I was recently gifted the book, Atomic Habits by James Clear for Christmas. So far the book has been phenomenal, and there was an important part of the first chapter that reflects an important concept that is part of the Eclectic Method which is to make every cut better than your last.

Making every cut better than your last is a lesson I learned when I was a sushi chef. It was a method that I followed that meant that every roll I made was an attempt to out-do the last one I made. It was a way that I practiced my sushi skills, but it is also a way of life. To make every cut better than your last means that in everything you do, you are always trying to do it better than you did the last time you did it.

When I was making sushi it literally meant making each cut better than my last. Every slice of my blade was meant to be made with more precision, with better skill and every roll or cut of sashimi that I made was meant to look better and taste better than any other I had previously made.

Making every cut better than your last was a lesson a fellow chef I worked with learned from her Japanese teacher, and it is a lesson I apply to everything in my life from the simplest things like washing my hands and sitting with good posture, to the complex things like the maintenance I perform in my professional life or the art I make for recreation. It means that as I write this article now, I am making a genuine effort to be a better writer than I was before. I am constantly trying to one-up myself.

Making every cut better than your last is a simple habit that does require your constant effort, but is an overarching habit that will make all of your other habits better, and that little bit of improvement every day in every way yields big returns, even if you don’t see them right away.

That method of improvement was what James Clear was writing about in Atomic Habits when he told the story of Dave Brailsford and explained how that cycling coach took Britain from one of the worst cycling teams for decades to a team with a ten-year streak of British cycling dominance on the world stage.

Brailsford operated according to the strategy he called “the aggregation of marginal gains” which was based on actively searching for ways to create a small margin of improvement in everything you do (Clear, 2018). Effectively, making every cut better than your last.

This one percent improvement, or more depending on how lazy you’ve been, shows a lot in the way of returns over time. That’s usually the problem though. Most of us are short-sighted and want to see results right away, so we lack the patience required to see those marginal gains compound into large returns. So, we allow ourselves to slack off, and sometimes we get one percent worse, and we also fail to see how large that return for lack of effort can be in the opposite direction.

James Clear put it best here:

“Meanwhile, improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable – sometimes it isn’t even noticeable – but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.”

-page 15, Atomic Habits, James Clear (2018)

This is why I believe that simply making the method of making every cut better than your last one of your foundational habits is so important. If you can be patient and live by the Virtue of Perseverance and be willing to make the effort to make every cut better than your last, you can improve all of your habits by just mastering that one habit of aggregating marginal gains.

With some persistence and faith in the compounding effect, you can see incredible improvements in all aspects of your life in a month. Imagine the returns on your investment of effort in a year. Be persistent and as James Clear said, “You get what you repeat.” If you can repeat making every cut better than your last, then you can guarantee a one percent improvement in all you do.

“Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.” -page 18, Atomic Habits, James Clear (2018)

If you can be disciplined and delay gratification, your results for making every cut better than your last can be astounding. Trust the process, and then make a little audit of accountability every now and then. You might be surprised with the results. Just keep one habit: aggregation of marginal gains, or to make every cut better than your last.

Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Penguin Publishing Group.

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