I have a friend namedNathan Barrywho recently finished writing three books in just 9 months.

How did he do it?

By following a simple strategy.

He wrote 1,000 words per day.

(Thats about two to three pages.)

And he did it every day for 253 straight days.

It wasnt a sprint; it was his average speed that was key.

This post originally appeared onJames Clears blog.

The maniac in the cabin has a high maximum speedmaybe 20 or even 30 pages per day.

But after a few weeks at that unsustainable pace, either the book is finished or the author is.

By comparison, Nathans maximum speed never reached the peak levels of the crazy writer in the cabin.

However, over the course of a year or two hisaverage speedwas much higher.

This lesson extends far beyond writing.

We waste a lot of time obsessing over it.How hard was your workout?

How motivated are you?

How fast are you pushing it?

But what if you were to average all of your days in the last month?

How many of those days included a workout?

How about the last three months?

Or the last year?

What has youraverage speedbeen?

So often we waste our time and energy thinking that we need a monumental effort to achieve anything significant.

We tell ourselves that we need to get amped up on motivation and desire.

We think that we need to work harder than everyone else.

But when you look at people who are really making progress, you see something different.

Nathan wrote 1,000 words per day, every day.

And nine months later?

Three books are finished.

At no point did he necessarily workharderthan everyone else.

Theres nothing sexy or shocking about writing two or three pages per day.

Lets talk about that now.

That is, graduating from your current habit to one level higher.

Basically, habit graduation is about increasing your average speed.

If your average speed is exercising twice per month, can you graduate that to once per week?

You get the idea.

Ive thought about how I might apply this myself.

For the last eight months, Ive published a new article every Monday and every Thursday without fail.

(Click here to see them all.)

Now, Im considering graduating that habit to the next level.

For example, I could follow Nathans strategy and write 1,000 words per day.

Where to Go From Here

We all have an average speed when it comes to our habits.

And if were being honest with ourselves, that average speed might be much slower than wed like.

Its time to graduate to the next level.

Whats your average speed?

Thousands of people have attended his online seminars onHabits,Willpower, andProcrastination.

Image bySira Anamwong(Shutterstock).