The Lesson Michael Jordan Taught Carmelo Anthony.
Micro-Chunking is a productivity technique overlooked but instantly boosts results. In 2004, a young Carmelo Anthony was struggling. He wanted to average 28 points per game, but the pressure of trying to hit that number every night was crushing. Some games he’d start slow and spend the rest of the game chasing an impossible target. In other games he’d force shots, trying to hit that magical 28.
Then Michael Jordan pulled him aside.
“Stop thinking about scoring 28 points a game,” Jordan told him. “Think about scoring 7 points a quarter.”
The math was simple: 7 points in each of four quarters equals 28 points. But the mental shift was revolutionary. Instead of staring at a mountain of 28 points over 48 minutes, Carmelo now had a tiny hill to climb every 12 minutes. Seven points wasn’t intimidating. Seven points was achievable. Seven points was just two baskets and a three-pointer.
“It changed my whole approach,” Carmelo later explained. “I wasn’t worried about the end of the game anymore. I just focused on getting my 7 in each quarter. Before I knew it, I was at 28, 30, 35 points.”
Michael Jordan had taught him a technique that elite performers across every field use to accomplish extraordinary things. It’s called micro-chunking, and it’s the secret weapon that helps Navy SEALs survive Hell Week, helps bestselling authors finish novels, and helps overwhelmed professionals tackle impossible workloads without burning out.
What Is Micro-Chunking? Breaking Tasks Into Ultra-Small Units
Micro-chunking is the practice of breaking down any task into the smallest possible units of action and focusing exclusively on completing one unit at a time. Unlike time blocking, which divides your day into chunks of time, micro-chunking divides your tasks into micro-chunks of action.
The difference is crucial. Time blocking tells you when to work. Micro-chunking tells you what to work on next, in such specific detail that your brain can’t find an excuse to procrastinate.
Instead of “write article” you get “write opening sentence.” Instead of “clean house” you get “pick up three items from the floor.” Instead of “launch business” you get “register domain name.”
David Goggins, the ultra-endurance athlete and former Navy SEAL, describes how his instructors taught him to survive the grueling ordeal of Hell Week: “Don’t think about the five days. Don’t even think about the next evolution. Think about the next meal. The next sunrise. The next minute if you have to.”
This is micro-chunking in its purest form. When the journey ahead is brutally hard, you survive by shrinking your focus down to the next immediate thing. Just like Carmelo shrinking “score 20 points” down to “score 5 points this quarter.”
Why Micro-Chunking Works: The Psychology of Tiny Wins
Our brains are prediction machines constantly calculating whether a task is worth the effort. When we look at a massive project, our brain’s alarm system activates. It sees threat, uncertainty, and potential failure. So it triggers avoidance behaviors like checking email, scrolling social media, or suddenly deciding the kitchen needs reorganizing.
But when we break that same project into micro-chunks, something fascinating happens. Each micro-chunk is so small that our brain can’t justify the fear response. “Write one sentence” doesn’t trigger anxiety the way “write a ten-page report” does. “Score 7 points this quarter” doesn’t create pressure the way “score 28 points tonight” does.
Even more powerful is what happens when you complete that first micro-chunk. Your brain releases a small hit of dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with achievement and motivation. That tiny win creates momentum. Suddenly, you want to complete the next micro-chunk, and the next.
This is why micro-chunking often leads to flow states that time blocking never achieves. You’re not watching the clock, wondering if you can fill the next two hours. You’re riding a wave of small victories, each one pulling you naturally toward the next.
The Simple Rewards Strategy: Why Small Wins Trump One Big Victory
Here’s where micro-chunking gets interesting. Some practitioners add a motivation layer by attaching small rewards to micro-chunks. Finish drafting three paragraphs, take a five-minute walk. Complete two client calls, enjoy a quality coffee. Respond to ten emails, check the news for ten minutes.
These simple rewards start to become more meaningful than the overall goal. A consultant working on a six-month project might find more daily satisfaction from her “three tasks completed” celebration with her favorite tea than she does from occasionally thinking about the final deliverable.
This inverts the traditional productivity model. Most advice tells you to keep your eyes on the prize, visualize the end goal, stay motivated by thinking about success. But research on goal pursuit reveals something counterintuitive: obsessing over the distant goal often increases anxiety and decreases performance.
Teresa Amabile’s research at Harvard Business School found that the single biggest motivator at work is making progress in meaningful work. Not thinking about progress. Actually making it. The best way to feel like you’re making progress is to complete things, even small tasks, every single day.
