My morning routine is one of the few parts of my day that runs like clockwork. From the minute my alarm goes off, I proceed with a finely choreographed flow of movements and rituals that results in getting out the door at almost exactly the same time each day.
Anything more than a 2–3 minute variance tells me that something is off. When I leave 5–10 minutes or more behind schedule, I pause to review what got me off track.
Even on days when I have been significantly behind schedule — more than 15 minutes — it’s rarely because I went back to sleep or some other bigger issue.
The culprits are generally found in the mundane, small details:
- the last minute decision to add something else to my pre-packed bag
- changing my leggings or my jacket
- needing to grab something I hadn’t thought about before
- opening a new tube of toothpaste
Any number of things that individually might be only 30 seconds to a minute can set me back by multiple minutes when stacked together.
The pattern that applies to my morning routine applies to every other part of life.
When it comes to the reasons for success or failure, why something works or why something falls apart, we are often looking for the big changes that will make a huge sweeping difference.
A dramatic new approach, a new innovation, a new paradigm. The low hanging fruit. The obvious big things.
Often, the most significant shifts are the smallest tweaks.
Being more intentional about what you need for the morning and laying it out the night before. Changing a word. A slight adjustment to technique.
It doesn’t take a lot to move the needle. And when the needle moves even slightly, it can create an outsized effect.
Pinpointing the small changes that will create big shifts is skill that often gets little fanfare, but it’s a crucial skill to develop if you want to make significant improvements.
Call it the outsized impact of tiny tweaks.
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