Anne-Laure Le Cunff - How to Design Tiny Experiments Like a Scientist @neuranne

I was completely lost at the time. I had left my job at Google. I had worked on a couple of startups. My startup had failed. And all of a sudden I found myself in this situation where I didn't know what the next step should be. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a clear vision. So I decided to go back to the drawing board and ask myself, what is something I'm curious about? And for me, that was—

Welcome to How I Think with my guest today, Anne-Laure Le Cunff. She is the author of the book Tiny Experiments: A Transformative Guide to Rethinking Our Approach to Goals, creativity, and life itself from a neuroscientist and entrepreneur and the creator of the popular Nest Labs newsletter. In this episode, we talk about redefining success, the importance of curiosity, and the power of tiny experiments, and much more. How are you doing?

Very good. Thanks for having me, Nick.

Yeah, this is amazing. So we're over here in Los Angeles after the Second Brain Summit, and be honest, how are you feeling right now?

I'm exhausted, but in a very good way. Inspired. I feel like I have so much to process and digest. So feeling good, but I need a bit of sleep.

I am in the same boat because it was just such amazing energy. The summit that Tiago put on, bringing us all together. And it was quite amazing because we have non-recorded keynotes, including something that you shared. And I took a few notes about your upcoming book. Tiny Experiments. And now we're going to talk about a lot of different things. Yes, covering the book. I know you didn't just want to talk about that, but it was pretty amazing and everyone loved what you had to say. So I hope we can cover a few of those things.

Thank you. Yeah, it was my first time talking about it in public on stage, and it was an amazing experience after spending 2 years writing on my own, just me, my thoughts, and my computer. Starting to put those ideas into the world is an amazing feeling.

Yes, my goodness. And so, like, just to kind of zoom out a little bit, 2 years to write this, but it started way before that because you were writing online. And what kicked that off? So what makes someone go from whatever you're doing before to saying, all of a sudden, I'm going to write an article online? Like, take us back to that, that moment. That critical point?

Absolutely. I was completely lost at the time. That was a few years ago. I had left my job at Google. I had worked on a couple of startups. My startup had failed, and all of a sudden I found myself in this situation where I didn't know what the next step should be. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a clear vision. So I decided to go back to the drawing board and ask myself, what is something I'm curious about? Even if success or the outcome was completely out of the equation, what would be something I would be happy to wake up and study every day, even if nobody was watching? And for me, that was the brain. I had always been curious about how the brain works and why we think the way we think. So I went back to school to study neuroscience. And in order to really start deeply thinking about these ideas, not just trying to memorize the content that we were taught in school, really make those ideas my own. I decided to start writing online, to start translating those ideas into something that other people could use in their daily lives and work.

I think if I'm not mistaken, your first article, which kind of maybe set the tone for everything that came, I don't know, was called something about the generation effect.

Yes, you have a very good memory. That was the title of the article, The Generation Effect. Okay. The reason why this was the very first article was because this is actually what inspired this project in the first place of writing online about what I was studying in university about neuroscience. The generation effect is a phenomenon that shows that when you write about an idea in your own words, you're both going to understand it better and remember it better. So it's an amazing learning tool, just taking an idea and instead of— and this is something you've written a lot about— but instead of just copy-pasting, taking a note, actually making something out of this idea that is your own is going to help you learn better. And that was part of what inspired me to start a newsletter and say, okay, every week I'm going to pick something I studied in university and I'm going to turn it into something that is truly my own.

Yeah, I can't agree more. That's where we vibe so well on the value of that making process. And it's really an unfair advantage. I mean, you're a really great example of that where you just wrote— how many articles are on your website, Nest Labs, at this point?

I think almost 500 articles at this stage.

Oh my goodness. And you did— Didn't you give yourself a tiny experiment to write? Was it like 100 articles or something?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes. What was that about? I started with, so this is actually something I talk about in the book, how to design an experiment. And I explain that what's really important is that you define the action, what you're going to do, and the duration, which is the number of trials, how many times you're going to repeat that action. In my case, I decided to do 100 articles in 100 weekdays, not 100 days because I wanted to take the weekends off. But that's what I did. And, uh, it was absolutely amazing to see the progress during the experiment, everything I was learning, but also discovering what I liked and what I didn't like in terms of topics, in terms of formats, even in terms of where I was sharing those articles. So by the end of the experiment, I had a lot of data that just didn't exist before I got started.

