It's just (un)common sense!

Something I’ve heard recently from a few people who’ve read the book is that some of the ideas in there are common sense, and did I really need to point them out? This pertains to suggestions like parking further from your destination or walking more. It’s a good point, and I thought I should address it in a public blog post rather than in private emails.

For starters, I totally agree that these things are common sense. Except when they aren’t.

I consider this type of common sense as like when you hear of a new business/app/interpretive dance revolution that’s doing really well. Often you hear the idea and you think “Damn, that’s so simple! Why didn’t I think of that?” You might also think something along the lines of: “That’s so obvious now that I see it.”

The thing is that lots of ideas are like this – the very best ideas are usually exactly the ideas that seem too obvious to not already exist.

Uber is a great example:

• We all have smartphones with GPS
• Carrying lots of cash is less and less common
• We need to get places cheaply and easily
• There are tons of taxis going unused most of the time

Boom. So obvious. We’re all kicking ourselves for not coming up with Uber and now sleeping on beds made of freshly-ironed dollar bills. Uber (or Hailo, for markets like Ireland) has become the new normal for many people. It’s the default way to get a taxi.

This is very similar to how I see these kinds of “common sense” ideas in Everyday Exercise.

No doubt, parking further from the door of the supermarket or gym is not a genius idea–far from it–and I’m not about to tell you that I’ve come up with some revolutionary notion here. On the face of it, it’s completely self-evident and, like Uber, just makes sense.

The problem is, many of us don’t stop to think about things long enough to see these “common sense” solutions. I know I didn’t, for a long time! Common sense is suddenly not so common in action. We vie for the spaces right by the entrance so that we don’t have to carry our shopping more than a few feet. We hop in our cars for five minute journeys because even though, accounting for traffic lights and all that, we don’t get to our destination much faster, it feels faster and we’re used to trying to expend as little energy as possible.

If you read Everyday Exercise or this blog and take from it the central idea–looking for movement opportunities in our everyday lives in order to get healthier and happier–then this sort of thinking becomes your new normal, Uber-style. You automatically look for the chance to move rather than the “easy” route. You grab hold of the prospect of some beneficial activity and (sometimes quite literally) run with it.

When you get into that mindset then these nuggets really do become your version of common sense. They’re just how you live. You’ve levelled up and adjusted your idea of what common sense entails. You start to find it baffling that anybody would do anything else. You see examples–good and bad–jumping out at you from all over the place.

Sometimes it’s these easier-to-implement and more obvious ideas rather than the crazy ones (JCVD-inspired tooth brushing, anyone?) that cause real deep-seated changes in attitude and behaviour. Parking a little bit further away now leads to walking or cycling the whole way a few months down the line, without having to make earth-shattering changes to your lifestyle all in one go. They’re Trojan horse habits that sneak in and quietly lead to bigger upheavals.

If an idea seems obvious to you, great! That just means it’s more likely to stick and help you to make a lasting change in your habits. Spread the word to the people you know and start making a wider change in what constitutes common sense.

What other common sense things do you do to boost your day-to-day activity levels?