No. 134 · Work · Physics
Inertia
People and organisations keep moving along their current path until a real force makes them change.
In the Almanac
“Lemons and the Royal Navy”, 1747–1795 · “Polaroid”, 2001
Both stories in full, three ways to use it and where it misleads.
Get the AlmanacQuestions
What is Inertia?
Inertia is the tendency of an object to resist changes in its motion. In life, habits, institutions and companies keep doing what they've always done long after the reasons have changed. Staying the course is often not a decision at all, just the absence of one.
How do you use Inertia?
To use it, regularly ask of each routine whether you would start it today. Make good choices the default, like automatic savings, so inertia works for you. And lower the barrier to starting new habits, because the first push is always the hardest. Stability has value, so change deliberately.
When does Inertia matter?
Inertia is one of the 43 mental models for work, the situations where you ask: How do I get the right things done? Within that, it belongs to “Getting started and keeping going”, alongside Activation Energy, Catalysts and Compounding Effect.
What is an example of Inertia?
Two stories show it at work: Lemons and the Royal Navy (1747–1795) and Polaroid (2001). Both are told in full in The Mental Models Daily Almanac, which has two stories for each of its 365 models.
Which mental models are related to Inertia?
Momentum, Activation Energy and Sunk Cost Fallacy. Inertia itself comes from physics.