I freaking love that. And it's so, so simple, but it just, it works. It's this modern-day unfair advantage where if you, in this case for you, you were writing, you were sharing out there in the world and you might get some feedback, even no feedback becomes a form of feedback because maybe that idea just didn't resonate, it didn't click. And it is really just an unfair way of operating in the world. But we all have access to this opportunity. And I think that's wild that at the heart of a lot of the— what's in the book with the tiny experiment is, is kind of like in this meta way, it was your experiment to do this writing challenge for yourself. And it just seems so fun. It's just like no pressure, no stress. You're just going to do this thing. And what really struck me about this, and I'm curious, like, how you approach this idea. It wasn't just, I'm going to write weekly newsletter, and that's just what I'm going to do. You said, I'm going to do 100 articles on 100 consecutive workdays. So you gave yourself this duration. And I think that's like a component I don't think enough about in my own goals or efforts or whatever. So like, how come you just came about— like, was that just by accident? Or you just said, I'm gonna do this? Or how come the duration was that? And how do you think about the duration with setting intention.

I actually discovered this format in my studies, in my scientific studies. It's the way all scientists design experiments. What you do is that you state in advance how many trials you're going to have, because if you don't do that, you're going to be tempted to stop in the middle or to take a break when the outcome doesn't necessarily look like what you expected. And in that way, you would just fall prey to confirmation bias all the time. If you stopped whenever you're like, actually, that doesn't look great. I'm just going to stop now. So by defining the number of trials before you get started, it forces you to wait until you have all of the data before you make a decision.

That is— yeah, that's it. Like, that is beautiful. And it ties into something that I think you articulated so well. So when I was watching your recent speech, heads in the audience, they do, they like cock to the side, including mine. Mine really, I was like, ooh. But it was about the definitions of success. So there's a standard one. I was like, okay, okay, I get that. And I'm kind of curious if you could cover that. But what really popped out to me was the scientist's take on what success is. And I just thought, this is like a goosebump moment. So could you, can you kind of help us out with success, what it was and how you're interpreting it?

Absolutely. Success, the most common definition of it, and the one I followed for most of my life when I was, you know, I, I got a job at Google and then I worked on a startup. I did all of these things and it was based on the most common definition of success, which is reaching a desired outcome.

Mm-hmm.

And you're really trying to get to a predefined destination. When you don't get there, you blame yourself. That's basically the pattern most of us are following and how we're taught to chase success.

Yeah.

Scientists have a completely different definition of success. The way they define it is learning something new. As long as you learn something new, you haven't failed. As long as you collect new data, you haven't failed. And that really changes everything if you start applying this experimental mindset. In your life and in your work.

Oh, I love that so much. It's learning something new and then you don't fail. So it just becomes, okay, let's set a tiny experiment for this. Here's the action and here's the duration. And I just love the formula. It's so great. I'm curious though. So even going back a little bit, something that you were saying earlier is when you left Google, blank slate, blank whiteboard, and you're just going to kind of allow your curiosity to guide you a little bit. But where did that, like, come from? Was it a parent that you modeled after? Was it just your environment growing up? Where do you feel that curiosity bug, that inner innate part of you, was really, I guess, nurtured or fostered? Or was it more of a screaming to come out? Like, where was the curiosity from? As you were growing up?

I think I definitely was lucky to grow up in an environment where there were lots of books around me. So I had lots of opportunities to explore my curiosity as a kid. But I then started focusing on this very linear definition of success. So I stopped at some point, which is very sad when I think about it. And sometimes I, I do fall back into this pattern. So this is something I really pay attention to, but there was a period in my life where I would only read books if they were very clearly connected to an objective that I was trying to achieve. So it had to be connected to a project at work or something where I wanted to grow. And for me, what helped me reconnect with my curiosity in a strange way was to not have any objective anymore. I was completely lost.. And it was terrifying for someone who, for most of her adult life, had had very clear goals, a very clear definition of success, and a very clear path to get there.

Mm-hmm.

