Boost Productivity and Keep Your Progress Going with the Minimum Viable Accomplishment

How is your year going so far? Do you have goals you set on January 1st that you’re still halfheartedly trying to meet?

I want to share an idea I’ve been using in my own life that has proven helpful—that of the Minimum Viable Accomplishment. Perhaps this has happened to you: you set a goal, something like: I’m going to write for 30 minutes a day. You keep up with this goal for a while but, after some time, your enthusiasm wanes, other responsibilities start to feel more pressing, so you let a few days go by without meeting your goal and then, bam! You look up some time later and it’s been weeks since you’ve even thought about your goal. At this point, you barely remember having set the intention.

Here is a way around that: For any goal or practice that’s important to you, set two versions of the goal at the outset. The first version is your “homerun” goal—what you would accomplish on an ideal day. For example, maybe the homerun version is sitting down and working on your novel for 30 minutes every day. If you want to go one step farther, you could even schedule daily 30-minute blocks in your calendar at the start of every week so you know when they’re meant to happen. Realistically, though, as your week goes on, some things are going to come up. Maybe your writing time is in the morning and you oversleep one day. Maybe work gets busy and you really need to use your novel-writing time to finish a report or email a client before the end of the day.

Enter: the Minimum Viable Accomplishment—the second version of your goal. Decide ahead of time, for occasions when you’re not going to be able to meet the ideal version of your goal, what’s the minimum amount you could do that you’re still willing to give yourself credit for? Continuing with the example above, maybe this is pulling out your notebook and working on your story for 5 minutes. Or, if the ideal version of the goal is to go to the gym for 45 minutes, maybe the minimum viable accomplishment is doing 10 squats, pushups, and cat-cows on your living room floor.

Thus, on days when you’re not able to complete the ideal version of your goal, you’re not shifting away from the goal completely, you’re merely downshifting into a less onerous version of the goal, one that still keeps you oriented toward the ultimate, big-picture outcome you've determined is important to you. And, as long as you do just the minimum, you’re still giving yourself credit for having met your goal. That means you still give yourself the sticker or the check mark on your calendar, you still earn the takeout you planned to order on Friday night.

This works because, by accomplishing the minimum viable accomplishment, you’re staying in touch with your goal. You’re still thinking about it, and making progress toward your long-term goal. There may be a whole string of days when you’re only able to do the minimum, but your goal doesn’t get pushed to the back burner for so long that eventually you just forget about it. Instead, it stays front of mind while you make regular, small progress toward it.