All The Small Things

I have to admit that I’ve been slacking on the article front recently and the main reason is that I sometimes feel a bit daunted by the prospect of writing one of my long, well researched pieces – in the past there have been posts that have taken me up to 4 days to research and write with many taking at least 2 days.

I have come to realise that my feelings towards big, complex topics is similar to many peoples’ feelings towards big, bold changes towards a more sustainable life. They can be a bit daunting and they do take time which is why they often get overlooked; they may be thought of as great ideals to have but in reality time is against us.

So this whole thought process brought me back to where I wanted to be in the first place – one of the main aims of Green Steve was to not only tackle the big issues but to also give simple, easy to action advice for those wanting to make a difference but who don’t have the time (and often the money) to go for the big changes right now.

A Journey Of 1000 Miles Begins With Just One Step

The above proverb by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu is one that I’d start to like applying a bit more to this blog and to my sustainable goals. I’ll admit that I can be a little impatient at times and this is not a great quality when it comes to writing blog posts; when an article starts to balloon into something far bigger than I intended, I can get a little bit frustrated. By remembering that a journey is made up of many steps, I can try and look at each post as a step and maybe start to make them a little smaller at times.

This has the added benefit of them being easier to digest for you the readers; I know how it can be when you reach a page and see a long, detailed article and all you wanted was a little titbit of information that you can action right away or a small motivational piece that gets you going.

It’s similar to the Japanese principle of Kaizen that I mentioned in my post about running a greener business, which describes a process of continuous improvement by making small incremental changes on a regular basis.

At times I’ll probably treat this blog using the Kaizen approach so get ready for more posts in the future that will be concise and easy to read and that focus in on a very specific topic. This doesn’t mean that I won’t do some monster posts such as the one on green banking and it’s true that these are some of the most visited pages on Green Steve but I’ll intersperse them with shorter articles that I hope you can take something from nonetheless.

Starting as I mean to go on, I’ll end this post at just 500 words or so because I’ve got a lot to cover in the coming weeks and I want to start planning!

Steve (156 Posts)

I am chief writer and editor on Green Steve. Blogging since 2011, I like to delve into a wide number of topics to help people reduce their carbon footprint. You should follow me on Twitter here. And add me to your Google+ circles here.

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