Activation energy and the science of getting started

I’ve come up with two hacks to get Ayva to clean her room: I set a five-minute timer and challenge her to see how much she can get done before the alarm goes off, and I tell her to focus on one thing first, like picking up all the kokis (or ‘texters’ in Aus) before moving on to the next thing.

It works every time! I’ve turned a chore into a game with the timer, and made it easy to begin - texters first.

Little did I know that I was tapping into the science of activation energy to light a (figurative) cracker under her ass and get her moving.

When it comes to improving their sustainability, the hardest part for most businesses is getting started.

It’s one thing to want to be carbon neutral (i.e., wanting to clean their room), quite another knowing how to and what comes first (i.e., the kokis texters or the Lego).

Understanding activation energy can help.

Activation energy is the amount of time, effort, and resources needed to start and finish something.

Anything that takes too much effort to begin - because it’s difficult, time-consuming, or soul-sucking - will also be harder to finish.

But if something is easy to start - I’m talking ridiculously easy, like one push-up a day if your goal is to lose 20kg - there’s a higher chance that you’ll not only do the thing consistently, but that you’ll keep going once you’ve started because you’ve crossed the activation threshold.

The secret to starting - and to keep going - is to reduce the amount of activation energy needed to begin.

You’re already down there, might as well do two push-ups, right? Hell, you might even bang out 10 (you daredevil, you).

But the important part to remember is that if you only do one push-up, you were successful! You started the thing. You’re on your way! Maybe you’ll do 10 tomorrow. Maybe you won’t. The key is consistency in showing up and letting the small actions compound.

Find the path of least resistance.

We’re a lazy bunch. We want things to be easy, especially the things we don’t want to do or don’t care much about. To drive behaviour change in your business, you need to make it as easy as possible to get your people involved.

Want to start a recycling programme? Put a dedicated bin in the staff kitchen for recyclables. They may not care for recycling (yet), but tossing their Coke can into the recycling bin requires barely any effort on their part.

Want to reduce your emissions by being more energy efficient? Change one lightbulb a day to an LED one.

Want to improve employee wellbeing? Give people their birthdays off.

Remember: Small changes need less energy to begin and, therefore, less energy to keep going. Big changes need big activation energy and are often doomed to fail before they start.

For the times when you need a shove to get going…

Look, some things still suck, no matter how much you simplify them. I’m never going to get excited about cleaning the cat box. 

If you’ve broken it all down and there’s no easy way to start the thing, a catalyst might help - like the cat taking a giant dump in the box rendering me unable to breathe until I clean it.

Catalysts work.

The higher the activation energy needed to start, the more important the catalyst. You’ll never form a habit if it takes too much effort to start.

In business, catalysts could be bi-weekly meetings to track progress, appointing a sustainability officer to keep people accountable, or making a game of it and tapping into people’s natural competitiveness to bring about change.

Applying activation energy to your sustainability goals

With the list of potential sustainability issues a mile long, many businesses get overwhelmed and do nothing. Don’t be like them. Even the smallest changes add up to big things.

Here are some tips:

• Set a lofty goal. Have you noticed that many big businesses set a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. Do you think they know how they’re going to achieve this? I don’t. Everyone is just winging it at this stage. But while it’s important to have a vision, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed thinking about how you’ll make it happen.

• Break it down. What’s the smallest daily goals or habits you can think of that will inch you closer to the goal? Look for the low-hanging fruit - there’s nothing like a quick win to spark momentum.

• Find a catalyst. If it still requires a lot of energy to start, identify a trigger that will jolt you into action.

• Just start. Start somewhere. Start anywhere. Just start. Nobody expects you to change the world overnight. They just want you to show up, commit to something, and admit that you don’t have all the answers yet. 

— Tarryn ✌️

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P.P.S. Want to work with me? I help businesses to define their purpose, craft their content strategies, and tell the sustainability stories that make an impact and inspire change. Pop me a mail if that’s something you need help with.