Because when you're in a corporate environment, you know what you're supposed to do to get a promotion. You know what success looks like. It's getting this role, it's getting this project, et cetera. So finding myself completely lost, not knowing what I should do next, in a strange and at the time terrifying way, is what allowed me to reconnect with that childlike curiosity which I had known before.

To kind of reconnect with the stranger of your past, your curious impulse, that's just— it's, it's really amazing. And I'm kind of curious, as you're transitioning and exploring things from, you know, one mindset of productivity, which becomes oftentimes a toxic form, as we, we all can relate to, and sort of this new mode of operating, or an evolved form of operating. I kind of wonder, you're not just reading nonfiction, you must have some fiction books that— do you have anything that's just kind of like your hidden little secret, like fiction book, or a few of these that are just loved so much?

I read a lot of fiction, and it's actually one of my principles now that I really try to balance fiction and fiction. And it's almost a symptom, actually. If I'm reading a lot of non-fiction, it is a symptom for me, a signal I pay attention to that I might be too focused on productivity.

Oh yeah.

At that time, because I'm just trying to make the most of my time to always learn a new skill, something I could apply. So I would say that this is maybe like more of a— this is not something I have actually written about, so thank you for, for the question. But it would be one of my little secrets, the fact that I always try to balance fiction and nonfiction. And if I notice that I've maybe been reading 3 nonfiction books in a row, I will insert a fiction book. And I particularly like science fiction.

Oh, lovely. I think this is such an interesting topic that we maybe haven't talked about that much, but I think just on the fringe of things with it is that exactly that. One, I love the signal. It's a signal, okay? If you're reading too much nonfiction, put the next self-help book down and consider going to a totally different aisle of like Barnes Noble or Waterstones. Is that?

Yes, Waterstones in the UK, yes.

Okay, lovely. And find that fiction book. You know the one that I read and I was probably about just about to turn 30 and just hit me at the perfect time. It's one that I know you're familiar with is, Le Petit Prince, The Little Prince.

Yes. Do you want me to say it in French?

Please.

Le Petit Prince.

I mean, is that required reading in France?

Yes, it is. I think it is. I don't think I know anyone who hasn't read it.

Okay. And it's just, I'll even go as far as to say is if I know someone's just reading nonfiction, I kind of don't want to talk to them. And if I know someone is— if someone is interesting, it turns out they're reading fiction. And it's like, so if you want to be toxically productive and game the system, the key is actually through fiction, which is going to cure you of your impulses to be toxically productive.

Absolutely. And it's such a source of inspiration as well. I've had so many of my best ideas coming from being inspired by the way a fictional character thought about a problem or a situation. Mm-hmm. How they navigated something that looked like it was impossible to solve, and then maybe they reached out to a friend, or maybe they took a completely different path to get to where they wanted to go. And if you're in similar situations in your daily life and work, that can be way more inspiring than a 3-step process in a nonfiction book.

And that's the sort of stuff that creates value. And I've seen you do this, and I have a very specific example of you doing this, taking something from the fictional world, the creative, the novel writing world, and taking it into a completely different field, which this entire week, this special summit that we were able to attend, everyone was talking about, and you really introduced it to PKM. To the best of my knowledge, and that's the concept of architects and gardeners that, as far as I know, was originally— I don't think it came from George R.R. Martin, but he's definitely the only source I can track it back to. I don't know, like, how you stumbled upon it, but what you did was you reinterpreted it, an idea from outside of, you know, he writes his world-building novels, and so like that's the magical moment that you took it from one medium to another. So can you speak to that specifically? Architects and gardeners?

Yes, I did stumble upon his essay a few years ago and it just hit me that it perfectly— he was talking about writing novels and explaining that some people have this top-down approach and they're more like architects and other people have this bottom-up approach and they're more like gardeners. And it really hit me that that could apply to note-taking as well. And I took that, so explained that the architects, they like to structure the ideas. Gardeners, they like to just let them emerge more organically. And I added the librarian, who just needs to store their ideas somewhere and access them very easily, but they don't have this need to necessarily connect them or structure them in the way that the architect and the, the gardener might want to do it. And, uh, what I love about this idea the most is not even, uh, how useful it's been to me and how practical it's been to me, is how it took a life of its own and how other people, including you, Thiago Forte, have been building on top of it, expanding it and bringing it in directions that I could have never imagined. So, Tiago, for example, added the student as a fourth archetype. And you, for ex— I, I love how you've expanded a lot on the idea that you're not necessarily one or the other. You can actually embody the architect in some phases of a project and then switch to the gardener when it makes sense and have this intentional approach, almost like this little cognitive dance where you decide to wear one hat. Or the other. And this is very meta, but for me, noticing how G.R.R. Martin had this idea, I read it, I decided to take it into a completely different direction.

