In One Minute, bestselling author John Strelecky reveals a deceptively simple, profoundly effective method for transforming any area of your life—by gently guiding it in the new direction, just one minute per day.

Drawing on cutting edge insights from psychology, neuroscience, habit formation, and behavioral science, Strelecky introduces a compelling truth: you are your minutes.

The life you live, and the person you become, is shaped continuously and quietly by one primary thing—what you do with your 1-minute blocks of time.

When you master those, you take control of your trajectory. You become the architect of your own story.

With One Minute, you’ll learn how to:

• create space for meaningful minutes, even when you feel you have no time
  
• build a simple, resilient system that outlasts old, unhelpful habits
  
• move beyond boredom, distraction, and autopilot living
  
• experience small, daily wins, even on your most stressful days
  
• design your life so success becomes easier and more natural
  
• re-engage quickly and effortlessly when you lose focus
  
• turn ordinary moments into purposeful, meaningful ones

...and a whole lot more.

No matter where you’re starting from, One Minute offers a practical, proven way to guide your life in any direction you want.

When planted and given the chance to grow, a tiny seed can become something extraordinary. Your one minutes are the seeds for your life.

The book is being released next week. The author, John Strelecky, recently took time out of his busy book launch schedule to answer seven questions from Porchlight about the book and what he hopes readers take away from it, and recommend some other books you may want to pick up when you're at the bookstore getting your copy of One Minute.

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Porchlight Book Company: Writing a book is no small undertaking. What compelled you to write this one?

John Strelecky: It was a response to fan messages, actually. Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of heartfelt inquiries from readers of my book The Cafe on the Edge of the World in which they ask for help taking their life from where it is to where they want it to go. They find inspiration in the cafe story and then aren’t sure how to turn that into action. In some instances they’re seeking more meaning in their life. Other times there’s something they want to do, see, experience, or change and they just aren’t sure where to begin. One Minute is my answer. It’s the simplest way I know for someone to go from who they are to who they want to be. Since it’s very simple to implement (one-minute adjustments per day) it’s easy to get started and then also easy to stay with.

PBC: Writing (and reading) always prompts as many new questions as it offers answers to the ones you came to it with. What is one unanswered question you encountered as you wrote the book that you are most interested in answering now?

JS: Is there an exact tipping point at which change starts to massively accelerate? In One Minute, I explain that “You are your minutes. The life you live and the person you are is constantly being determined by one primary thing—which is what you do with your one-minute blocks of time.” I emphasize the importance of thinking big, starting small, and scaling smoothly. Because that’s the best way to enable someone’s mind to catch up to their desires. It enables their brain to go from resistance to tolerance to desire. There does come a point though, where their comfort with the One Minute method, and their additional comfort with the new version of themselves they’ve been creating one new minute per day, enables them to accelerate their progress very rapidly. I’ve seen it time and time again and am very interested in uncovering more about that.

PBC: If there is only one thing a reader takes away from reading this book, what would you hope it to be?

JS: That as soon as you do something for just one minute a day, you are to some degree that person. If you want to be athletic, do one minute of jumping jacks each day. That makes you athletic. Now, maybe that’s not “as athletic” as you ideally want to be. But you are “athletic” to some degree. And that’s really important, because we act in alignment with who we want and perceive ourselves to be.

An “athletic” person makes different choices than a “nonathletic” person about what foods they put in their body, the ways they spend their time, and whether to participate in sports or other physical activity. I know that might seem like a small nuance, but it’s actually super important. Your brain will fight against limiting labels and behaviors when it has proof, even 1 minute of proof, that they aren’t true. It will guide you toward positive labels and behaviors even when you live them for just 1 minute per day.

What it really comes down to is this: When you spend even one minute per day being the person you want to be, you’re no longer working toward change. You already are the change. Then it’s just a matter of being that for more minutes. That’s the possibility that opens up because of someone’s one-minute choices and what I hope they take away from the book.

PBC: One of the great things about books is that they tend to lead readers to other books. What book[s] related to this topic would you recommend people read after (or perhaps even before) reading your book?

JS: Atomic Habits is a great book to read alongside One Minute. It’s incredibly well written and there’s a piece where author James Clear talks about the importance of casting votes for the person you want to be. I remember reading that and thinking, “That’s what someone is really doing with their one-minute actions, they’re casting votes.” What you do with your minutes defines who you are and who you are defines what you do with your minutes. Writers write. Bakers bake. Cyclists cycle. And in turn, someone who writes is then a writer. Someone who bakes is then a baker. Someone who cycles is then a cyclist. So each time someone chooses to live one minute in alignment with who they want to be and the life they want to live, they’re casting votes. I think everyone who reads Atomic Habits in conjunction with One Minute will get inspired with lots of ways to help change their habits so that they live lots of meaningful minutes.

PBC: What is your favorite book? 

JS: In general, any great book I’m currently reading is my favorite. I truly love the way great writing transports you to whole other realms and realities in ways nothing else does. If I could only pick one book as my personal favorite, it would probably be Illusions by Richard Bach. It crossed my path at just the right time when I was younger and changed my life in many ways. Plus, the style and essence inspired a lot of what I did when I wrote The Cafe on the Edge of the World and that was the title which really established me as an author. So in addition to just loving Illusions for the ways it helped me see life, I’m immensely grateful for all the ways it inspired my own writing. I wouldn’t be who I am today as an author or overall person if it weren’t for that book.

PBC: What are you reading now?

I’m bouncing between two books. At night I’m re-reading Joseph Nguyen’s book called Don’t Believe Everything You Think. The writing is beautiful and it’s a great way to calm the mind before you go to sleep. It’s like reading truths you’ve long felt but couldn’t quite put into words. I highly recommend it. During my five-minute after lunch reading break, I’m diving into Return to Real by Ryan Levesque. It’s very thought provoking and I love both the way he writes and also the pacing of the book.

PBC: Do you have any future projects in the works that we can look forward to?

At the moment I’m fully immersed in helping readers and One Minute find each other. I know that the start of a new year is a time when a lot of people are evaluating where they’re at in life and where they want to go. I love the idea that instead of another year of broken New Year’s resolutions, that one minute at a time people can pretty effortlessly and enjoyably create the life they want. I’ve seen that when you take a minute and make it intentional instead of transactional, you give it the chance to go from ordinary to extraordinary. Life feels like it’s becoming more and more transactional, even though what people are craving is intentional. So I guess my project in the works for this upcoming new year is helping people give themselves more minutes which are intentional, so that they can experience the extraordinary.

About the Author

John Strelecky is the #1 bestselling author of The Cafe on the Edge of the World and One Minute. His books have sold more than 12 million copies and been translated into 45 languages. He is a lifelong seeker of ­simple ways to create extraordinary life moments, which he shares though his books and his weekly newsletter, The Meaningful Minute. When he’s not writing or speaking, John is often using his 1-­ minute blocks of time for adventure traveling. His ­family’s longest trip was a year-long backpacking experience around the world (which he highly recommends).