While this article focuses on a niche, tiny wins are a universally applicable concept. I think they are a powerful abstraction.
I recently finished "Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything" by BJ Fogg [1], which talks about this in generality. The essence is that behaviors are a product of motivation, ability, and prompts. By keeping things tiny, we avoid the need of very high motivation, the need for very high ability, and devise easy triggers/prompts to get work done. It has been quite fun to identify tiny habits in my daily routine, I've collected quite a few and narrowed down on what works and what doesn't.
This is then applicable to software engineering, product development etc. One of Instagram's co-founder was apparently enrolled in the author's class, and therefore pops up as an example a few times through the book.
I've always ridiculed self-help books. This book does have a self-help flavor, but always concludes with precise actionable advice. By developing a general framework and a mental model around habits (think abstraction in usual software engineering terms), it does feel more controllable. Highly recommended!
I recently finished "Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything" by BJ Fogg [1], which talks about this in generality. The essence is that behaviors are a product of motivation, ability, and prompts. By keeping things tiny, we avoid the need of very high motivation, the need for very high ability, and devise easy triggers/prompts to get work done. It has been quite fun to identify tiny habits in my daily routine, I've collected quite a few and narrowed down on what works and what doesn't.
This is then applicable to software engineering, product development etc. One of Instagram's co-founder was apparently enrolled in the author's class, and therefore pops up as an example a few times through the book.
I've always ridiculed self-help books. This book does have a self-help flavor, but always concludes with precise actionable advice. By developing a general framework and a mental model around habits (think abstraction in usual software engineering terms), it does feel more controllable. Highly recommended!
[1]: https://www.librarything.com/work/23220746/book/198725553