A friend shared a Facebook post from their friend with the photo above. The math: improving 1% (0.01) each day for 365 days yields roughly 37.8 (1.01 to the 365th power); slacking 0.01 daily yields 0.03 (0.99 to the 365th power)—a clear parable about daily accumulation. (The headline uses Google's calculator; for 0.99 it reads "0.99^365 = 0.0255179645.")
My friend commented, "I see—interesting. I'll share this as a reminder to myself." The original post said it was "in the principal's office at Katsuyama Elementary." (Some blogs call Katsuyama "Nagasaki Municipal," but Nagasaki's school was merged away; searches find Katsuyama in Maebashi, Osaka, and Kyonan, Chiba. The poster lives in Chiba, so likely Kyonan.)
Posted January 21, it had nearly 9,000 shares by February 1 noon and keeps growing. Comments praise it: "Wonderful!!" "Numbers make it clear!" "Just 0.02 difference over a year!" It seems to affirm Japanese diligence. Googling turns up the formula everywhere. Even Mynavi News, from a company headquartered in Palaceside Building, ran an article citing it: "Many businesspeople are inspired and motivated. ... The same applies to beauty—daily effort of just 0.01 adds up to effective anti-aging" (http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/news/tokyodokujo/2013/01/001101099.html, reprinted from "Tokyo Solo Woman Style").
The article attributes the "law" to Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani's Principles for Success (December 2009, Gentosha Bunko). Whether it is his original or has an earlier source is unclear.
Online critics have fun with it: "If accumulation, why multiply? Addition would make more sense." "Skip one day and multiply by zero—effort vanishes." "Each stage raises the bar among better people—endless hell." "One step forward, three days three steps, two steps back—that's life." "I get the point, but it reeks of trying too hard to sound clever." Personally, adding 0.01 daily for a year gives 4.65 (1 + 0.01×365)—still impossible for me. Such numbers are metaphor; nitpick and there's no end.
One more interesting point: the "elementary principal's office sticker" photo spreads widely. My take: because it circulates as classroom talk rather than as a Harvard MBA CEO's sermon, resistance is lower and it goes viral.