What is the 1%?

and what does it have to do with living slowly?

(This voiceover is an audio version of the newsletter below. It’s unedited, so includes things like word stumbles and dogs barking, but if you like/need to listen to these posts I hope you enjoy it anyway!)

Roses and shingles on Vashon Island, WA about a million years ago (aka 2018).

Welcome to my first ever Sunday letter!

Usually these weekend posts (twice a month, sometimes more) will be for paying subscribers, but I decided to leave this one free for everyone because A) I believe so strongly in it and want everyone to be able read it, and B) want you to see the kind of writing you’d be supporting by becoming a paid subscriber.

Moving forward, the first Sunday of the month will be a 1% check-in (more on this in the post below), while the other Sunday post will be either a more personal letter, a look behind the scenes of life (I have a hankering to share some more but not in a social media kind of way) or, as is the case for the rest of March, a super practical series. This month will be all about Values (read on to the bottom for more info).

But for today, I want to write in-depth about something you may have heard me talk about in the final episode of The Slow Home Podcast. It’s my phrase of 2023.

The 1%.

Or, as I like to think of it: slow and steady change.

So grab a cup of something nice to drink and jump on in. This is a meaty letter and I wouldn’t want you to get dehydrated.

Early morning journaling in Charleston SC, midway through the Slow book tour.

I first learnt about the idea of 1% when reading about living with chronic health conditions – I came across multiple authors who wrote about the importance of small changes to treatment or lifestyle and how even a 1% improvement mattered. The thinking being that a handful of 1% improvements is significant in improving well-being and quality of life (and it is).

But as I looked further into it, I realised that while it was a new idea for me, none of it is actually new. The Japanese philosophy of kaizen has morphed into a shorthand for continuous improvement in business processes, and there’s loads of blog posts that highlight how the compound effect of small daily improvements leads to huge gains over time. This post from James Clear, for example, highlights the maths of how a daily 1% improvement over the course of a year results in you being 37 times better at that thing by the end of that year.  

(For me, the difficulty comes when you try and quantify “better”. Maybe if you’re talking about something measurable like the time it takes you to run a kilometre, you could track it, but what about becoming a better listener? Or improving your relationships? Or becoming healthier mentally? All worthy, all prone to the ups and downs of being human, none quantifiable).

Gradually, then suddenly

The concept of small steps adding up to big progress has appealed to me for as long as I remember. It feels almost magical. Like the positive flip-side of Ernest Hemingway’s quote from The Sun Also Rises:

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

I’ve always loved that quote and that idea. Gradually, then suddenly.

I remember when I was the new kid at my high school, seeing myself as a fish out of water for weeks, wondering if I was ever going to feel at ease, only to turn around one day and realise that I did. The same thing would happen any time I started a new job or attended a new class. I’d find my groove gradually (so gradual that I wasn’t aware it was happening), then suddenly (one day recognising a sense of familiarity that hadn’t been there the day before).

I think that’s what appealed to me about the 1% from the very beginning. It was a sustainable, committable way of living the gradual, then sudden approach to positive change.

Over the past couple of months I’ve experimented a bit with it, and found that the 1% can be both a mindset and a set of tools. For me, it’s less about measurable, quantifiable improvement, and more about consistently showing up and having faith that by doing so, I will grow and change in ways that are important to me.

The aim is not for me to look back over the year and see that I can benchpress double my current weight (not that I’d be mad about that kind of increase) but to look back over the year and see that I regularly committed time and energy to the things I value in my life. That the things I say are priorities are actually given priority treatment.

In terms of the 1% itself, there are multiple ways of using the phrase in your day-to-day life. They’re related but different, and depending on your focus, your day, your capacity, your headspace and your energy, there will be a way of applying at least one of them pretty much every day.

1% of my day = just under 15 minutes: That is, can I spend 15 minutes working towards or focusing my time and energy on a specific area of my life? At the moment I use this tool for things like scheduling 15 minute workouts, 15 minutes of journaling, 15 minutes trimming the garden hedges or 15 minutes of creative play. The thinking being that if I truly value something in my life, I should be able to give 1% of my day to it (this is not always the case, but a helpful driver on those days where I’m genuinely dragging my feet rather than genuinely unable).

Alternatively, 1% of a week is around one hour and forty minutes, so depending on your schedule and capacity, it might be more helpful to give your 1% in one bigger chunk. Going for a bushwalk once a week or spending a couple of hours with your parents, for example.

1% effort towards a long-term goal or practise: In this instance, the power lies in both the consistency of effort and faith that – over time – these efforts will add up. This means taking regular action that leads to positive change.

Maybe you choose to focus on a broad area of life, like physical or mental health, playfulness, or relationships, and apply an incremental increase in effort to that thing. (Walk for five minutes longer, practise gratitude for 30 seconds every night around the dinner table, play a board game once a week or make your partner a cup of tea and sit together for a few quiet moments).  

Or maybe you want to establish a new practise – writing daily, meditation, reducing stress or growing self-compassion, and spend a fraction of your day actively working towards that. (Write a crappy haiku every morning, download a meditation app and try a new practise, unfollow social media accounts that make you feel stressed, or find a personal mantra and repeat it to yourself every morning.)

Once this increased effort becomes normal, look for a way to nudge it up again.

1% of something small is still something: This is about doing the tiny task that will make a tiny impact. They don’t need to be attached to any grand plan or goal, and because of that, this is the tool I fall back on on those days where I’m just spent.

Pack that thing away, send that text now, give my kid a hug, take time to take three deep breaths, to say hi to my neighbour, etc. Are these things small? Absolutely. Are they insignificant? Not likely.

