Make the Task Small Enough
Shrink the first step until you will actually take it — then let it double
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 96%
Peterson's core clinical rule for anyone who is down and out: you do not start with the goal, you start with the smallest action you will genuinely perform. The rule is stated plainly — make the task small enough so that you'll do it, no matter how small that is. If a client fails the task, you do not push harder, you shrink it further, and Peterson claims he has never seen anyone fail to progress once the task was small enough. The payoff is that progress after the first step compounds exponentially rather than linearly, so the size of the first step matters far less than whether it is actually taken.
Origin
Built from Peterson's clinical practice, including an 85-year-old client with a permanently fused broken neck who was so depressed he could not get out of bed; the first assignment was to sit up for thirty seconds, and two weeks later he was walking the hospital hall.
Core principles
- 01The task must be small enough that you will actually do it — nothing else matters at the start.
- 02Failure is data about task size, not about the person; shrink the task and re-run.
- 03Starting where you can start is the definition of humility.
- 04Progress from a first step compounds exponentially, so the smallness of the step is irrelevant.
- 05The trivial-looking first step is actually a confrontation with the whole problem standing behind it.
How to run it
- 1
Accept how far down you are
Recognise that the humiliating part is not the task but admitting the level you have to start from; people stall because where they must begin is embarrassing to even consider.
Pro tip Peterson relearned buttoning his shirts and where to put his hands on a keyboard after illness — the regression is normal, not disqualifying.
Watch out The humiliation of a tiny starting point is the single biggest reason people never start.
- 2
Cut the task down to something trivially doable
Reduce the intended action until it is something you are confident you will perform today — looking inside one drawer, sitting up for thirty seconds, moving a vacuum cleaner into a room.
Pro tip If cleaning your room is too big, the task can be looking into one drawer and thinking about how you might reorganise it.
- 3
Attempt it and report honestly
Do the task in the interval, then come back and state exactly what happened, including a total failure, without dressing it up.
Pro tip Reframe partial failure honestly — you got the vacuum out of the closet, which is not nothing.
Watch out Self-flagellation after a failed micro-task destroys the process; the task was too big, that is all.
- 4
Shrink again on failure
If the task was not done, do not repeat it or escalate — make it smaller and try again, experimentally, until one sticks.
Watch out Repeating a task that already failed at the same size just accumulates evidence of your own uselessness.
- 5
Let it compound
Once the first step is taken, keep taking the next-smallest step and allow the rate of progress to double rather than trying to force a large leap.
Pro tip Expect to feel like an impostor and a fool when learning anything new — that feeling is compatible with fast progress.
In the wild
A client in his eighties had fallen off a ladder, broken his neck, had it permanently fused, was in chronic pain and so depressed he could not leave his bed. Peterson's first prescription was to sit up for thirty seconds.
→ Within two weeks he was walking down the hospital hall and able to sit up and read for five or six minutes, then went home.
A thirty-year-old living in his childhood bedroom, about to become a father, agreed to vacuum his carpet. He got the vacuum as far as the doorway, left it leaning at 45 degrees, and stepped over it for a week.
→ Rather than treating it as failure, Peterson renegotiated a smaller task and credited him for getting the vacuum out of the closet at all.
Common mistakes
Prescribing Mount Everest to someone on the floor
Telling a person who is down and out to pick themselves up and go to the gym is putting them at the foot of a proverbial Mount Everest; the instruction is correct in direction and useless in scale, so nothing happens.
Treating a failed micro-task as a verdict on the person
A failed task means the task was still too large. Reading it as proof of personal uselessness stops the experiment exactly where it should continue.
Underrating small kept commitments
Small commitments people keep to themselves are chronically undervalued because they seem trivial, yet they are the mechanism by which capability and self-perception both change.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone who is depressed, stalled, recovering, or facing a goal so large that they have taken no action at all.
Not ideal for
People already executing consistently who need strategic direction rather than an entry point.
From the transcript
“And the rule is you have to make the task small enough so that you'll do it. No matter how small that is.”
“the first thing I did with him was get him to sit up for like 30 seconds”
“what you do in that situation is make the task smaller”
“you'll start progressing not linearly but exponentially in speed”
From the episode
Doctor Jordan Peterson: "The NUMBER ONE Reason For Divorce!" & "The One Small Step You Have To Take To Turn Your Whole Life Around!"
Jordan Peterson