While I’ve heard about microbursts before, I read about them used in a different way in Greg McKeown’s latest book, Effortless. And he’s also talked about them on some podcasts I’ve been listening to since I really want to get this Effortless thing. Sidenote: Effortless is ah-mazing! I recently re-read it (along with Greg’s first book, Essentialism), and these two books will be on my “books to read every year” list. Both of these books have seriously been life-changing for me, and I know that since repetition is a key to retaining information long-term, and since each new year can bring with it a bit of a new season in life, I want to do an annual deep dive into both books to see how they can help me become more and do better.
What’s a microburst? In weather terms, it’s a surge of very powerful winds and storms that lasts for a very short period of time, usually about 10 minutes.
In Effortless, Greg uses a microburst as a “10 minute surge of focused activity that can have an immediate effect” on something we’re working on (page 111).
In one of the podcasts I listened to, Greg asked the host about one of his goals, which was to create a free lead gen with his 100 favorite/most recommended books, a project which he’d put off even starting for quite a while. So Greg suggested he take just 10 minutes—a microburst—and list as many books as he could think of, then do another 10-minute microburst on this goal the next day and the next day and so on until the lead gen was finished. Great idea!
The host did what I’d probably do. He said he’d get more done if he devoted an hour at a time. Greg reminded him that he hadn’t been able to do this in the past, so why would this time be different? Yeah…been there, done that. Over and over again.
Scheduling a daily (or however often) 10-minute microburst is totally doable AND it can get us closer to achieving our goals.
Here are some other examples of microbursts:
- Write
- Empty the dishwasher
- Clean out one drawer
- Declutter a few items in the garage
- Move your body
- Make a quick, healthy meal
- Plan the dinners for the week
- Read
- Write a note to someone
- Make an outline of the steps you need to take to complete a project from start to finish
No matter what you want to do—hobby, goal, declutter, clean, or whatever, just set a timer for 10 minutes and do that thing for ten minutes. And then be done. And then do it again the next day and so on.
It is not about doing everything, or even a chunk of everything, all at once. Sometimes, just the thought of the whole project is overwhelming enough to keep us from even getting started. Even if it’s something we’re excited about doing!
It is about doing 10 minutes—only 10 minutes—of something to get us closer to finishing a project or working towards a goal.
Because let’s be honest: 10 minutes is way better than 0 minutes, and several 10-minute microbursts in a row can really start to add up. And it should be no problem to carve out a 10-minute microburst from our day. It’s only 10 minutes out of the 1,440 minutes we have each day, after all.
What will your first microburst be? Leave it in a comment below!
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