Aggressive Mini-Cut

How to run a personal experiment

Just like a scientist who observes the world, formulates hypotheses and tests them, you can run personal experiments to gain profound insights into your own life.

By systematically exploring different approaches, challenging your assumptions and biases, and embracing failure as a valuable data point, you can make deliberate decisions and unlock your potential without sticking to a predefined path.

It’s like building a laboratory for your personal growth, and it only requires four simple steps inspired by the scientific method.

1. Assess the current situation

First, you need to understand where you currently stand. A quick way to do this is to capture field notes for a day or two. Just like an anthropologist, you want to keep a log of your experiences. Whenever you take a break or switch between tasks, write down the time and anything you noticed. This could be your reaction after a conversation, moments of procrastination, or ideas that gave you energy.

2. Formulate a research question

Go through your notes and look for patterns. What’s working? What are your stressors and sources of joy? What could be better? Then, just like a scientist, turn these observations into a research question.