One hundred small wins outperform one massive victory in terms of sustained motivation and mental health. The novelist who writes 500 words daily for a year will likely feel more fulfilled than the one who writes sporadically and finally finishes after painful stops and starts, even if both produce books of equal quality.
Carmelo Anthony didn’t celebrate at the end of the game when he hit 30 points. He celebrated four times, after each quarter, when he hit his 7-point target. Four small victories felt better than one big number on the stat sheet.
Micro-Chunking in Action: Real Examples From High Performers
Jerry Seinfeld’s Chain Method: The comedian doesn’t focus on writing perfect jokes. He focuses on writing every day. He marks an X on his calendar for each day he writes. Soon he has a chain of Xs. His only job is not to break the chain. The micro-chunk is simple: write for a few minutes and mark an X. The reward is visual proof of consistency.
James Clear’s Two-Minute Rule: The habits expert advises making new behaviors so easy they take less than two minutes. Want to start exercising? Your micro-chunk is “put on gym shoes.” Want to read more? Your micro-chunk is “read one page.” The goal is to show up, not to complete the entire workout or finish the book. Completion comes naturally once you start.
Agile Development Sprints: Software teams don’t plan to build an entire application. They break development into one or two-week sprints with specific, achievable goals for each sprint. Each sprint delivers working software, creating continuous momentum and reducing the anxiety of staring at a months-long timeline.
BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits: The Stanford behavior scientist teaches people to build habits by making them absurdly small and celebrating immediately. After you flush the toilet, do two push-ups and say “Victory!” The micro-chunk is so small it’s harder to skip than to do, and the instant celebration creates positive reinforcement.
How to Implement Micro-Chunking: A Practical Framework
Step 1: Decompose the Monster
Take your intimidating project and break it down ruthlessly. Keep asking What’s the smallest next action? until you reach something you can complete in 5-15 minutes.
Think like Michael Jordan: he didn’t tell Carmelo to score more efficiently. He gave him a concrete, measurable target for a short time period.
Example: Launch podcast becomes:
1. Research podcast hosting platforms (15 min)
2. Choose three potential names (10 min)
3. Write three topic ideas (10 min)
4. Record 2-minute test audio (5 min)
5. Watch one tutorial on editing (15 min)
Each item is specific, concrete, and complete in one sitting.
Step 2: Focus on the Next Immediate Thing
Looking at your list of micro-chunks, commit to exactly one. Not three, not five. One. Your entire universe contracts to this single action. The rest of the project doesn’t exist until this micro-chunk is complete.
This is the Navy SEAL strategy. During Hell Week, trainees go through evolutions, brutal physical challenges that last hours. The only way to survive is to stop thinking about the evolution and focus on the next moment. The next breath. The next paddle stroke. The next footstep.
When your deadline is six months away, focus on what you can complete in the next fifteen minutes. When the game is 48 minutes long, focus on the next 12 minutes.
Step 3: Celebrate Completion
This is the step most people skip, and it’s the reason micro-chunking fails for them. When you complete a micro-chunk, you must acknowledge it. Mark it off your list with a satisfying check mark. Say done out loud. Take a sixty-second break. Pour that coffee you promised yourself.
The celebration doesn’t have to be elaborate. It just has to be intentional. Your brain needs the signal that something was accomplished.
Carmelo didn’t wait until the final buzzer to feel accomplished. After each quarter, he’d check his mental scorecard: Got my 7. Next quarter, another 7.
Step 4: Let Momentum Build Naturally
Don’t force yourself to complete ten micro-chunks immediately. Start with one or two. Let the satisfaction of completion create natural motivation for the next chunk.
Many people find that completing the first micro-chunk eliminates the resistance they felt toward the entire project. Once they write that opening sentence, they suddenly want to write the second. Once they send that first email, they’re ready to send five more.
Trust the momentum. It’s real, and it’s powerful.
When Big Goals Become Less Intimidating
The real magic of micro-chunking isn’t just that it helps you get things done. It’s that it fundamentally changes your relationship with ambitious goals.
A mountain looks impossible from the base. But if you only look at the next ten feet of trail, it’s just a short walk. Then another short walk. Then another. Five hours later, you’re standing on the summit wondering how you got there.
Big goals trigger anxiety because our brains struggle to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. We see the distance and feel inadequate. We imagine all the things that could go wrong. We catastrophize about failure.
