# Which domino falls first?

Momo Maximilian Feichtinger · Education · planted 2026-09-03, last grown 2026-09-03 · 6 min · https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/der-erste-dominostein

**The smallest one falls first. The first domino is the single action so small that it looks almost laughable, and that makes everything else easier or unnecessary. So I am not looking for the biggest step. I am looking for the smallest push that keeps running on its own.**

![Drawing of a row of dominoes growing larger from left to right, the first one tiny and blue, the last one reaching out of the frame.](https://zukunftbilden.eu/assets/denken/der-erste-dominostein.webp)

*The mental model: each stone topples one that is one and a half times bigger. The first one decides how far the row reaches.*

The video is from 3 December 2019, in the middle of a challenge of ninety daily videos. I had hardly slept. The night before I had written fourteen pages for a university project, and the interesting part came afterwards. At two in the morning I cleaned the kitchen, then my room, the next day I planned the next assignment and then recorded this video.

## One principle in three disguises

In physics momentum is mass times velocity. A body in motion stays in motion, a body at rest stays at rest. The dictionary adds something I like even better: the strength gained by motion or by a series of events. Exactly the same thing sits inside kaizen, continuous improvement in small steps, and inside compound interest. Three names, one principle.

The uncomfortable half stands right next to it. The principle has no direction. Watching one more episode builds momentum just as a night shift on a project does. In that same night I see both sides: part one took four hours, part two two and a half, part three one. Motion gets easier while it runs, and standing still gets easier too.

> Thoughts have momentum, behaviours have momentum, relationships have momentum.
>
> Momo in the video "Your greatest enemy or friend", 2019

## The question about the one stone

A domino topples one that is one and a half times bigger than itself. Set up fifty-seven of them, each one and a half times larger than the last, and the force from the first push reaches the moon. The image comes from the book The One Thing by Gary Keller. It argues against a habit we all have: we think in straight lines, step by step, and so we look for big beginnings instead of load-bearing ones.

> What is the one thing you could do that would make everything else easier or not important to do at all?
>
> Momo in the video "Your greatest enemy or friend", 2019

### How I look for the first stone

1. Write down in one sentence what you actually want.
2. Ask for the one action that makes everything else easier or unnecessary.
3. Make it so small that it looks laughable. One pull-up. One paragraph. One minute.
4. Hang it on something that happens every day anyway.
5. Leave it there until it runs on its own, and only then raise it.

My own example in the video is a pull-up bar in a doorway. There was no workout, no plan, no number of repetitions.

> Just did one pull-up every time I walked through a door, nothing more.
>
> Momo in the video "Your greatest enemy or friend", 2019

Over months that visibly changed my shoulders, without me ever making a decision to train. The trick sits exactly there. A resolution that needs willpower costs willpower every day. An action that hangs on a door costs nothing, because the door is coming anyway.

## Where the domino and the deleting meet

The domino question looks for the one action that makes the rest easier. The verbesserungs-algorithmus looks for the same thing from the other side: question the requirement, delete, simplify, accelerate, automate, in that order. Both times you gain more by leaving out than by adding. What gets deleted before anything is automated stands in [What do you delete before you automate?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/loeschen-vor-automatisieren)

It is also the reason why I rarely start with the biggest tool when I look for leverage. A lever only works once it sits on something that repeats daily. Which places those are in a company stands on [the page about leverage](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/hebel). The North Star says where this is going. The first domino says what today begins with.

## The verdict after ninety days

On 22 December 2019 the last video of the challenge went up, and I open it with the sentence that ninety days of daily videos were a stupid idea. The reason is exactly the one above. I had momentum, and I put it into frequency instead of quality. The most important thing I had understood after the first month: quantity gets the ideas out of your head, and saying them out loud tests them harder than thinking them. After that the machine kept running because it was running.

For a video I actually want to show someone I need a week. One or two days for the idea and the script, one or two for shooting, two for editing. I listed it that way back then, and it is the early version of a rule that holds everywhere today: rather unfinished than sloppy. Where a started thing deserves to be finished anyway stands in [Why do you finish a bridge?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/bruecken-fertig-bauen)

At the end of the last day there is an image I have kept. A muscle only works when one part tightens and another lets go. Tighten everything at once and you are stuck and cannot move. Momentum needs the same alternation, otherwise motion turns into a cramp.

One thing I would build differently today. I had put down a forfeit: whoever caught me missing a day would get money from me. It worked, because I feel a looming loss more strongly than a prospect of gain. It also got me to make videos on day sixty that helped nobody. Today I put the line on quality instead of frequency, and every change gets a new version. Why I take objections to that seriously instead of pushing them away stands in [When is criticism a gift and when is it just fear?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/kritik-als-geschenk)

### Sources and links

- [What do you delete before you automate?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/loeschen-vor-automatisieren)
- [Why do you finish a bridge?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/bruecken-fertig-bauen)
- [Leverage](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/hebel) · Where the same hour of work produces many times the effect.

## Margin notes

- **Randnotiz** Halfway through the video I say that I prepared too much and am nervous because of it. Seven years later I read exactly that as the proof: the stone was already rolling, and the talking ran by itself.
- **Verknüpft**  [What do you delete before you automate?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/loeschen-vor-automatisieren), [Why do you finish a bridge?](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/bruecken-fertig-bauen), [Leverage](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/hebel)
- **Beleg** Video "Your greatest enemy or friend, you choose", 3 December 2019, 29:00 minutes. Video "Sorry I won’t see you tomorrow. Last day", 22 December 2019, 8:36 minutes. Both videos are unlisted, the quotes come from the transcripts. The domino image comes from Gary Keller, The One Thing.

## How this note grew

- 2026-09-03: Planted from two videos of the ninety day challenge, December 2019.

---

Source: https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/der-erste-dominostein · Feed: https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/feed.xml