Tiny Experiments
Discover your direction by running scientist-style experiments instead of chasing a fixed purpose
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 85%
Instead of trying to introspect your way to a life purpose, you treat your life like a lab. Because humans are demonstrably bad at predicting what they'll enjoy, deciding by prediction is unreliable. The method starts with observation: watch your own routines and reactions without judgment for a short window, noting what energizes and drains you. You convert a pattern into a research question — 'what might happen if I tried this?' — and run a deliberately tiny version for a fixed period. You then judge the result not only by external outcomes but by how alive and engaged it made you feel. Every result is data: an experiment that reveals you hate something frees you from ever wondering about it again. You iterate, and over many tiny cycles a genuine direction emerges rather than being forced up front.
Origin
Extracted from Anne-Laure Le Cunff's book Tiny Experiments, drawing on her neuroscience background and her own experiments while building her writing and research career after leaving Google.
Core principles
- 01You are terrible at predicting what future-you will enjoy, so stop deciding by prediction
- 02Purpose is found by doing, not by introspection alone
- 03A scientist starts with a question, not a predetermined outcome
- 04A 'failed' experiment that teaches you what you don't want is a success
- 05Keeping experiments tiny keeps the risk (and the fear) small
How to run it
- 1
Observe like an anthropologist
Spend 24 hours watching your own life as if you know nothing about it. Ask why you spend time, energy, and attention the way you do, and take small notes.
Pro tip Remember you are not trying to find a solution yet — you are only collecting observations.
Watch out Skipping observation and immediately 'trying everything' is like a drowning person thrashing; it deepens the stuck feeling.
- 2
Spot a pattern worth questioning
From your notes, find a deeply ingrained routine or assumption and ask whether it actually has to be that way.
Pro tip Long-running autopilot habits are the richest seeds for experiments.
- 3
Frame a research question
Convert the pattern into a hypothesis a scientist could test: 'What might happen if I tried this?' rather than a goal with a required outcome.
Watch out Do not attach your identity to a specific result — the point is to learn, not to win.
- 4
Run a tiny, time-boxed version
Commit to the smallest meaningful version of the action for a short, fixed duration, such as posting one video a week until year-end.
Pro tip Tiny scope creates a variable-reward loop — the healthy version of the pull that makes social media addictive.
Watch out Keeping it tiny is what keeps the perceived risk low enough to actually start.
- 5
Evaluate on aliveness, not just metrics
Judge the experiment by how energized and engaged you felt, not only by external growth numbers.
Pro tip If the metrics say continue but you dreaded every session, that mismatch is the real finding.
- 6
Iterate
Keep what worked, tweak what half-worked, and drop what you've now learned isn't for you — then start the next tiny experiment.
Pro tip Treat a clean 'not for me' as freeing: it removes a question that would otherwise nag you for years.
In the wild
Le Cunff's friends were all starting YouTube channels and urging her to as well. Rather than commit indefinitely, she ran a tiny experiment: record and post one video every week until year-end. The external results were fine — decent growth that, on metrics alone, argued for continuing. But she discovered she hated being on camera; knowing she had to film on a Thursday sent her procrastination through the roof. She stopped. Because she framed it as an experiment, the outcome was a win: she now watches friends' successful channels without any nagging 'should I be doing that?', freeing mental energy for work she actually enjoys.
→ Permanently resolved an open question about her path and reclaimed the mental energy it was consuming.
Common mistakes
Trying to think your way to purpose
Deciding what to pursue based on what you predict you'll enjoy fails because people are poor forecasters of their future selves; action generates better data than introspection.
Making experiments too big
Large commitments reintroduce the fear and risk the method is designed to remove, so people never start or can't cleanly abandon them.
Judging only by external metrics
Continuing something because the numbers look good while ignoring that you dread it defeats the purpose of the experiment.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone feeling lost, burned out, or unsure what to pursue who wants a low-risk way to find out.
Not ideal for
Someone who already has a clear, tested direction and simply needs to execute consistently.
From the transcript
“A better way to figure out your purpose is just to experiment. It's thinking like a scientist... they start with a research question, a hypothesis.”
“There's a lot of research showing that we are absolutely terrible at predicting what we'll like in the future.”
“It always starts with observation... just like an anthropologist that's going to go and study a new culture, you can observe your own life without…”
From the episode
How To Live Freely In A Goal-Obsessed World - Anne-Laure Le Cunff - #957
Laure Le Cunff