A few years ago, I came across the life-changing book, “The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success” by Darren Hardy, an author and the former publisher of Success magazine. He writes, “The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices.” And also, “It's not the big things that add up in the end; it's the hundreds, thousands, or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary.”

As a business owner and a coach, I found this viewpoint extremely helpful. Accomplishing big goals can be daunting, so we’re told to break things done into chunks. Even though that’s great advice, it can still feel overwhelming, which is why it’s best to break goals down into small “baby steps” or micro actions. This may seem counterintuitive, because we’re in a hurry to get to the end point and satisfaction of achieving our goal, but it’s far from it.

In our personal lives, this principle may seem more obvious. For example, removing one food from our diet, such as sugar, can make a big impact on our overall health. The same would be true for adding a simple plan to walk for 20 minutes per day.

In business, there are numerous micro actions that would allow us to feel their impact right away. For example, several years ago I attended a presentation by a professional organizer. She mentioned that when we begin our day responding to emails, we are, essentially, following other peoples’ agendas for how we use our time. This then leads to a reactive mode of “putting out fires” rather than a proactive mode of us deciding how we will spend our time. To be more proactive, the organizer recommended that we use the first hour of our day to clearly set our own agenda and plan for the day, responding to others at a time that fit into that plan. The micro action here is to make a small shift in the way we begin our day.

Another micro action that can have a big impact is to dedicate a set time each day or each week organizing your files, your accounts, your marketing, your desk, your contacts, etc. Clutter in your business can scatter your energy, and when you can’t find something or when it’s disorganized, it can use up valuable time better spent on income-generating projects. Clutter can jam the works on any big project. Ideally, having an established time (either daily or weekly) to focus on organizing different aspects of your business will, over time, make disagreeable large tasks easier to manage.

Speaking of schedules, how many of us make appointments with ourselves? This is a micro action with a big return on a tiny investment. Many people write to-do lists to keep themselves on task. However, while crossing things off may feel good for a minute or two, to-do lists make it far too easy to focus on and judge ourselves for all the things we didn’t get done.

There is a better way that requires only one small step. Instead of writing a list, use a calendar to set up the day and time you want to focus on one of the items on your list. There are a few immediate benefits: 1) It gets the list out of your head; 2) It has a dedicated time which frees up the rest of your time to focus on something else; and 3) You are free to be completely present for one task at a time rather than multi-tasking and scattering your energy.

Small or micro actions also have a ripple effect. Imagine you chose the micro action of reducing the amount of time spent on social media to thirty minutes per day. This small daily action can have a huge impact, especially if you find yourself browsing social media randomly throughout the day. Your focus will improve, your momentum will increase, and you will have space for new ideas.

Impactful and long-lasting results can come from doing small, micro actions. Here are a few more suggestions. Try one or two from this article and see what happens.

  • Take a five-minute stretch break one or two times per day.
  • Have a green juice for lunch once per week.
  • Once per week ask a colleague, collaborator or client to lunch to ask him/her what you can do to improve things.
  • Try a new app that helps you with some aspect of your business.
  • If you have a laptop, take a break from your office or workspace once per week and work instead in a cafe, a park or a co-working space.