Forget the Goal—Fix the System: How James Clear’s 1% Rule Can Change Your Work and Life
Small consistent changes every day can lead to phenomenal results. Focus on the system, not the goal. Photo by Dimon Blr on Unsplash.
Reading time: 9 minutes
Disclaimers: I’m not a financial adviser, and this is not financial advice.
I’ve been pursuing Financial Independence for 7 years and writing about it for the last 3—sharing real-world strategies that helped me make steady, tangible progress. The posts on this website are for informational purposes only; please consult a qualified adviser for personalized advice.
🌿 Thanks for reading The Good Life Journey. I share weekly insights on money, purpose, and health, to help you build a life that compounds meaning over time. If this resonates, join readers from over 100 countries and subscribe to access our free FI tools and newsletter.
TL;DR — The 1% Improvement Rule at a Glance
📈 Definition: The idea from James Clear’s Atomic Habits that small daily improvements compound into massive gains.
⚙️ How it works: 1.01ⁿ formula → after 90 days ≈ 2.46× better; after a year ≈ 38×.
💼 Applications: productivity, health, communication, workflow, writing, even family routines.
🧘 Mindset: focus on controllable systems—aligns with Stoic philosophy.
✍️ Example: my blog runs on a 35-point system that improves weekly drafts through tiny tweaks.
🚀 Takeaway: Don’t chase perfect goals—design better systems and let success emerge.
Focus on the System, Not the Goal: Why 1% Better Beats 100% Perfect
Most of us chase goals like distant mountaintops, but nobody reaches the summit in one leap. Ever wondered what happens if you really did improve 1% every single day? Real progress happens through tiny, deliberate steps. In this article, you’ll learn James Clear’s 1% improvement rule—the idea that small daily gains, when built into repeatable systems, compound into huge results.
We’ll unpack how it works, explore examples of 1% improvements at work and in life, connect it to Stoic philosophy, and—at the end—show you the exact writing system I use to apply it on The Good Life Journey.
The 1% Improvement Theory: Start Small and Win Big
At its core, the 1% Improvement Theory is about the power of compounding through micro-habits—continuous, incremental progress that builds unstoppable momentum.
The story of a British cycling team in the Tour de France is one of my favourite examples James Clear likes to use in both Atomic Habits and his MasterClass to emphasize the importance of systems over goals.
For years, they were an unremarkable cycling team—consistently falling short of the goals they set for themselves. But then their director implemented a radical approach: focusing on tiny, 1% improvements in every area imaginable—from how they washed their hands to avoid getting sick, and optimizing the pillows they slept on, to the mechanics of their bikes and other equipment.
On their own, each of the small changes felt trivial, but in aggregate added up to an incredible transformation: within only 3 years they dominated the Tour de France, winning two consecutive years with two different lead cyclists—Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. It’s a powerful reminder that excellence—including at an elite level—is rarely the result of one single big change of action, but the accumulation of small, intentional ones.
James Clear’s insight builds on this same principle. He argues that while goals are certainly necessary to provide direction, it’s the systems that drive meaningful progress. Every result we achieve—whether related to your finances, your fitness level, or your performance at work—is usually a lagging measure of the habits that precede it.
The problem with obsessing too much over the goal is that it keeps success forever in the future, increases the chance of experiencing frustration, and allocates your energy inefficiently. Focusing on day-to-day systems instead brings that energy into the present. The best performers aren’t just chasing outcomes, they’ve engineered environments and daily processes that make those outcomes almost inevitable. Again, our outcomes are a lagging measure of our habits.
In this post, I’ll take that principle beyond theory and show you how it applies not only to elite athletes but also to everyday work. We’ll show you how to make best use of these ideas whether you are an office professional, a consultant, or creative. I’ll even open up on my own process I follow as a blogger to show exactly how I think about my own systems that I’ve created to help me write faster, more clearly, and with less stress.
When motivation or willpower fade, we all fall back on the quality of our systems. Ultimately, it’s a sustainable system that keeps the engine on and running.
What does your system look like and how can you optimize it every single day? A notebook is great for journaling or noting ideas, but you probably want a cleaner overview of your systems. Photo by Gabriel Magurno on Unsplash.
