A 10-Year Weekly Practice
Almost exactly 10 years ago, I made a decision.
I decided to create a weekly practice.
Get on my train. Write while the train is moving. Stop when it stops. Proof read once. Post online.
I had already experimented with it in August 2016, then was away for weddings in Yorkshire, Bulgaria and Ibiza the first couple of weeks in September. And then, sometime mid-late September 2016, the weekly practice started.
‘I’ll do it,’ I thought, ‘until Christmas.’
And here we are. A full decade of ‘the train series’, as it was… ‘The 12-Minute blog’ as it became, once I had stopped getting the train as much.
The first three years - including many blogs written on my phone on the train - came to about 80,000 words.
12 minutes a week, three years… 80,000 words.
They then became - with a little editing - a series of four books.
So we can conservatively estimate that in 12-minute sessions over 10 years, I’ve written something like 260,000 words. Although I suspect it’s more than that, probably more than 300,000, because my writing almost all happens on the computer now, and I’m a much faster typer here.
12 minutes a week. 10 years. 300,000 words.
A decade of work.
Choosing phrasing.
Crystalising ideas.
Choosing courage.
Sharing my work.
You can’t go through something like that and not change. And for sure, I have.
But I’m not the only one.
Everywhere, people are making small commitments over long periods of time.
When you do that, the work compounds. You grow, and so each small contribution is more on-point, more skilful, more impactful.
When you do that, your impact compounds. Each time you act in the world you have an impact. You are here for this blog post; most of you weren’t here for post number 2. But some people were. And they are still out there, still in some small way containing what was in that writing. And they are out there, making an impact.
We have spent too long in our society lionising the hare in Aesop’s fable. Forgetting that the hare doesn’t win the race. No one can go at hare pace forever.
That fable is a work of praise for the slow, steady, persistence that creates real change in the world.
For all the people who make a small impact, every week, on something that they think matters.
We don’t want to ignore the hare: I love a crazy challenge or a sprint finish as much as anyone.
But we need to integrate the tortoise more into how we look at the world.
Here’s my challenge to you: I don’t think you’re doing that.
I think there’s something important that if you start doing it - even for just 12 minutes each week - will create over 10 years the kind of impact you can’t even imagine.
That’s what’s available to you, to your people, to your organisation.
It’s almost impossible not to get sucked into the urgent in the 21st Century, when everything seems to be shouting at us.
That’s why you need to slow down, even for just 12 minutes a week, and do that thing.
You know the one.
The one you’ve been meaning to do for years.
Do that for a decade and it won’t just be you who is transformed.
It will be your corner of the world, too.
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PS I coach leaders and entrepreneurs. Read more here: https://www.robbieswale.com/
PPS My latest book, The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World, is out now. Get your copy here: https://geni.us/powertochoose
This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.