Micro-chunking eliminates that anxiety by eliminating that gap. There’s no gap to bridge when your only concern is the next fifteen minutes. You’re not trying to become a successful entrepreneur; you’re just sending one email to a potential customer. You’re not trying to write a book; you’re just drafting one paragraph. You’re not trying to score 28 points; you’re just trying to score 7 this quarter.
The anxiety dissolves because the task is too small to fear.
The Focused Attention Advantage
In our distracted world, sustained attention has become a superpower. But most people approach focus the wrong way. They try to maintain concentration on a big project for hours, and they fail because their attention naturally wanders.
Micro-chunking harnesses attention differently. You’re not trying to focus for three hours. You’re trying to focus for ten minutes on one specific micro-chunk. Anyone can focus for ten minutes. Any basketball player can lock in for one quarter.
When that micro-chunk is complete, you get a natural break point. You can check your phone, stretch, grab water. Then you return for another ten-minute burst of focused attention on the next micro-chunk.
The result is higher quality focus than you’d achieve by trying to force concentration across marathon work sessions. Your attention stays sharp because you’re giving it permission to rest between sprints.
Why Most Content Misses This
If micro-chunking is so effective, why don’t more productivity experts teach it?
Because it’s not sexy. Time blocking sounds impressive. “I block out 8-11 AM for deep work” signals that you’re serious and disciplined.
Micro-chunking sounds almost embarrassingly simple. “I write one sentence at a time” doesn’t have the same ring to it. “I score 7 points per quarter instead of 28 per game” sounds like you’re lowering your standards.
But simple isn’t the same as easy, and it’s definitely not the same as ineffective. The simplest tools are often the most powerful because they have the fewest failure points.
Micro-chunking works because it’s harder to mess up “do one small thing” than it is to mess up “optimize your entire productivity system with seventeen different apps and techniques.”
Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player ever, didn’t teach Carmelo some complex mental framework with seven steps. He taught him to think smaller. That’s it. Think smaller, execute better.
FAQs
What is micro chunking and why is it more effective than traditional time management?
Micro chunking is the practice of breaking tasks into the smallest useful actions possible tiny, highly doable steps that remove overwhelm and increase focus. Unlike traditional time management, which relies on long blocks of scheduled work, micro chunking boosts productivity by reducing friction, lowering mental resistance, and creating quick wins that build momentum. It’s especially effective for people with busy schedules or high cognitive load.
How can micro chunking improve daily productivity for remote workers?
Remote workers often face distractions, irregular schedules, and task overload. Micro chunking helps by turning complex work into small, clear actions that are easy to start and finish. This method increases consistency, improves attention, and makes it easier to maintain progress even with interruptions. Many remote teams use micro chunking to stay aligned without micromanagement.
Is micro chunking better than the Pomodoro Technique for deep work?
Micro chunking and Pomodoro serve different purposes. Pomodoro uses timed sessions (usually 25 minutes) to maintain concentration, while micro chunking focuses on simplifying tasks into tiny actions. For deep work, micro chunking often works better because it reduces cognitive load before the work begins, making it easier to dive deeply into tasks without resistance. Some people even combine both for maximum effectiveness.
What tools or apps are best for micro chunking tasks effectively?
Micro chunking works well with simple task-management tools like Notion, Todoist, ClickUp, Google Keep, and Trello. The best apps allow users to break tasks into sub-tasks, set reminders, and track small wins quickly. Tools with automation features can also help generate micro tasks automatically, reducing planning time and improving workflow consistency.
How do businesses use micro chunking to increase team performance and reduce burnout?
Businesses use micro chunking by breaking projects into clear micro-tasks that team members can complete quickly without feeling overwhelmed. This reduces cognitive stress, improves task clarity, and increases accountability. Teams experience fewer bottlenecks, faster progress, and lower burnout because work feels manageable. Many companies pair micro chunking with project management tools to streamline workflows.
References
Amabile, T. and Kramer, S. (2011) The progress principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press. Available at: https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins (Accessed: 9 December 2025).
Clear, J. (2018) Atomic habits: An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. New York: Avery. Available at: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits (Accessed: 9 December 2025).
Fogg, B.J. (2020) Tiny habits: The small changes that change everything. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Available at: https://tinyhabits.com (Accessed: 9 December 2025).
Goggins, D. (2018) Can’t hurt me: Master your mind and defy the odds. Austin: Lioncrest Publishing. Available at: https://davidgoggins.com/book/ (Accessed: 9 December 2025).
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