How the 1% Rule Works (Formula & Examples from James Clear)
It’s tempting to always wait for that one big breakthrough—a flash of inspiration, a viral article, a promotion. But real progress is rarely that dramatic. Focusing instead on improving 1% each day may sound insignificant, but the math tells a different story: those small daily wins compound over time. This simple idea—often called the 1% Improvement Rule or Aggregation of Marginal Gains—explains why small changes, repeated daily, create outsized impact.
The same principle applies to finances—saving or investing just 1% more each month can dramatically accelerate your path to Financial Independence.
In practice, it’s nearly impossible to find 1% improvements each day for very long periods of time, say a year. You’d already be incredibly optimized and it would be hard to apply this concept indefinitely. But imagine you managed to implement James Clear’s 1% daily improvement method for three months—the math suggests you’d already be about 2.5 times better as a result. That’s nearly a 150% improvement in just ninety days, showing how quickly small, consistent progress can accelerate when the system is sound and you stick to it.
That’s the quiet magic of systems—of course, it assumes you are making small changes consistently that are aligned with your goals. But if you are careful to ensure this alignment, it’s clear that small consistency translates into acceleration very quickly.
Critics sometimes argue that micro-gains ignore the need for bold moves. In reality, big leaps still matter—but the 1% rule ensures you’re ready when these opportunities arrive. Systems create the stability that makes bigger risks possible.
Besides the effectiveness of the approach there’s also a huge psychological benefit. When you’re focused on the system rather than on the result, you’re putting your energy into what’s squarely within your control. I can’t force readers to like a specific article or make an important message in an article to go viral, but I can redefine my workflow, improve my writing consistently over time, or adjust seemingly external factors like my sleep or physical health.
Personally, I’ve found this shift in mindset to be empowering—when you’re no longer focused on the results, anxiety fades away, and it’s replaced by a sense of calm momentum. Each day is an opportunity to show up, apply my daily work, and slightly adjust the process itself to insure it continues to improve in the future. This feeling of progress is really motivating—when you’re focused on the systems it feels like you’re achieving small successes each day.
James Clear puts it beautifully—we don’t rise to the level of our goals, but fall to the level of our systems. When progress stalls, the issue usually isn’t you—it’s the system you’re using.. The less willpower our system requires, the easier it is to becomes consistent over time. The process should not be about heroic bursts of effort, but about setting the collection of daily habits that makes success the path of least resistance. Consistency, not intensity, tends to win over time.
Now that we’ve seen why systems matter, let’s look at how to actually build one—in work and life alike.
* Further Reading – Article continues below *
How to Improve 1% Each Day at Work and in Life
So what does systems thinking—the practical side of the 1% rule—actually look like in everyday life? Let’s consider a consultant or office professional as an example. Instead of vaguely aiming to be more productive, they might build micro-systems for each part of their job: to name a few, standardize email templates for client outreach; a structured calendar that allows for deep work and that reflects the ins and outs of your system; or a weekly review routine to reflect and adjust.
You can literally find hundreds of places to look for improvements. Small tweaks like organizing shared folders, using better task management tools or improving existing ones, or improving how you brief colleagues might not feel groundbreaking in itself—but they can easily save hours each week. And while most people struggle to find meaning or engagement in their jobs, improving your systems and daily workflow can make work feel less draining and more rewarding—even if you’re not in your dream role.
Think of it as an audit of friction points: how you communicate with colleagues, manage client expectations, write and respond to emails, delegate tasks, prepare reports, mentor junior staff, manage your boss’s priorities, or handle project timelines—all are mini-systems waiting to be tuned. In fact, nearly every task in your company can be broken down into smaller, optimizable components.
The idea of systems thinking also extends beyond the work itself. Your body and mind are part of your system too, so focusing on marginal improvements on sleep, nutrition, and exercise are all gears in the same machine. Again, James Clear provides the story of the cycling team’s hand washing not because it’s glamorous, but because it highlights the importance of health.
Staying healthy is not only a positive benefit in itself, it also means showing up more consistently and allowing the compounding of habits to increase. Similarly, eating healthily, walking during breaks, or setting a firm bed-time routine may sound basic, but these are examples where 1% improvements keep your system running smoothly.
