What does it mean that the minimum viable workflow?

Start with the simplest version that works and add complexity only when needed.

Example: You decide to start a morning journaling practice. You read five articles about journaling systems. You buy a specific notebook, research fountain pens, design a template with sections for gratitude, intentions, reflections, and a daily review prompt. You print the template. You create a spreadsheet to track which prompts you have used. You set three alarms. On the first morning, the elaborate setup feels exciting. On the third morning, it feels heavy. By the seventh morning, you have stopped entirely — not because journaling failed you, but because the infrastructure you built around the practice became the obstacle. Six weeks later, a friend mentions she journals every morning. You ask about her system. She says: "I open a notes app and write whatever is on my mind for five minutes." She has journaled for two years without interruption. Her workflow had three steps: open app, write, close app. Yours had fourteen. Hers shipped. Yours didn't.

Try this: Select a workflow you have been meaning to create or one that currently feels overly complicated. Write down the absolute minimum version — the fewest possible steps that still produce a usable output. Your constraint is this: the workflow must have no more than five steps, and each step must be completable in under ten minutes. If you find yourself writing a sixth step, ask which of the existing five can absorb it. If a step requires more than ten minutes, ask whether it is actually two steps disguised as one, and then ask whether both halves are truly essential. Run this minimum viable workflow once, today. Not next week. Not after you have refined it. Today. After execution, write one sentence about what the output lacked and one sentence about what surprised you. Those two sentences are the only planning input you need for version two.