47. The Tortoise, The Hare and The Haggis Pizza

Disney's Moana. The Wombats (both the band and the animal). Michael Carrick. Luxembourg as a place to visit. Butter on toast. Wine Gums. Haggis Pizza.

Just some of life’s tragically underrated things.

Another (though slightly less tasty) point that I’d add to that list is how seemingly insignificant things can accumulate over time to become very significant things.

It’s an idea that I can’t help but feel is one of life’s most underappreciated, and underused, hacks.

I say this because I underappreciated and underused it for so long.

For the majority of my life, I very much belonged to the ‘one heroic effort will get the job done’ school of thought.

A couple of all-nighters to finish off that Uni assignment, an 8 hour shift to fire out those job applications, a 2 hour gym session on January 2nd, and so forth.

Despite naturally being aware of the whole ‘chipping away slowly but surely’ approach, it was basically a non-existent concept in my brain.

Though over the past few years, it’s an idea that’s slowly but surely (rather aptly...) beginning to resonate more and more.

In his book ‘The Compound Effect’, Darren Hardy uses a great analogy to demonstrate this ‘insignificant thing + time = significant thing’ point.

As you can hopefully tell from the below image (taking a photo of a page from a book is basically the extent of my tech capabilities), Hardy talks about a hypothetical flight from Los Angeles to New York.

On this flight, if the plane is just 1% off course, then obviously, in the short-term it doesn’t really matter.

However, if we add the ‘+ time’ element of the equation, then instead of landing in New York, the passengers would be surprised to find themselves in the arse end of nowhere (no offence to all readers from Albany and Delaware).

Insignificant in the short-term, very significant in the long-term.

Although hardly the world’s greatest revelation, it is something that I believe is easy to overlook.

To break it down to something that’s a bit more relevant to us than an off-course flight from LA to New York, let’s take 15 minutes of our day. Naturally, we’re not likely to place too much value on a one-off 15 minutes.

Though if we think about it over the course of, say, a year, it looks a bit different:

• 15 minutes a day = over an hour and a half a week.

• Over an hour and a half a week = 91 hours and 15 minutes a year (30 minutes on a leap year!)

• That = almost 4 days.

15 minutes a day comes to almost 4 full days over the course of a year.

Fuck!

So, let's say we just spent 15 minutes on TikTok a day, that means by the end of the year we’d have basically watched 4 days worth of silly cunts doing silly dances.

Once again, fuck!

I found this to be pretty eye-opening.

I mean, how easy is it to patch off doing something (that we know we probably should), because we don’t think a small effort is going to make any difference?

10 minutes of reading, 5 minutes of stretching, 15 minutes of working on that side hustle, a 20 minute walk, etc.

Yes, very.

Of course, everyone's different, but I've found the above realisation to have completely reframed my outlook towards these seemingly insignificant things. And basically, become less likely to bin them off.

I really like how Author (and interestingly, recovering alcoholic) Sarah Hepola puts it "Change is not a bolt of lightning that arrives with a zap. It is a bridge built brick by brick, every day, with sweat and humility and slips. It is hard work, and slow work, but it can be thrilling to watch it take shape."

Whilst we’re doing quotes, and to bring this post back to more of a mental health focus, entrepreneur Alex Hormozi has a solid take on self-esteem “You don't become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Outwork your self doubt.”

In short, we can build some semblance of self-esteem by doing difficult things, and therefore building the evidence to prove to ourselves that we’re not completely useless.

And as a tool for doing said difficult things, I’ve found that combination of seemingly insignificant + time, to have been a very useful one.

On that, that’s my 15 minutes of writing done for the day, time to put on the Wombats, have a few wine gums, and plan that next trip to Luxembourg.