I know the title’s an audacious claim! What if it’s possible? I think it is.

I’ve started reading a great blog by Kirsten Osolind, CEO of re:invention Consulting, a marketing company for women-led businesses. In a post this week, Kirsten proposed the idea of a business stencil, “which provides a framework guide to measurable results, a tool that can be incorporated to design business tasks.” This week’s stencil is about attitude adjustments and Kirsten references The 10-Minute Attitude Adjuster by Jenna Glatzer. Here’s the essence of Glatzer’s idea: “…instead of deciding, ‘I’m going to write a novel today,’ you have to instead decide, ‘I’m going to spend ten minutes today creating something and enjoying myself.’ That’s all. No pressure, and no guilt needed, because it’s only ten minutes.”

It’s an idea that resonates with me because anytime I’m tempted to avoid a project that feels too big, I use this technique to get going. And when I’m mediating and the participants are overwhelmed by the dispute’s complexity, I use the same idea to break it into bite-size chunks. My colleagues and I call it fractionating—is that even a real word? You get the idea: Take something that feels daunting and accomplish it in smaller pieces.

I hear from women all the time who tell me they want to do conflict better, more assertively, less assertively, with less fear or more care—somehow do it differently than they do now. But it’s daunting to pull out one of the many good books on the subject and try to synthesize all the strategies into your being, or take a course and then try to manage all the strategies and tools in your head while you’re in the middle of a conflict. Instead, what if you gave yourself 10 minutes a day to work on strengthening the conflict skills or attitude you want to strengthen? What do you think? If you were to give yourself 10 minutes a day to get better at conflict, what would you do with those 10 minutes? Ten simple minutes.