You probably know this story—back when Jerry Seinfeld was still an up and comer on the comedy circuit, he made a simple commitment: Write one joke a day.
It didn’t have to be long. It didn’t have to be funny. It just had to be done.
Every day, regardless of how he felt, Seinfeld wrote one joke.
To keep this commitment, he calendared the entire year, giving himself a way to track his progress visually. And every day, after he wrote his joke, he would cross out the date with a big red “X.”
All of this is likely familiar. In fact, you’ve probably heard productivity gurus—and even Seinfeld himself—declare that the key takeaway here is: “Don’t break the chain.”
But when we dig a little bit deeper, we find a series of more powerful peak performance principles floating under the surface.
Seinfeld was leveraging Environmental Design and Behavioural Optimisation to drive consistent performance.
Walking by his calendar—an environmental design tool—reminded him of his commitment to his craft and the momentum he had already built on route to mastery—aka., a behavioural optimisation nudge.
As a result, his calendar reduced his reliance on willpower, making it easier for him to take the desired action—regardless of his emotional state.
Put differently, discipline alone won’t get the job done.
Discipline can be an effective tactic in those moments when you need to power past the temptation of temptation. This is why grit is such an essential trait for high-performers.
But it’s a losing strategy for sustainable success—especially if you want to sustain that success for years on end.
Instead, you need to make decisions and design systems when you’re at your best that protect you from yourself when you’re at your worst.
You want to try to build an environment that insulates you from your own worst impulses, while keeping you focused on the task-at-hand.
And by learning the principles of effective environmental design, it literally makes it harder for you to screw up and easier for you to take action toward your important goals.
Tomorrow, I’ll be diving into this concept in greater depth and sharing three actionable tactics you can use to not only make change easy, but almost automatic.
But right now, we want to hear from you:
What’s the #1 habit or routine you struggle with the most?
How would your life improve if you were able to effortlessly change it?
Comment below and let us know.
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Yours optimally,
Scott