Mm-hmm. Which personal knowledge management, which is a pretty nerdy field, but it is growing and it's something, it's a need we all need because we have informational anxiety or pain or whatever it is. So, so, okay, so you did this. Okay, keep going.

You, No. And then the fact that you read that, you expanded on it, and maybe someone right at this moment is working on the next iteration of this based on something they watched on your channel or that they read that you wrote about. This is what's exciting about being alive today and being connected to so many fellow curious minds and thinkers, is this belief that whatever idea you put into the world is going to start having a life of its own and is going to keep on growing even if you're not yourself still actively working on it.

Yeah, I think so. I think so. It is wild how these ideas emerge in unexpected ways and lead somebody else to a breakthrough. And it's just like, so thank you for bringing that to, to the PKM field. I think it's at the core of everything, the entire creative process, the movement back and forth between the architect mindset and the gardener mindset. I know in an earlier entrepreneur effort with my friend Garrett, we had a fitness boxing business. It's still running. And we were brainstorming ideas of where to take the business, but I tend to be more of an architect, so I was like grilling him like a prosecution. I was like, but what do you mean? Like, tell me, like, how does this work? And I completely misread the vibe and I killed it. So that this concept even expands into interpersonal relationships and meetings. It's like, what type of meeting am I having right now with my coworkers, colleagues, friends, family? And am I showing up in the right way? I think it's got a lot of legs. If I can, I'd like— I'm curious how you approached gardening and, you know, how you think about gardening in this context with your book. Because at the end of the day, the book right here, I'm gonna hold it up for just a moment, "Tiny Experiments." I love it. I love the— The cool dots and everything. It's just, it's freaking amazing. "How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World." This isn't a plug, like this doesn't have to be. It's just, I love it so dearly. It's a book, it's got a physical form. You could say it's like an artifact in the world that will last forever. So at the end of the day, a lot of the gardening energy has to, I don't know, be architected into a structure. I'm just, how did you, what's your creative process here with the book? Like, let's, let's talk about it. Let's dig in deep.

This is such a great question because this is actually something that gave me a bit of anxiety at the beginning of this project. I was so used to writing online where I had this very emergent process where I could write something and then get feedback from people and then sometimes just go back to whatever I had published and update it and edit it. There are still articles that I have published in 2019 that I'm editing to this day.

So, so this is digital gardening and you have your, your cool term for it as well that I'm sure you're getting to, but it's just a form of gardening when we, when we talk about that term. It's in this case, you're an article once it's published, it's not locked in stone.

No, absolutely not. It is just a seed that I have planted. It will grow. And, uh, and just to keep on using the metaphor of like, I like using the term a mind garden, but You, you water that, that seed to see what it will grow into. The, the watering happens in public with other people contributing to fertilizing the seed. So not only I publish this article, but I share it in the newsletter, I post it on social media, and I have people comment on it. Sometimes it's just to say, that was great, that was so helpful, thank you. But very often I also have people replying to my emails and saying, by the way, I also read this article, which I think is very relevant to what you're talking about. And I say, oh, thank you. I actually hadn't seen that because there's no way I would have read everything, right? And so I can sometimes go back to the article and just add another link to another idea, sometimes even add a paragraph, expand on something. There also have been times where I wrote something that was completely wrong. Because I was not aware that some of the science I was covering had been debunked by this obscure team working on this project somewhere in another country. And someone would tell me by saying, by the way, have you seen this study which shows that what you wrote is wrong? I'm like, oh. And I would edit the article again and say, by the way, sorry, this is wrong. Here's the latest.

And just as a side point, that's a really important part for anyone who suffers from imposter syndrome or perfectionism, because you think you have to be right, like, 100% of the time out out of the gate before you can open your mouth. And instead, you're showing that you can share— I mean, do your best. But if you are— if something comes up and you recognize that there's a way that you can improve what you said and express, then great, you can edit.

