The Fieldbook

I just finished reading Tiny Experiments, a book by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, neuroscientist and founder of Ness Labs. I’ve been a long-time follower of Anne-Laure’s work, so I pre-ordered my copy of her new (and first) book. She talks about mindful productivity, metacognition, and as the book implies, running experiments.

As I was reading Tiny Experiments, I was listening to Greenlights on audiobook, which is a memoir written by Matthew McConaughey. This was the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to because McConaughey narrated it himself. He told engaging stories from his life, acted out all the voices of people in the stories, and extracted beautiful lessons from everything he went through in life. It’s a wonderful book.

These books, surprisingly, had a lot in common. While Tiny Experiments took the science-themed approach to living a life free of linear goals, Greenlights, too, was about surrendering to the serendipity of life, letting nature take its free-flowing course. Tiny Experiments is about the system of experimentation and curiosity-driven learning. Greenlights are the milestones along life’s journey that tell you to keep going.

In both examples, the insight is the same:

Cultivate a life of curiosity, experimentation, and iteration, and you’ll unlock new opportunities that naturally fall along a progressive life path.

I created a system for tracking my own experiments. I call it The Fieldbook, and it consists of three parts:

1. Assertions I want to test.
2. Small experiments to run.
3. Longer trials to capture more data

Assertions

I call these assertions, but you can call them hypotheses or assumptions if you prefer. I just don’t like the plural hypotheses. They are verifiable and falsifiable statements to test. A scientific hypothesis is typically formatted as an “If…Then” statement, which is the format I use for the assertions.

Let’s look at a real example.

Recently, I wanted to write deeper blog posts on topics related to the process of thinking. I came to this conclusion through journaling and exploring thoughts in the Thought Lab. This is where an assertion begins incubating into something worth testing.

And now we have the assertion:

If I write deeper blog posts on topics I’m interested in, then I’ll develop more ideas and insights.

Experiments

Once you have the assertion, you start with a small experiment to test it. Ideally, you can complete this experiment within a week or less. The smaller, the better—just be intentional about enough test coverage to get data. You can always run another experiment or change the assertion if you need to.

I started with an experiment to write a single blog post over 2,000 words on a topic I’m interested in. I wrote Paradox of Speed, which allowed me to go deep and explore the concept of slowing down to speed up. I read through historical examples and extracted insights throughout the process.

To design an experiment:

1. Write out the steps you will follow to complete the experiment.
2. Clearly define what a successful outcome would be—preferably quantitative.
3. Keep a detailed log of field notes and summarize your learnings and next steps.

At this stage, the experiment will be:

• Successful and you want to continue, which may move it to a trial (more below), run another small experiment, or integrate it into your work.
• Unsuccessful and you want to try another experiment to capture better data.
• Invalid and you didn’t produce sufficient data, which is usually when you can retry the experiment or alter it.

But here’s the thing: No matter the outcome of the experiment, it’s a success. Why? Because the goal of an experiment is to learn. Whether it goes well or not, you learn something, make a change, and keep iterating.

In the words of Matthew McConaughey, “alright, alright, alright.” They’re all Greenlights.

Trials

When I completed my experiment with the longer blog post, I considered it a huge success because I loved doing it, but it also generated several insights. Remember, this was part of my assertion: I’ll develop more ideas and insights.

By that measure, I was ready for the next step. But in this case, running another experiment seemed unnecessary. I validated the assertion, but I wanted to replicate it to collect more data.

This is where trials come in.

Within science, trials are used for repeated testing under similar conditions. So if we know the experiment is successful, and we don’t have enough data, then we can move into a trial. It allows us to collect more data, refine our assertion, and iterate rapidly.

In Tiny Experiments, Anne-Laure Le Cunff uses the format called a Pact. I love this framing, so this is the exact format I use for my trials within The Fieldbook:

I will [action] for [duration]

That’s it—super simple!

Here’s the pact I wrote for my blogging assertion and experiment:

I will write 10 blog posts for 10 weeks.

I wrote four straight blog posts in four weeks, but then something happened: As I was writing the fifth post, Experimental Goals, I felt like I was rushing to get it posted in time. This felt wrong. The assertion was about developing more ideas and insights through long-form writing. If I rush to satisfy the trial, then it’s defeating the purpose.

So I changed it:

I will write 10 blog posts for 20 weeks.

I expanded the time to let me test it properly. After just four weeks, I feel like the assertion is validated, but I want more data and experimentation. What’s even more interesting here was my immediate reaction—I felt like I failed. If I couldn’t fulfill my pact, isn’t that a failure? No!

Whether you succeed or fail, you learn.

It’s all data to help you refine your approach and keep moving forward.

Create a Fieldbook

Now it’s your turn. Take some time this week to create your own Fieldbook.

• Write down one assertion (hypothesis) you can test.
• Design a tiny experiment to test your assertion.
• Learn and, if needed, run a longer trial.

When you approach life’s challenges with curiosity, and use experimentation to learn, you open yourself up to serendipitous discoveries, unexpected insights, and new opportunities.

Just keep experimenting 🚀