This week's climate and sustainability news worth noting

⚡️The world will likely use fewer fossil fuels to produce electricity this year - the first ever annual drop in the use of coal, oil, and gas to generate electricity outside of a global recession or pandemic.

💪 A group of elderly women in Switzerland has succeeded in getting a court to decide on whether climate protection is a human right, after fighting for these rights for six years. The case was heard in the European Court of Human Rights in March; the verdict is expected soon.

🥵 It’s becoming increasingly likely that the world will be hit with an El Niño weather system this year, which will bring higher temperatures, drought, wildfires, and faster polar ice melt. Some scientists have predicted that 2023 could rank among Earth’s hottest years on record at a time when global ocean surface temperature reached record highs this month, and sea levels on China’s coastline have hit their highest on record for the second year in a row.

🇺🇸 The Biden administration wants to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission vehicles. It has proposed mandating a 56% cut in vehicle emissions by 2032, which means two out of every three cars sold will be electric within a decade. But over 60% of Americans believe that electric vehicles only help address climate change a little or not at all, and 41% say they won’t buy one.

🧪 Australian scientists have successfully used backyard mould to break down one of the world's most stubborn plastics — a discovery they hope could ease the burden of the global recycling crisis within years. It took 90 days for the fungi to degrade 27% of the plastic tested, and about 140 days to completely break it down, after the samples were exposed to UV rays or heat.

🇫🇷 France plans to ban short-haul domestic flights between cities that are linked by a train journey of 2.5 hours or less.

🌀 Wild weather: Tropical storm Ilsa set new wind speed records in northwest Australia.

And in business news:

🪨 Microsoft is investing in “enhanced weathering”, a technique that aims to tackle climate warming by scattering 25,000 tons of crushed rock onto British fields. The crushed basalt - a by-product from mining - will react with carbon dioxide in rainwater to trap heat and lock it away for tens of thousands of years. If successful, this project could remove 6,250 tons of CO2 over the next 20 years.

🔋 Apple will use 100% recycled cobalt in all its batteries by 2025 as part of its shift towards using 100% recycled and renewable materials to achieve carbon neutral products by 2030.

🇨🇦 The Royal Bank of Canada - the country’s largest lender by assets - is now the world’s largest backer of fossil fuel companies. Annoyingly, the Bank’s stock rose 0.53% after the news broke.

📢 More than 500 advertising, public relations, and communications firms have joined the Clean Creatives group, pledging not to work with fossil fuel companies and to stop the spread of climate disinformation. 

Well, that's interesting

If climate change had a voice, what would it sound like?

Scientists and musicians are recording the sounds of unfreezing water to document and predict the effects of climate change. The results are calming, haunting, unnerving...

Have a listen to the ice-melting soundtrack and feel all the feels:

Is it just me or did it suddenly get colder in here? 🥶

One small thing you can do.

Because lots of little actions combined can add up to something remarkable.

Unsubscribe from 1 newsletter you never read

We all get emails that we rarely (or never) read.

When they come into my mailbox, I swipe left, delete. It takes two seconds. And it’s always the same ones: A newsletter from a florist in South Africa, a lifestyle newsletter that I don’t remember subscribing to, and a ‘recipe of the week’ newsletter which is hilarious because I don’t cook.

I know this is irrational but deleting is easier than unsubscribing, even though I know it will take 10 seconds to unsubscribe, while the time spent deleting probably adds up to an entire month of my life that I’ll never get back.

But there’s another good reason to unsubscribe: Every newsletter generates 10 grams of CO2, and only around 10% of newsletters are ever opened. That’s a lot of unnecessary emissions.

So, this week, unsubscribe from one newsletter (just not this one 😬).

Chances are, one you unsubscribe from one, you’ll keep going #activationenergy 

I'll leave you on this happy note...

A Rottweiler and a black panther are the best of friends.

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