Comedian, podcaster, author, auto-racer, entrepreneur (and more) Adam Carolla tells a story in his first book In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks about the power of doing the little things. In this story, he is pre-fame and pre-disposable income and working in construction. He relates a small story about each day he rises early to go to work, he brings a mug of coffee out to his broken-down pick-up truck, and each evening after a long day's work he returns home to see this mug laying on the passenger side floorboard where it has rolled and joined its prior mug companions.

          He recalls having this internal conversation, "Sure I could lean over there and pick it up but I've got another mug or two inside. This can go another day before I have to lean over there and pick them up." And then it hits him, when he finally does pick them up, he's got to take them all inside and wash them all and repeat this cycle complete with the daily "Will I or won't I pick up the mugs?" conversation. He comes to the conclusion that in the long run simply picking up the mug each day, washing it for use on the next requires less time, effort, and cognitive load than his current habit.

          He comes to the conclusion that that's what all life's excuses are, what all procrastination rationales are-ways to get out of doing the small tasks that lead to easier rewards all the while insuring that you will be left with larger tasks with lesser rewards. This habit of putting the little things off helps in no way. So, in short, his philosophy of life became "Pick up the mug."

          Economist Tyler Cowan comes to the same conclusion with his concept of marginal revolutions. Expressed succinctly Cowan observes that most progress (not all) comes from the small regular inputs of effort put into a system that over time magnifies to large results. We human beings often observe the end results of marginal efforts while having ignored the marginal inputs along the way. Allowing judgement to give greater weight to end results than to the steady small input skews how we see the world-it leads us often to assume that great things come only from great effort as opposed to cumulative regular effort.

One small example of "picking up mugs" leading to marginal revolutions.

Let's say you have novel-writing aspirations, the average novel runs between 100,000 to 175,000 words. When one holds a novel in ones hands it has weight and heft to it-it feels like an achievement beyond the ken of most.

And yet, the average paragraph is composed of approximately 100 words. If one were to commit themselves to writing a mere three paragraphs per day for one year that would break the low end of the novel word-count scale. Three paragraphs, that's all-that's not even churning out a full-page of writing per day.

But...

Look at it this way, if you have novel-writing aspirations but you balk at the effort of turning out 100,000+ words, you would be less anxious if challenged to hit the three paragraphs per day mark.

You can either sit down and knock out 100,000+ words in say a month of furious writing, or you can spend a leisurely 15-20 minutes per day crafting your three paragraphs over the course of a year. Either way you wind up with the same page count, with one course of action feeling a bit less burdensome although the page count is the same. (Of course, we have made no claims for literary quality here-that's all on the author.)

No matter what your goal, what your aim whether it be novel writing, conditioning, or the seldom heard but perhaps true bedrock of life, the goal of developing character all are best served by constant small inputs of attention, steady small rites of practice as opposed to vigorous and furious sessions of productivity and then periods where you lie fallow or at worse retrograde.

Let's hear the great Stoic teacher Epictetus on the subject:

"No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you, that there must be time. Let if first blossom, then bear fruit, then let the fruit ripen. Since, then, the fruit of a fig tree is not brought to perfection suddenly, or in one hour, do you think to possess instantaneously and easily the fruit of the human mind? I warn you, expect it not."

Whether it be figs, novels, or marginal revolutions of any sort-nothing is done unless or until you pick up the mug.