“Tiny Experiments” by Anne-Laure Le Cunff (personal notes)

Happy little experiments

Here are my notes on Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s book Tiny Experiments.

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Linear goals are boring because predictable. Pacts are iterative and invite reinvention. Climbing up career ladder vs time-bound experiments.

Stability is a prerequisite for exploration. “It’s harder to stay curious when your life is unstable” Stability so you can focus on other (more important) things. Getting rid of the urgent to focus on the important.

Try longer commitments: 3 months, 6 months… (× long hangouts (The Art of Gathering))
Tiny Experiments (commitments) are like jumping into a river: you just have to (make the decision to) jump; once you’re in the air, the rest inexorably follows. (× “Jump!” (DO Lectures))

Focus full-time on a project. “He left his job at Wall Street and created a blog.”
Announcing a goal makes you less likely to complete it. (× those who do should talk, and those who talk should do (Skin in the Game)

Setting up your experiment
- Pact MVP (Think tiny): What’s the smallest version of this experiment that you can run?
- Think of your worst day. Design your pact so you can still do it on difficult days.
- You don’t have to go bigger. “Persist”: resist the temptation to one-up if the experiment was successful. (× things that don’t scale (Skin in the Game); Degrowth)
  - “I wanted to meditate once a week in a group. This does not require me to build a big meditation organization.”

Make videos / Record yourself. “A new mode of expression.”
- “I made a pact to film myself every day for ten days and to share it online. This experiment unlocked an entirely new mode of expression to add to my creative repertoire.”

Cold curiosity vs hot curiosity (rational vs emotional curiosity). Make experiments at the intersection.
Procrastination is a sign. Procrastination indicates a mismatch between head, heart, hand: rationality, emotions, abilities. Don’t shoot the messenger; listen to it. procrastination is not the enemy.
- Head: Redefine strategy
- Heart: Redesign the experience
- Hand: Request support (delegate) or get training

Partnered experiments. Partnered pacts. (Partnered commitments.)
- Commit with a partner on trying out something for a set period of time. E.g. with romantic or sexual partners.
  - “Let’s get married for one year.” “Let’s have a fake wedding and see how it feels.” “Let’s live together for a week.” (e.g. handfasting (temporary marriage))
- Trial period. “You cannot know if you would like to live in a city by spending one afternoon there.” (× trial decisions (Clear Thinking))
Tiny experiment your life: successive periods, all time-bound. (Regular travels.)

Re-intentionalize regularly — not once a year. Review your efforts, strategize, try new things. Get inspired every week!
Notice what is absent. Go through your journal and notice what you never talk about, think about, or feel. “Data can tell you a lot through what is not there.”

The personal is the universal. Both personal and universal (e.g. hero’s journey, The Hero With a Thousand Faces).
A community gives you access to extra knowledge, skills and physical assets that vastly exceed your own. (× extended intelligence (The Singularity is Near))
Breaking the Game: Asking users how to monetize the website.
- (Open Startup movement — writing about your learnings as you are building your product (e.g. analytics))
Personal reviews in team meetings. Plus Minus Next: What went well, what didn’t, action steps.

We tend to narrow down potential friendships as we age — for better or for worse. (We become less open as we age — × psychedelics increase the personality trait of openness; openness (big 5 personality trait))
- “As we mature we progressively narrow the scope and variety of our lives. Of all the interests we might pursue, we settle on a few. Of all the people with whom we might associate, we select a small number. We become caught in a web of fixed relationships. We develop set ways of doing things.”

Cryptic patents: scientists used to publish their findings in anagrams — letting them claim priority while disclosing them only when they saw fit. (anagrammatic secrecy; Kepler)

Overcoming stage fright: “In a hundred years, you’ll be dead, and so will every single person in the audience. So quit worrying and get out there.”
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” (Vivian Greene)
- (× “Never walk when you can dance” (Marshall Rosenberg))
- “Dance with disruption. When life’s song abruptly changes, relax and listen. Stay nimble. Explore your subjective experience with curiosity before confronting the objective consequences of the disruption. Then chaos can become a source of transformation.” (× Antifragile)
Not all time is equal. Objective vs subjective time (chronos vs kairos). One’s objective lifetime is distinct from one’s subjective lifetime — live big.

“8 weeks of rowing until you reach flow.” Practices need a certain time until you reach flow; commit the course for a few weeks to reach flow, and then decide. (Lenar, Flow)

Clear formats: James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: 3 ideas from James, 2 quotes from others, 1 question for the reader to ponder.