I find it useful to also focus on the 1% substractions—it’s not only about implementing slightly more optimized habits. It also helps to focus on the poor habits we can reduce. This is normally where a lot of the initial gains actually take place. In my own case, for instance, I’ve recently implemented a no-phone Sunday. The idea of this is to reduce the phone addiction, while also allowing me to enjoy more intentional time with my kids over the weekend.
I had tried different approaches to reduce its usage in the past. While some of them did work for a period of time, eventually the poor habits would come back. In the case of phones, we’re really up against formidable adversaries—after all, billions of dollars go into making these devices very difficult to resist with willpower alone.
So, perhaps we need a simple system that doesn’t rely on willpower so much—Sunday is simply a resting day and I just turn off my phone. Full stop. Honestly, it feels great, and has also contributed unexpectedly to reduce my phone usage during the week without even trying—I’m more likely to put it away voluntarily during certain moments of the day.
Once we start viewing our day as an interconnected engine rather than a to-do list, we begin to see where the inefficiencies hide. If you only had five focused hours to work, how would you spend them? Are they aligned with your short- and medium-term goals? Are you investing enough time in improving how you work, rather than just doing more of it?
The most successful professionals don’t just work hard—they’re constantly tuning their process, adding small upgrades that compound quietly in the background, and making sure the hard work is actually fully aligned with the outcomes they’re pursuing.
And while systems help us act smarter, philosophy helps us think better—enter the Stoics.
Implementing a 1%-better-approach at work can mean addressing each of your workplace friction points. Photo by Work With Island on Unsplash.
The Stoic 1% Mindset: Focus on What You Can Control
The ancient Stoics would have loved some of James Clear’s ideas. One of their central teachings—to focus on what’s within your control and release the rest—mirrors the essence of systems thinking. Instead of fixating on external results of factors that lie squarely outside of your control, the Stoics focus on their own thoughts, actions, and choices—the internal systems that shape how they respond in the world.
When you align Stoicism with this 1% rule, you get a philosophy that’s both calming in your daily life and incredibly effective. You stop measuring success by immediate results and start judging it by the integrity of your process. I can’t control how many people I reach with a single article or whether it will be interesting to most, but I can refine my daily process so that, over time, quality and consistency are more likely to make the desired outcomes emerge.
There’s also a deep emotional benefit. System-based living turns progress into a feeling rather than just an achievement. Each small act of improvement—whether it’s writing a bit more clearly, organizing the workspace, handling emails more effectively—becomes a small victory. Over time, that calm, controlled satisfaction replaces the highs and lows of pure result-chasing. It’s not just about working smarter; it’s also about feeling lighter in your day-to-day.
Focus on systems over goals. Systems include everything—including making 1% changes to your working setup. What’s cozy for some may be uncomfortable for others. The important thing is that it encourages you to show up every day. Photo by TEAcreativelife│Soo Chung on Unsplash.
My 1% Writing System: Behind the Scenes of The Good Life Journey
In my own work on The Good Life Journey I continuously live by an ever-updated system. I don’t have endless hours to write, so efficiency here is everything. My process starts long before I sit down to type. Throughout the week, whenever I come across ideas that spark interest—in a conversation, a book, even in the shower—I jot it down into a running list of potential ideas.
This ensures there’s no shortage of ideas on which to engage with. Then, each Sunday, I pick the three that seem most relevant or exciting for the week ahead. This is usually a decision that tries to balance what I personally want to pursue but also to ensure there is sufficient variety of topics for the readers.
I’ve come to realize that each article doesn’t need to be perfect—perfect is, after all, the enemy of good—they just have to be insightful and interesting enough. Would I want to read it if I’d never heard about the concept before? This keeps me from falling into the perfectionist trap of endlessly searching the “very best idea”. Of course, that’s simply not how it works—if you spend too much time making small decisions, you simply won’t be very productive. Instead, when Monday arrives, I already know what I’m writing about—no wasted time or indecision. The editorial decision was already made.