Do something that might improve things by 1% (even if you can’t commit to a regular effort): Don’t let the fact that you can’t do something all the time stop you from doing it some of the time.

Let’s say you want to reduce the amount of plastic you use but can’t commit to making your own wraps every week. (Just a very random and not at all specific to me example, okay?) But what if you do have the capacity to make your own wraps one weekend? And that resulted in one less plastic wrapper over the course of the month or year? That is a reduction. It is literally achieving the goal.

How does this relate to slow?

This is intentional. Using the 1% as a lens through which I view my daily choices I’m able to see that they are what add up to a life.

This is belief in the power of small and steady. I don’t know what/if any payoff will come of this. As I said earlier, there is no way to measure the improvement in a relationship, A) because we will never know what it would look like without these efforts and B) how do you measure the improvement in a relationship anyway? But I can now look back and see the efforts. See how I showed up when I could.

This is literally slow. Gradual change is powerful, and the 1% banks on consistency over time, changing habits, building momentum and reminding yourself that you care enough about this particular part of your life to show up for it every day. We can’t discount how transformative that show of faith in ourselves is.

This is sustainable. It’s kind and realistic and gracious and compassionate.

This is values-aligned. It involves asking, “What’s important to me right now?” and working towards growth in that area. These can be big picture values, small-scale shifts, or more immediate goals/projects that could be in service of them.

So how do we apply the 1%?

In short, however you want, in whatever way feels right to you. This is how I’ve been applying it and invite you to join me if you feel drawn to it.

I try to steer clear of overly prescriptive routines or frameworks (mostly because I inevitably miss a day or skip a step and feel like a failure) so it feels good and light and inviting to keep it as loose as possible, while also holding space for the idea.

If you want to try it out, maybe choose one thing, one area, one goal or value you want to work towards, then try to look at it through the lens of 1%.

It might be big picture – focusing on your health, connection to nature or embracing creativity.

Or related to your personal values (more on this at the end of the post) – family, community, justice or beauty, for example.

Or aligned with a specific goal you’re working towards – creating a new garden bed, writing a blog post every week or saving money.

Then spend some time thinking about 1% or 15-minute tasks you can do to help work towards this goal.

• This might be the same action every day. If your goal is something like “improve mental health” you might meditate every day, or walk every day.

• You might want to write a list of actions that work towards this growth or improvement. For example, read out loud to the kids at night, play together at the park, snuggle up and watch an episode of your favourite tv show together, put down your phone when they walk into the room, etc. Then you can dip into the list every time you want to give your 1%.

• It might also be a process or a plan of evolving steps as you progress. Eg. You might want to improve your cardio fitness over time and decide to row every morning. Start with 2 minutes and add 10 seconds every day. By the end of the month that 2 minutes will have become 7 minutes.

What I’m already seeing in my own life is that these regular efforts add up. In fact, they add up way more than thinking about big changes but not consistently working towards them.

There’s also a sense of empowerment that comes with applying the 1%. Not only do I feel like I can make positive progress every day, I can also see that I was already doing many things to work towards my values. Now I’m just recognising them for the intentional actions they are, rather than just a thing I do.

The only way I have been able to really recognise all of this though, is by reflecting.

I mentioned my logbook last week, where I jot down bits and pieces from my day, and it’s here that I’ve also been keeping track of my various 1% efforts.

At the top of every page, I leave room for a list of them. Some days there might be five or six 1%s, other days I struggle to find one. But so far, I’ve been able to look back over every day and see that somewhere in there was a choice to show up just that little bit extra for something I care about.

So if you want to join in, maybe create a space to note down your 1% efforts. Perhaps you have a calendar or a daybook that you can jot in, or the Notes app on your phone.

There’s no rewards chart or anything. It’s just another tool to reflect on the choices we make, and the life we’re creating – slowly and steadily.

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As I mentioned at the top of this (monster!) letter, moving forward, I plan on doing a 1% check-in post on the first Sunday of every month. It will include a reflection on last month’s effort (what worked, what didn’t, what areas of life I focused on), a focus (or focuses… foci…?) for the month ahead, and a list of actions I’ll be leaning on.

If you know someone who might benefit from today’s post, please feel free to share it with them. As of April, the 1% posts will be for paying subscribers only, but I would love for this one to be shared as far and wide as possible.

Want to know more about values?

Before I sign off, just a reminder about the values workshop that starts next week here on The Tortoise. All paying subscribers will have access to the three-part workshop, which starts Sunday March 12.

The workshop will be online and pre-recorded, so you can take it at a time that works for you.

If you’re:

• confused about what we mean when we talk about personal values

• unsure how to figure out what yours are, or how they might have changed

• wanting to know how to use your values to make more intentional choices

• looking for clarity on how to move forward through change, personal evolution or a new season in life

come and join me as I dig into personal values. The what, the why and the how.

Over two practical sessions and one Q&A session I will take you through the process of identifying and clarifying your personal values and using them to build a foundation on which you can create a different way of living.

Part 1: Sunday, 12th March – What are values, why we need them and how to identify yours

Part 2: Sunday, 19th March – How to use your values to make decisions and create a life well-lived

Part 3: Sunday, 26th March – Q&A

Usually, these workshops would cost $100+ online and more than that in-person, but you can gain access to it by becoming a paying subscriber to The Tortoise for just $5/month. No matter how you shake it, I reckon that’s a bargain.

And that’s it for this massive post. I hope there’s something in here that resonates with you. Let me know in the comments if you plan on experimenting with the 1% this month, and if so, what part of life do you think you might focus on?

For me, I plan to focus on my garden (getting it ready for winter planting) and tentatively starting back on the middle-grade novel I was working on last year (15 minutes a day seems doable, but we’ll see).

See you next week.
Brooke xx