“Don’t break the chain”

Jerry Seinfeld’s famous productivity hack of writing one funny line each day – without fail – is a powerful tool that we often consider how we can encourage in the learning experiences we design.

As the story goes, Seinfeld had a big calendar of the whole year on the wall.

Every day when he wrote something funny, he’d cross the day out in a red marker.

This served three key purposes:

1. To remind him of the importance of consistency. Consistency creates new habits, which in turn breeds new behaviours and ways of thinking.
2. As a visual reminder to not ‘break the chain’. The longer the chain, the less the desire to ‘skip a day’.
3. As a celebration of the progress he’d made (life shouldn’t be all ‘stick’ and no ‘carrot’).

If you’re a subject expert or knowledge-based business:

• What can you do to commit – consistently – to an activity that’s going to push forward your business?
• How can you help your clients create new habits that are going to support the transition you’re helping them to achieve?

At Candle Digital, we’re increasingly experimenting with email nudges in our course designs. These are a way to consolidate key teachings, instigate activity to apply what’s been learned in the audience’s day-to-day lives, and just a method to stay ‘top of mind’. After all, nothing is more distracting than life itself!

Andy Jack

Andy loves helping subject experts, authors, speakers, coaches and key persons of influence to monetise their expertise with online learning. When not on his laptop, he'll usually be found up a mountain!