What I Learned By Recording One Second Everyday for One Year

The first lesson I learned from recording one year of one second everyday: Commitment is more important than success because commitment takes you closer to success. Without commitment, it’s very difficult to move ahead in life and anything you do.

I have failed at many projects because I sucked at commitment.

I always have difficulty making commitments. And it’s not a co-incidence that only projects which I commit better gets closer to success.

Here’s what I learned by recording one second everyday for one year:

Idea is the First Step

Even if execution matters in the end, you cannot start without an idea. I wanted to document my life and never forget a single day until my death. I used to take lots of pictures and videos. It wasn’t practical as I’ve mentioned in the post – One Second Everyday (Going Back in Time). One day while watching Jamie’s 1 second video of Istanbul, I thought of doing the same. But his Istanbul video wasn’t one second everyday, it was random 1 second video clip of Istanbul that he recorded. However, it was enough to spark lots of idea inside my head.

Consumption is the First Step for Production

I just wrote a blog post along those lines about a week ago. While I was consuming TED talks, I came across Cesar Kuriyama’s TED talk about taking one second video everyday. It was too good to be true. As soon as I saw that, I wanted to do it. I thought of doing it right away. However, I didn’t have any idea on how to make it happen. I also didn’t have necessary tools to make it happen. Which takes us to the next step.

Search for Tools to Make it Happen

It’s about making actionable next steps. As soon as you have a goal or an idea, create an actionable next step to make it happen. For me, it was to purchase a mobile phone with video camera in it. And then install ‘1 second everyday‘ app.

Don’t Think of Starting, Just Start!

After everything was in place, I wasn’t sure when to start. Should I wait until January 1st? Should I wait until my birthday to make one second videos of my age?

Instead of doing that, without giving any second thought, I just started. I started taking videos that exact day, and that day was September 13, 2013. It’s a random date. I didn’t know if I would succeed at this project during that time. I didn’t know anything. But today, I’m very happy that I started that day. If I had waited, I’d still be waiting.

It’s always difficult to start, so just start. Don’t wait for the right moment. It doesn’t exist.

Watching Flashback of your Life is Simply Amazing

There are no words for this. I can remember everyday since last year. What I did during that day and all the moments associated with it. What else could make me sooo happy?

This lifelong project continues to have a massively positive impact on my life and how I use my time. It encourages me to make every day notable in some way. I like to call my seconds “secret codes”, because no matter what you see, only I know the context of the moments I have chosen. Some of the most beautifully recorded seconds, often hold little emotional value for me personally… and some of the least interesting looking seconds often represent some of the best & worst moments in of my life. Only I know the true context behind my snippets.

– Cesar Kuriyama

I’m not a magician, but I know that you have some project ideas in your mind which you haven’t started.

I just have two words for you after all this: JUST START!