see day to day benefits of that effort, I had lost sight of how that small, consistent effort was pushing me to learn better skills, connect the dots between seemingly disparate tools, and cultivate a deep understanding of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.
Renewed Perspective
The point of this article is to serve as a reminder to always be making progress; work hard on the next thing, whatever that may be. Don’t be overwhelmed by the enormity of your goal; enjoy the simplicity of completing the next action, even if it seems simple in the moment.
Write a comment