Let me start with my own experience with the power of accumulation.
During one summer break, I took part in a data management internship. I was given an Excel sheet filled with rows and rows of addresses. My task was to extract the postcode from those addresses and place the postcodes in a separate column. Not too difficult, right? It is quite easy to find the postcode in an address and write it down; any middle school kid can do it. However, when you have thousands and thousands of addresses (which was the amount of addresses I had in my internship), it would take up a lot of time for me to identify the postcode in each address one by one and write it down, not to mention that I will most definitely be fatigued and bored very quickly. Hence, an incredibly simple task of identifying the postcode from an address becomes a much more difficult job when the number of addresses accumulate.
That is an example of accumulation used in a negative sense. What I aim to discuss in this article today is how we can ‘abuse’ the power of accumulation in the positive sense, and how the little things we do in life can accumulate and lead to an astonishing difference.
I was inspired to write this article when I was listening to a podcast episode of ‘Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal’ where the host chats with Matthew Dicks. One big takeaway from this particular episode was that it is the little increments of change that we do on a regular basis that leads to the fruition of our dreams. On the surface, it may appear that Bill Gates suddenly became a billionaire. That colleague of yours was suddenly promoted. That classmate of yours suddenly became the prom queen.
But when you dive deep down beyond all that, I believe that it is the little things that we do in our lives that lead to this apparently sudden success that came from nowhere. Matthew Dicks talked about how he won the storytelling and how he initially thought that it was out of luck, but his wife reminded him of all the little things that he did along his life that prepared him for his victory: being an elementary school teacher, he had to constantly tell stories to kids, who have the briefest attention span in the world, and keep that engaged. All those times that he spent teaching children has accumulated and subconsciously cushioned him to be the winner of that storytelling competition.
Another source that resonated with me about the power of accumulation is the book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear. An analogy that James Clear used that I really liked was this: if we adjust a plane that was taking off from New York to Los Angeles by just 3° before takeoff, the plane would be closer to Tijuana, Mexico than to Los Angeles if the 3° was not corrected. That small 3° difference accumulated over the distance of travel. Imagine a small difference that we make that accumulate over the span of time. It could be the deciding factor between the life we despise or the life we dream of.
Hence, let us all harness this secret weapon of accumulation. Next time when you are waiting in line and have some time to kill, don’t start watching Instagram reels. Read an article. Or next time when you are on the toilet, don’t go on YouTube and watch people unbox random stuff. Find an educational YouTuber and learn a new skill. The circumstances do NOT have to be perfect. You don’t have to be in your room with the air conditioner turned on and with Spotify in the background to be productive. Most often than not, it is the short bursts of productivity that accumulate when you have extra time lying around that make your dreams come to fruition.