(and that’s the point)
The rain poured down as I ran into the Nandos.
I didn’t know how long I’d be stranded there, as a severe rainstorm poured down in Maryland.
While I waited for my peri-peri chicken, I pulled out my phone and stared into the distance. A few years ago, I would have been intimidated by what I was about to do. Maybe you know the feeling – waiting for the right setup, the right mood, the right conditions before you’ll let yourself begin.
I would have waited until I got back into my hotel. Instead of writing the draft of this newsletter in a drenched T-shirt, I would have decided to dry off first, then drink the perfectly crafted latte.
But after doing this for 189 weeks. There’s no waiting.
I decided to wait out the run and draft this newsletter on my phone.
The only reason I can quickly write these words to start this newsletter is because of an action I took two days before.
It’s the same action I’ve taken 189 weeks now. Every Monday.
It takes me less than a minute.
And it’s a reminder about how important it is to design your first step towards your goals.
Stop building a perfect system that is hard to practice
You will build a mountain of things to do before you start a new habit.
Resistance is a heartless goat constantly pulling you away from your goals. Combating it requires reps, and those reps have to be as simple as ABC. So simple it will be difficult not to do it.
That simple first step is what came in handy while I waited for the downpour to pass. I follow a similar writing cadence that produces this newsletter every week. It goes as follows:
Monday – choose
Tuesday – plan
Wed – draft
Thur – edit and schedule
Sat – publish.
It sounds boring as hell. I don’t write in a flash of inspiration. I get to each task first thing in the morning, when possible, before all my other priorities flood in.
The hardest day is usually Wednesday.
The easiest day, on the other hand, is Monday. And it also happens to be the most important day of action. Because once I choose, each subsequent step of planning, drafting, and editing is just a follow through.
That first action – the choice – is the easiest. It usually only takes 1 – 2 minutes.
The funny thing is, once I do that task, something strange happens when I’m not writing. My brain starts working on the problem, looking for material, searching for dots to connect.
So when it’s actually time to sit down and write, a lot of the work has already been done.
And it all boils down to making a simple choice.
The mountain-building of complex systems happens when there’s no simple first step to take, and the Monday choice is the antidote to that.
I’m finding that the best habits happen when you can boil them down to a single entry point of action. And then making that action so easy that you can do it over and over again so that results compound.
When habits are hard to repeat, it becomes easier to build a system of overthinking, distraction, and self-doubt.
That’s what would have happened to me almost 4 years ago when I started this weekly newsletter. I would have watched more YouTube videos about newsletter growth, saved another writing system in my notion doc, and never started.
The same thing would have happened to me this week as I thought about drafting this article. I would have blamed the conditions, maybe even told myself a lie about “how I prefer to write when the sun is out, so I’ll just wait until the rain stops.”
But luckily I had made the action on Monday so easy that I continued on Tuesday, and that momentum got me through the week.
But if it was as easy as just starting then everyone would begin, right?
No, it has to be a beginning that cascades and compounds.
Build a simple starting point so easy to do in under 1 minute that it’s crazy not to do it
The best practitioners I’ve watched don’t have better systems.
I’m learning that they’ve just made the first step too easy to skip.
Make your decision take less than 1-minute, but let it be supported by habits that happen when you aren’t doing the work.
Let me explain what that looks like.
Every Sunday night, when I create my top to-dos for Monday, I include the task: “Choose Topic.” Among my other tasks for the day. On Mondays, I always smile when I see the task because it is so easy to do. Sometimes I do it on my lunch break. Other times, I do it waiting for someone to join a zoom call. All I have to do is write one sentence about what I want to write about that week. It is so simple that if I didn’t do it, then it is clear there is a deeper problem stopping me.
That trigger gets everything rolling for the week.
I did the exact thing this week.
I planned this article the day after, while in a middle seat on a cross-country flight, next to a screaming baby. Then drafted while waiting for the rain to pass. Edited late in the afternoon on Thursday, where I had the greatest urge not to write, besides feeling the need to complete what I started.
The system is supported by invisible habits that support the simple decision.
For instance, I take notes whenever I make an observation. Every day if I can. When I’m stuck on what to write, I look through them. The Monday decision becomes obvious and so simple.
I’m starting to experiment with this in other parts of my practice – but that’s a different newsletter.
With this process, you are not only working on your goals when you sit down to. It’s a part of your life.
Closing reflection:
Fifteen minutes after I started drafting, the storm had passed.
The sun was not out yet but I had a decent draft written up. Enough for me to edit and send to you what you’re reading now. No ideal conditions presented themselves, just easy decisions to follow. That’s 189 Mondays of easy decisions compounding into something I couldn’t have planned.
So here’s a question I have for you: “What ideal conditions are you still waiting for, and what would it look like to turn that wait into a simple repeatable decision instead?”
It can take you further than more ambitious goals.
Yours truly,
Nifemi
P.S. I help technical founders and solo business practitioners (consultants, coaches) acquire their dream customers with compelling outreach and brand messaging. If you’re building something, I have two open spots in the next month. Reply to this with a simple note, “Let’s build.”
