Can writing just 15-30 minutes a day really amount to anything? Even over the long haul?
Absolutely! And that’s why I’m running these two writing challenges in April.
It started when I read a book called The Slight Edge. It’s not a writing book per se. But the subtitle tells you the book’s premise: “turning simple disciplines into massive success.”
Universal Principle
The slight edge applies to everything in your life: your health, your career, your relationships, your leisure time…everything. And whether you like it or not.
As author Jeff Olson says,
“You can always count on the Slight Edge. And unless you make it work for you, the Slight Edge will work against you… Position your daily actions so time is working for instead of against you. Because time will either promote you or expose you.”
So what is the slight edge exactly? Olson explains that it’s the daily actions—small daily actions—that build up over time. Daily actions like flossing your teeth that results in no gum disease (promoting you) or no flossing resulting in your teeth falling out (exposing you). The same thing applies to any daily habit: walking to work, smiling at your spouse, saving instead of spending it all…
Or writing.
Small and Easy
The actions we take daily aren’t huge actions or hard actions. They’re actually quite small and pretty easy to do. (Unfortunately, they’re also easy not to do, at least until they become a habit.) It’s the “repeating them over long periods of time” that reap the results you want. As Olson points out,
“That’s the choice you face every day, every hour:
A simple, positive action, repeated over time.
A simple error in judgment, repeated over time.
This is not about making tough choices. It’s about making easy choices consistently.”
Book Overview
I can barely touch on the power of these principles here. The book is an easy read, has great reviews, and the principles are easy to understand and implement. There is a chapter for each of the seven Slight Edge principles which are:
- Show up.
- Be consistent.
- Have a good attitude.
- Be committed for a long period of time.
- Have faith and a burning desire.
- Be willing to pay the price.
- Practice slight edge integrity.
He also has chapters on how to recognize where the Slight Edge is working in your life, either for or against you. He shows you how you can harness these facets in the pursuit of your dreams:
- momentum
- completion
- habit
- reflection
- celebration
Remember, the slight edge is always working—either for you or against you.
The writing challenges this month are about helping you to make the slight edge work for you in your writing. It’s a powerful concept!
Can you remember a time when making a slight change in any behavior over a long period of time helped you reap excellent results? If so, please share!
Very neat concept and you’ve talked about his before — choosing to do one thing over another. I see it in many areas of my life. Here are just 3 examples.
Taking 5 minutes every morning to pray together with my whole family has brought greater peace.
Daily Bible reading changed my life. I am able to do the right thing more often.
Choosing to get the writing done before the kids came home allows me to be present to them when they are home. We can chat while I cook or they can do homework and I’m available to help.
All good habits! What I loved about the book were the examples of how these habits compounded HUGELY over time. They didn’t just add up–they started multiplying in big ways.