10 (percent)

I’ve been finding a lot of power lately in 10% shifts in how I spend my time.  It’s an increment big enough to matter – an experiment big enough that you can learn something – but small enough that there’s no excuse but to start.

So, if you’re feeling stuck you could:

• Work 10% more, or less
• Sleep 10% more, or less
• Turn your email off for 10% of your workday
• Delete 10% of your emails, or reply to them with 10 words or less
• Eat differently (veg, vegan, cro-magnon, all liquids, whatever) 10% of the time (aka one day a week…which I know is more like 15% but you get the idea)
• Make 10% of your decisions in 10% of the time you normally take (and figure out if it makes a difference)
• Etc.

Or if 10% doesn’t work you can try 10 days, e.g.:

• 10 days of eating differently
• Exercise for 10 days in a row
• Sleep 8 hours a night for 10 straight days
• Work 16 hour days 10 days in a row to ship a product
• Write (and publish) a blog post for 10 days straight
• Each day for 10 days, write down one thing you’re grateful for
• Conduct a 10 day generosity experiment
• For 10 days, apologize first
• Etc.

Increasingly I’m feeling like long-term happiness results from our ability to evolve.  If that’s true, then discovering how to change is even more important than discovering what to change.

At least for me, all the big changes start small.   They start with an experiment that’s big enough to mean something but small enough that I can’t pretend it’s impossible.

What about you: do massive leaps work, or do you do better when you start small?