How the 1% Method can help you become the best version of yourself

Airbnb has single-handedly disrupted the entire tourism industry, virtually created the sharing economy and become the biggest hotel booking site with a market value of over $30bn, and funnily enough, all without owning a single hotel themselves.

You would think that the company's success must be attributed to a crazy, big innovation that the world had never seen before, right? Well, if you take a closer look you'll find that actually Airbnb's business idea was nothing new and that competitors like Craigslist were already offering the exact same service even before Airbnb existed!

So how comes Airbnb's skyrocketed the way it did?

The 1% Method has got a lot do with it.

What is the 1% Method?

The 1% method involves making small improvements to single aspects of a process, product, behaviour, lifestyle, mindset, etc., which compound over time to collectively cause transformational positive changes in your life, health, business, relationships, and happiness.

I first encountered this concept when reading James Clear's #1 New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits and was starstruck*.* I used to think that it takes a lot of effort, planning, and time to make big changes and achieve great ambitions, whereas actually, big transformations and successes are oftentimes a collection of 1% improvements.

Let's see the 1% method in action.

How Airbnb used the 1% method to become bigger than Hilton, Marriott's and Co.

Airbnb is a prime example of how attention to detail and small 1% improvements can lead to huge success.

Firstly, the company offered free professional photography services to its hosts, who would take pictures for their Airbnb listings. This ensured that the website offered a slightly more professional and trustworthy feel to it.

Secondly, the website was designed based on Steve Job's 3-click-rule, in which website visitors were never more than 3 clicks away from making a booking. This ensured that Airbnb's platform offered slighter better ease of use than competitor's websites.

In combination with that, it also included small additional features like a verification process and a review system for hosts and travelers, which gave people more trust and confidence about letting strangers stay on their sofas.

While these small details still appear great ideas by themselves, it is really their combination that created a compounding effect that has defined Airbnb's success. The company's attention to offering an easy-to-use platform that looks professional and offers the above features collectively created a much greater user experience than that offered by competitors and most importantly created within consumers what is arguably the most fundamental success factor in the sharing economy: trust.

So if an array of small 1% improvements give a company like Airbnb the power to make people believe into the company and put trust into their services, essentially convince people to put themselves into what others would describe as a vulnerable position, imagine what tiny improvements can do for your own life?

How the 1% Method can help you become the best version of yourself

Let's now turn to why you have probably come to read this blog post for. How can you harvest the power of the 1% method for yourself?

The beauty of the 1% method is that it can be applied to virtually every aspect of your life, your general lifestyle, daily habits, your health, work, happiness, hobbies, relationships, and so on.

Using the 1% method to create your optimal daily routine

In my opinion the biggest opportunity that the 1% holds is when applying it to your daily routine.

To start off, you first need to become aware of all the little aspects that make up your life and who you are. To help you create that self-awareness, follow these 3 easy steps:

1. Pick a normal day and consciously watch yourself. Write up every single activity that you do throughout the course of your day. Write it down on paper, a note-taking app or the back of your hand, but write it down.
2. Analyse yourself, what do you spend your time doing? Are you happy with what you are seeing?
3. Highlight all the good habits with green and all the bad habits with red.

Once you are finished take a closer look at your bad habits. Why did you highlight them in red? What makes them a bad habit? Then think about how you could improve that habit by 1%.

Maybe you're unhappy with how much time you spend on social media. Can you cut that time by just 10 minutes a day? That's over 1 hour a week, or 60 hours a year! Imagine all the things you can achieve within 60 hours.

A habit that changed my life completely in that respect, was to start keeping a success journal every day for 10 minutes, in which I reflect on each day, all the happenings of the day, my achievements, what went not so well and what I am going to do about. I also use the journal as an opportunity to remind myself of all the things that I am grateful for, to analyse whether I am actually doing to all the things that I want to be doing and plan the next day.

I started to understand myself so much better and how I spend my time. It also prompted to make other small changes like unfollowing all those people on social media whose polished life makes you feel like you are living the most boring life and started following inspirational sites and people who genuinely provide good positive content that aid you in achieving personal goals and happiness.

I also started to read books, do online courses, and listen to podcasts instead of watching TV to continuously learn and educate myself.

I incorporated little morning walks to get some fresh air, wake me up, and start each day on a positive note.

Ultimately, all these little tweaks had a huge impact on my life. I feel more productive, less bored, more grateful, more confident, more curious, more energetic, and overall A LOT happier. And all that just from making a few small 1% improvements to my daily routine.

Using the 1% method to improve you health

Similar to the way you can improve your daily routine, you can use the 1% method to improve your physical health.

Again start by becoming aware of all the aspects that make up your overall health, the most important being:

1. Diet (How many calories are you eating? How are they split up between carbs, fats, and protein, vitamins and minerals?)
2. Exercise (How many hours do you exercise each weak?)
3. Sleep (How many hours do you sleep on average each night?)

Then analyse each aspect a bit closer and think about how you could improve them by 1%.

Can you eat one just one more piece of fruit each day? Can you cut out that one bar of chocolate a week?

Can you go for just one run once a week? Can you do one gym class every Saturday? What about just 10 push-ups every day after you get up?

Can you go to bed 15 minutes earlier than you usually do? Can you turn your phone off and put it across the room (or in a different room altogether) so you are not tempted to stay on it for too long? (Side note: get an analog alarm clock!) Are your pillow and mattress right for you? Do you ensure you are sleeping in complete darkness and silence?

Using the 1% method to improve you finances

Lastly, you could use the 1% method to improve your finances to finally be able to afford that Heli-Skiing trip in Alaska.

Start with tracking all your incomes and expenses.

-Income: Do you have both sources of active and passive income? What do you do with that income? Are you just spending or saving it? Have you thought about investing it to expand its value?

-Expenses: What are you spending your money on? Are the things you are buying and the monthly subscriptions you have really worth their price? Are there any cheaper alternatives?

Imagine cutting all the individual expenses you have got by 1%, how much would that add up to?

Summary & Conclusions

• The 1% method involves making small improvements to single aspects of a process, product, behaviour, lifestyle, mindset, etc., which compound over time to collectively cause transformational positive changes in your life, health, business, relationships, and happiness.
• Successs is more often than not the result of improving every detail by 1% rather than focussing on improving one aspect by 100%.
• The 1% method can be applied to virtually every aspect of life, be it your daily routine, health or finances. How are you going to use the 1% method?