#832 N = 1

Bring the Lab into Your Life

In our last +1, we talked about Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky’s 4-step process to Make Time and Focus on What Matters Every Day.

Pop quiz!!!

You remember the four steps?

1. Highlight. Know your #1?
2. Laser: Eliminate distractions!
3. Energize: Charge the battery!
4. Reflect: Experiment and Optimize!

Today I want to talk about that last step: Reflect.

It’s the final step and the final section of the book.

I love the way they bring the scientific method into our daily lives.

That section kicks off with this wisdom gem from Rosalind Franklin: “Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.

Then they tell us that the scientific method is actually really simple. It, too, can be broken down into four steps.

(btw: They’re also huge (!) fans of Yuval Noah Harari. He has this to say about the importance of Running Experiments.)

As they say: “Don’t worry. Science is simple. Sure, some of it—particle accelerators, astrophysics, photon torpedoes—can be a little tricky. But the scientific method itself is straight forward:

1. OBSERVE what’s going on.
2. GUESS why things are happening the way they are.
3. EXPERIMENT to test your hypothesis.
4. MEASURE the results and decide whether you were right.

They continue: That’s pretty much it. The scientific know-how behind everything from WD-40 to the Hubble space telescope all came from following those four steps.

That’s Today’s +1.

The scientific method boiled down to these four steps: Observe + Guess + Experiment + Measure.

Let’s put on our lab coats and run a little experiment.

With a sample size of one: YOU.

btw: You know what that’s called?

“N = 1.”

(Where “N” represents the number of people in the study. In this case, the coolest person in the world and, btw, the only person for whom the results of any study are really relevant!)

So…

If you feel so inspired, let’s think about your life and OBSERVE what’s going on.

Pick one part of your life to focus on—whether that’s your Energy or your Work or your Love.

Guess why things are happening the way they are.

Run a little Experiment to see if you can Optimize a bit and test that hypothesis-guess.

Check in and Measure the results—win and learn style!

Repeat.

Forever.

🤓 🤓 🤓

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