Inertia - Mental Model
Waiting too long to make a decision is also a decision.
When was the last time you left things for the future? — Well, delaying a decision is still a choice. You didn’t act because of inertia. You resisted it.
Inertia keeps things moving, if not disturbed by friction or any external force, things will keep moving, that's Newton's First Law of Motion. It's a tendency to resist changes in a state of motion.
While it’s a concept from physics, inertia also plays a significant role in other areas. Over the years, I have leveraged the tendency of inertia to lead teams, write this newsletter, and form positive habits like becoming a runner.
The bigger the inertia of an object, the more force that's needed to influence it. This aspect, when used as an analogy for our actions, shows how hard it is to change our deeply rooted habits and beliefs because their ‘mass’ is too big. People don’t frequently change their values but it’s easy to let go of New Year's resolutions after a few weeks because they still have little 'mass.'
I dive into mental models to help us understand our behaviour, and inertia can explain why people operate in a certain way. In this article, we’ll focus on its implications for our life and work.
Engineering & Processes
Projects stay suboptimal because no one has applied any force to improve them.
There are examples:
delays in tackling legacy parts of the system for too long
rusted deployment scripts because they are working fine, but slowly
ignored obvious bugs as there is no time to fix them
snoozed updates of system or libraries
People follow outdated rules because they have always followed them. This behaviour makes us choose things that need less energy to proceed. Similarly to company processes, someone set them up at some point, so we continue to follow them. It’s easier to keep going than to make the effort to propose a better solution.
"Meetings that should have been an email" is a good example. It’s easy to attend and then complain about its usefulness. It’s difficult to make changes or propose better solutions.
We keep unnecessary processes for too long because we're afraid to admit we've changed our minds, made a mistake, or that something no longer works. It's perfectly fine to change your mind.
Rethinking
Think of statements:
“Working from the office is the only productive way”: lockdowns proved that this view can be changed.
“Leaders need to be always in control”: many successful leaders did the opposite, delegated and empowered their teams.
“Being busy means being productive”: this is a myth, but this view of business is difficult to update.
I recommend Adam Grant’s book Think Again, dedicated to fighting inertia and rethinking. Key takeaways:
It's perfectly fine to change your mind and it does not make you look bad.
Remember to enjoy all the moments when you have been wrong as they mean that you’ve learned something new. It's progress, not a problem.
Ask yourself: In what situations would I consider changing my view?
It's difficult to change one's deeply rooted beliefs, but with enough commitment, it’s possible.
Use Force
Starting something is more difficult than continuing. It is easier to stay in the current state than change it.
Issac Newton has some advice for you. To change an object's movement you need to use force. If you’re not deciding to change something, inertia will keep things as they are.
Both for organisation and your life:
List your current actions. List why you stick to these actions and assess their impact, positive or negative. Perform a thought experiment and imagine what force needs to be applied to change them.
List things you want to start. Review how much force is needed to start them.
This exercise, when applied to organisational processes and your life habits, can help you eliminate things that should have been discarded long ago and start new initiatives that have been waiting too long.
Summary
Inertia can negatively impact our thinking and decisions. We stick to familiar ways of thinking and view problems as we did before. Mental models can help you overcome cognitive inertia by providing tools to gain new perspectives:
I wanted to start writing a newsletter, but it was delayed for 2 years. A strong force in the form of layoffs helped me to kick it off. Now, inertia helps me publish every week.
Thanks for reading,
— Michał
PS My interest in mental models has been growing over the years thanks to Farnam Street. Their podcast, The Knowledge Project, and their books. FS covered Inertia as the force that holds the universe together.
Post Notes
Discover Weekly — Shoutouts
Articles that might help you explore new perspectives, which I have read recently:
"Effective 4-Step Method for Sustainable Productivity" from
by"Engineer’s guide to convincing your Product Manager to prioritize technical debt" from
by and"What Can I Do to Make You Stay?" from
by"What Eight Years Of Being Stuck Taught Me About Career Paths" from
by
I think inertia is often what ruins teams and companies culture. It’s very very hard to change a way of doing things, especially if it’s radical.
People hate changes 😅
Great post about applying the concept of Inertia to our work and life, Michal!
Inertia works both ways - things continue to stay in motion or at rest, unless we apply force.
Thanks for the mention!