Here is my personal example of a system-driven workflow—a real-life illustration of how the 1% method applies beyond theory. For each of my blog posts, I clarify the one or two key messages I want to convey early on, which gives me a compass for structure and tone. Usually, I aim to deliver four to five sections—a good balance between what I find engaging to write about and that fits readers time and attention best. I like to remind myself that if the goal of each article is to convey one or two important messages, then I’m simply being a poor writer if the article is too long.
Then I build an outline with three to four bullet-point ideas per section, each of which will become its own stand-alone paragraph. If you see more than one paragraph per section, that’s just the final edit—breaking long blocks into smaller, more readable pieces that work better for phone users.
Once the first draft is ready, it goes through a 35-point editorial checklist that not only ensures sufficient quality but also optimization of the text for search engines. This sounds tedious—and it is—but what’s the point of writing a lengthy article to get a message out if nobody reads your content?
In this checklist you can find anything from choosing a SEO-optimized title and metadata (the short description that appear on Google’s results below the title); ensuring there is some alignment between what I write and what search engine users are actually looking for; linking internally the article’s text to other articles in the website (and from older articles to this newer one); building a FAQs section that is appreciated by traditional and AI search engines; image selection and compression; grammar mistakes; and much, much more.
Most of the 35-point checklist is fairly quick to implement—but can you imagine if I had to do this by memory each time? It could literally mean publishing 50% fewer articles (and them not necessarily being of higher quality). So, it saves time, mental headspace, and ensures consistency across my posts.
And, just like Clear’s 1% rule, I’m trying to improve the system every day. Not only in this checklist that I apply to first drafts, but also the way I choose topics, the new personal finance tools I wish to develop on the platform, the weekly marketing of my blog posts (e.g., Pinterest or Reddit), the monthly analysis of readership across posts, the optimization or updates of old articles, the technical running of the website itself, etc. There are so many tasks to care for and each can be a time-sink if you’re not careful.
The continuous fine-tuning of my systems allows me to focus on the leverages I can control. I really can’t control in the short term the site’s readership, but I can control how smooth and enjoyable the creative process feels like. At the end of the day, consistency and continuous system improvements is likely to be the best reward of systems thinking: the freedom of knowing that success becomes a natural outcome of showing up and improving—one small step at a time.
💬 If you’re striving to get 1% better each day, what small tweak to your system could you make today? It doesn’t have to be big—just something that makes tomorrow a little smoother than today.
🌿 Thanks for reading The Good Life Journey. I share weekly insights on money, purpose, and health, to help you build a life that compounds meaning over time. If this resonates, join readers from over 100 countries and subscribe to access our free FI tools and newsletter.
👉 New to Financial Independence? Check out our Start Here guide—the best place to begin your FI journey.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
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It’s the belief that small, consistent changes in daily habits lead to remarkable long-term results. Clear argues that every outcome is a lagging measure of habits, so focusing on improving just 1% each day compounds into exponential progress.
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The rule states that if you improve by 1% every day, the cumulative gains over time are extraordinary—about 38 times better after a year. It emphasizes building better systems rather than chasing single goals.
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Start by auditing friction points: how you write emails, manage clients, delegate tasks, or plan meetings. Streamline one area daily—tiny workflow upgrades compound into major productivity gains.
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Simplifying your morning routine, optimizing file organization, refining how you communicate with teammates, or taking a short walk after lunch. Each small change enhances consistency and energy.
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It’s the strategy of identifying hundreds of small 1% improvements across different areas. When aggregated, those marginal gains create breakthrough performance—famously used by Britain’s cycling team.
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Mathematically, 1.01⁹⁰ ≈ 2.46—about 2 and a half times better than when you started. The key is alignment: the small daily tweaks must support your larger goal or system.
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Both focus on controllables. Stoicism teaches mastery of one’s actions and reactions, while the 1% rule turns that philosophy into a measurable daily practice.
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Goals set direction, but systems create motion. A well-designed system ensures you progress even when motivation fades, making success a by-product rather than a one-off event.
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The math uses compound growth: 1.01ⁿ where n = days. After 365 days, you’re ≈ 37.8 times better; after 90 days, ≈ 2.46 times.
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A process mindset—believing that progress comes from refining systems, not from sheer willpower. Consistency and curiosity, not perfectionism, sustain the habit loop.
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