Absolutely. It's all about— there's actually an entire chapter about learning in public in the book. And so it's all about learning in public. But you can see why writing a book felt at odds with this process, because as you say, this is this permanent object, if I want to change something, I'm not going to run after everyone who bought a copy and say, by the way, can you just give it back to me 2 seconds? I need to fix something on this page. So it has a very final feeling to it. I tried to solve this with a few things. First, there are a few links in the book where I say, by the way, for the latest, click here and you'll get the latest research. So that's one way. But at a more fundamental level, I decided to really see this book as part of an experiment that a little bit larger. It's another cycle of experimentation for me. This, I hope, is only going to be my first book, and I learned so much in the process of writing it, and I took so many notes. Something I also talk about a lot, and I'm a bit advocate for, is the idea of metacognition, of really thinking about your own thinking, about reflecting on your own process, not just acting but reflecting. And I made sure while writing this book that I was also capturing how it felt, what worked, what didn't work, what I might do differently for the next one. And this is why I hope that this book I'm so proud of is only the first iteration of many other artifacts of my thinking and my research that I might produce in the future.

Wow. So, okay, so you, you reframed it. I love it. So it's like this, this is, yeah, any iterations will be in the second and third, and there will be, there will be many books because I read this thing and it's phenomenal. It truly is. I'm not just saying it. Yeah, you really knocked it out of the park.

Thanks so much. It's, I'm still at the stage where only a few select people have read it and I'm getting really good feedback, but I'm so excited. For it to be out in the world and to have more people tell me what they think. Because again, it is part of closing that loop, that experimental cycle, collecting the data, collecting the feedback so you can know then what seeds you're going to plant next.

Oh, I just love it. What I found amazing, as you, you're a gardener, however, the structure for your book, as an aspiring author, like in 2 years or so, fingers crossed, I'll have my first book.

So excited for you.

Well, thank you. And I'm looking at your structure and I know I just have a few, I just took a few screen grabs to put into here. You have a 4-part structure and I went to the appendix and you have this really cool image.

Yeah. Which also is not the latest. It will still be the same. It's just the labels. I made them better.

I must know. I must know your iteration. So I'll find out afterwards. But yeah, so it's like a pie chart. There are 4 quadrants, but in a circular form, and you're at— it's like multi-layered because you have an acronym in the book.

Yes.

And it's PACT.

Yes.

Okay, so it's like P-A-C-T. Yeah. And then each part is 3 chapters, so it's a 12-chapter book. It's like everything is perfectly balanced and everything, and I'm just like—

and that was so emergent. It was 13 chapters. We only cut one chapter completely out of the book, uh, one month before submission. Uh, so it was a gardener process with a last-minute switch to architects, basically.

Wow.

Which is also why I'm so inspired by your approach of saying you need both. You actually need both.

Interesting.

And especially for a book, I think. So I would say I was, you know, the Pareto principle, uh, it's 80/20. So for this, it was actually 80% gardener, 20% architects, and I think it was the perfect balance for me.

Oh, that's lovely. That's lovely. It's something I'm going to keep in mind as well. I'm, yeah, with the proposal and everything, just looking at the successful structure is really inspiring.

Yeah.

And I think actually kind of helped unlock some stiffness I was having around it. But, you know, stay tuned 2 years from now and we'll see.

And I'm here to help, you know, like if you want me to read your proposal, give you feedback, 100% happy to do this. I feel like I have a, like I kind of understand how it works a little bit.

Okay. Yeah. That might be helpful.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I just want to circle back to the tiny experiment itself. So in chapter 3, like you set the ground in chapters 1 and 2, you know, talking about all this structure. And then in chapter 3 to end part 1, it's like the thesis. And it's like, I know this is the thesis chapter and it just comes out and it's like, this is the thing. It's like, this is the tiny experiment. Here's what you do. And it's just like this single line that pops out. You know, I will do action for duration. Action, duration, it just popped. So how, what are some good ones or some examples of tiny experiments?

