The 1% Rule | Weekbook #3

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In a world where extremities are becoming increasingly popular, with cult like followings forming behind the mouth-pieces of movements on social media, it is more important than ever to turn to basic principals to guide us.

In recent times I’ve noticed the growing presence of two opposing communities, one that pushes hustle culture, working and focusing on self-development until you reach burnout, the other pushing acceptence for mediocracity, putting the bare minimum into your job and doing only what you feel like.

Surely a middle ground is better?

Whilst reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, I stumbled across the 1% rule, a principal that boils down personal development to a simple sentence — “focus on growing just 1% each day.” It sounds ridiculous. How can 1% of growth each day lead to any sort of meaningful progress? The effects of compunding.

Anyone familiar with economics knows the value of compound interest and we can apply the same principal to ourselves. Why? Because with each improvement we make, whether physically or mentally, we are compounding it with the progress we’ve already made, as long as we’re consistent. If you don’t believe me, let’s look at the numbers.

1.01^365 = 37.78 or, in plain English, you’ll be almost 38 times better after one year of daily 1% improvements than you were on the day that you started.

By going back to principals such as this, you don’t have to spend every waking hour working and improving, nor do you have to accept mediocrity because personal development is overwhelming. By being consistent and making continuous improvements in our lives, we can let the 1% rule take care of the rest.

Book Notes

All notes are from the book I am currently reading: Indistractable by Nir Eyal.

• On email in the workplace: “Email is the curse of the modern worker. Some basic maths reveals just how big the problem is. The average professional employee receives one hundred messages per day.’ At just two minutes per email, that adds up to three hours and twenty minutes per day. If an average workday is nine to five, minus an hour for lunch, then email eats up nearly half the day.”

• On external triggers: “Is this trigger serving me, or am I serving it?”

• On being curious: “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

• On mindset: “What we say to ourselves is vitally important. Labelling yourself as having poor self-control actually leads to less self-control”

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Ending Quote

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