The Seinfeld Strategy: Become Consistent At Anything

Consistency is the key to success.

Being consistent is incredibly difficult, as you will know if you’ve tried to form a new habit!

Who Is Jerry Seinfeld?

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful comedians of all time, with a net worth of around $950 million.

He is most famous for being the co-writer and co-creator of ‘Seinfeld’.

The most remarkable feature of Seinfeld’s career which spanned decades was his consistency.

When a young comic, Brad Isaac, caught Seinfeld backstage and asked for any tip from him, he shared his time management strategy, which is now known as the ‘Seinfeld Strategy.’

How To Implement It

The Seinfeld strategy is simple.

Step 1: Decide on your daily task

For example, if you want to write a novel, it could be writing more than 500 words each day.  If you want to lose weight, it could be consuming less than 1,800 calories a day.

Step 2: Get yourself a big wall calendar

Next, get a big red magic marker and every day that you perform the task you want to get better at, you put a big X on the calendar.

Step 3: Keep repeating the task

A few weeks into your routine, you’ll enjoy seeing the red marks and being reminded of how consistently you’ve been working towards your goal.

Now all you need to do is make sure that you “don’t break the chain”.

Each day that goes by it will become more painful to miss a day and break the chain!

Why Does It Work?

The Seinfeld Strategy is effective because:

1. It breaks down big goals.

The Seinfeld strategy boils down to following a daily habit in order to achieve your goals.

This way, you can concentrate on being consistent and building a habit.

2. It shifts your focus.

The Seinfeld strategy forces you to focus on process rather than results, something that is in your control.

You aren’t worrying about writing a novel, you just need to concentrate on writing 500 words every day.

3. It gamifies the habit.

Marking X on the calendar gamifies the habit.

Each time you mark a new X you get a shot of dopamine as a reward.

This short term release will help stop procrastination!

4. It taps into loss aversion.

There is lots of research showing that people hate losing $5 much more than they do value winning $5.

The Seinfeld Strategy taps into our natural aversion to losing things.

It makes it crystal clear to us every day how long our streak is and so how much we have to lose if we break the chain.

Conclusion

The Seinfeld Strategy is a great way to build a habit or be consistent with an existing one.

It can prove to be a powerful tool to help you achieve your long term goals with small daily tasks.

If you’re someone who has a goal like that or would love to find what the strategy can do for you, make sure to give it a try.

For more time management strategies, check out this article on the Eat That Frog method!