You could really use tiny experiments for anything. They're very flexible, as you said, it's just choosing an action, choosing a duration. So you could have creative tiny experiments that could be about writing, for example. That's what I did with mine, where I said, I'm going to do I will do 100 newsletters in 100 weekdays. That was my experiment. This could be around podcasting, what we're doing right here. You could say, I will do one solo podcast every week for a couple of months where every week you just pick an idea and you see what happens when you just talk about that idea to other people. Um, it could also be about different formats you could say. I've seen people do experiments where they said, I'm going to snap one photo every day.

Oh.

For a month.

Lovely.

And just capture those moments and practice what it looks like to frame a photo. One of my favorite ones from a member of the Nest Labs community was, I am going to reach out to an acquaintance or an old friend every day. For one month.

I need that one. I put so much pressure on like the old friends and then I end up finding myself back on the internet somewhere.

Yes. And we, we have this, this fear that we haven't been in touch for a while. What are we going to talk about? If you make it part of an experiment, then it's just every day you're like, okay, which friend is it going to be? And it can be a little text message. It doesn't have to be complicated, asking how they're doing. And at the end of their experiment, And his name is Jamie, the person who was running this experiment. I asked him, I was like, so what does the data look like? How did that go? And he was so happy because he decided to not necessarily keep going because it actually was a lot of emotional work to try and figure out what to say and how. But because of that one month of experimenting, he reconnected with so many people. And I think that's a very important part of tiny experiments is knowing that You don't have to keep going indefinitely. The experiment has an end. And at the end of the experiment, you can decide, do I want to go for another cycle, which could be longer? Do I want to stop? Do I want to pause? Do I want to reconsider? Do I want to tweak the format? Do I want to tweak the action? You have experiments where the outcome is, I really didn't like that, actually. And that's not failure. You learn something new. So that is success.

Yes, that is so profound. And I was just kind of thinking about another angle of this is that in our society and all the information bombardment, I feel oftentimes that I've lost my sense of control. I know we can say control is an illusion, all that, but we have a sense of control and that gets disoriented a lot. And with with the tiny experiment mindset, there's a sense of control there. Like, you know, you can control, like you said, tweak for the next time, this and that. You're just kind of actively experimenting. And you— I'm not sure if— have you noticed that as well, that there's just kind of a sense of calm, sort of, you know, confidence, control of the situation, and in a loose way, but you just You know, you're not like white-knuckling it, but you're just, you know, you know what it is.

I like that you use the word control because I want to suggest an alternative word.

Oh, please.

Which is agency.

Oh, I love it. Yeah.

Oh yeah. It's a sense of agency. It's knowing that even though things are not in your control, you will figure out a way. You will find a path that works for you, even though you don't know what that path looks like yet.

Yes, absolutely. That is so wonderful. And just for anyone listening who's thinking, if you're listening to this podcast, How I Think, you're totally vibing with what we're talking about. And you're kind of wondering, okay, what's my tiny, what are a couple options for tiny experiments? What would Anne-Laure recommend? I'm just sort of curious, do you have any, you know, knowing what you know about me, my audience and that sort of thing, what are some potential tiny experiments? I know that's kind of a broad question, but I'm going to try and come up with something specific to your community.

So thinkers, very curious, they love exploring, learning new things. They probably have a little creative itch.

Absolutely. Connecting dots.

That could actually be a really good tiny experiment. Every day choosing 2 ideas and connecting them together and then publishing somewhere the result of that connection that you made. So that could be a tweet, that could be a quick Instagram story, that could be a quick newsletter. That could be even just telling a friend about it as part of a conversation. That's a form of publishing to the world as well. But every day for the duration of your choice, could be 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, go into your notes, pick 2 ideas, connect them together, and then share it with the world.

I love that. I know you came up with that on the spot, and it's really just perfect. It is just truly perfect, and I think that's a nice way to end this. So everyone here has an action that they might consider if it vibes with them, if it comes to them at the right time. And so with that, I think we're going to wrap this thing up. And it's been such a gift to have you in Los Angeles briefly and to meet in person. I know our voices are giving out. We're putting it all out there, meeting so many wonderful people. And to carve out this moment in time, just, it means the world to me. So thank you so much, Anne-Laure.

Thank you so much, Nick. This was wonderful.

Thanks for tuning into this episode of How I Think. We'll be sure to add all the links and resources we mentioned in the video description or show notes, depending on the platform you're watching or listening from. And if you're curious for more, then feel free to check out another episode. I'll see you there.