What Harvard and Jerry Seinfeld can teach Village Managers about motivation
If you have been to one of our events, virtual or in person, you’d have heard us talking about ‘The Ten O’clock Rule’.
In short, as a Village Professional, if you haven’t gotten it done (regardless of what ‘it’ is), you aren’t getting it done.
10.01am is that time of day when you start to get pulled in multiple directions, often too busy to notice the quiet victories that make it all matter.
It can be easy to feel like progress is slipping away.
So how do you stay motivated and keep moving forward for yourself, for your team and residents?
Surprisingly, the answer comes from two very different places: Harvard research and stand-up comedy. Put together, they’re a powerful system for momentum and motivation.
What Harvard Discovered About Motivation
Professor Teresa Amabile from Harvard Business School studied over 12,000 daily work diaries across eight companies (Amabile & Kramer, 2011). Her goal was to understand what really drives people at work.
Her finding was simple and powerful: the biggest motivator wasn’t money, praise, or perks. It was progress.
On the days people made even small steps forward on meaningful work, they felt motivated and energised. On days without progress, motivation dropped.
For Village professionals, this might mean:
- Getting a resident issue resolved.
- Finishing an overdue report.
- Supporting a staff member through a challenge.
The challenge is that we don’t always notice our progress in the moment. That’s where a simple Progress Ritual helps.
Try this:
At the end of each day, pause. Write down three small ways you made progress. They don’t have to be big wins – sometimes “I listened to a resident who needed my time” is just as important as “I finalised the annual budget.”
Noticing progress builds momentum. And momentum creates motivation for tomorrow.
What Jerry Seinfeld Can Teach Us About Consistency
When Jerry Seinfeld was starting out as a comedian, he set himself one goal: write new material every day.
To keep himself accountable, he used a wall calendar. Every day he wrote, he drew a big red X. Soon he had a chain of Xs – and his one rule was: don’t break the chain.
This approach was shared publicly by software developer Brad Isaac, who recounted a conversation with Seinfeld about the “chain method” (Isaac, 2007). Since then, it’s been widely adopted as a motivation tool.
For village managers, the “chain” could be:
- Daily time spent walking the village and connecting with residents.
- Following up one improvement idea each day.
- Making time for professional development.
Each day you show up, you mark it. The growing chain becomes proof of consistency – and a motivator to keep going.
Bringing It Together
So, here’s the big question:
If progress is what fuels motivation, and consistency is what builds progress… what are you doing, every day, to protect those two things?
Too often, we wait for motivation to appear. The harsh truth is, motivation isn’t an apparition. It comes after you take a step forward, not before.
Harvard tells us to notice and celebrate progress. Seinfeld shows us how to keep showing up. Simple rituals that together create a cycle of purpose and consistency. A step forward.
So ask yourself:
- What small wins am I missing because I’m too busy chasing big ones?
- What rituals could I create to keep momentum going, even on hard days?
- What would it look like to treat my own motivation as a responsibility, not a luxury?
This isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about paying attention to what’s already there and using it.
By recognising progress and building daily consistency, you can keep yourself (and your team) motivated, even on the toughest days.
Start today:
- Tonight, write down three small ways you moved forward.
- Tomorrow, start your own “don’t break the chain” calendar.
Small actions, repeated daily, create better days.
Better days create stronger weeks and more purposeful months. And over time, that builds a career and a village community that thrives.
References
- Amabile, T., & Kramer, S. (2011). The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Harvard Business Review Press.
- Isaac, B. (2007). Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret. Lifehacker.
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