Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

by Greg McKeown

Pair the most essential activities with the most enjoyable ones.

Let go of emotional burdens you don’t need to keep carrying.

When you focus on what you have, you get what you lack.

Do not do more today than you can completely recover from by tomorrow.

Break down essential work into three sessions of no more than ninety minutes each.

Clear the clutter in your physical environment before clearing the clutter in your mind.

Effortless Action means accomplishing more by trying less.

To get started on an essential project, first define what “done” looks like.

Write a “Done for the Day” list. Limit it to items that would constitute meaningful progress.

Break the first obvious action down into the tiniest, concrete step. Then name it.

Adopt a “zero-draft” approach and just put some words, any words, on the page.

Modest Input, Residual Results Personal capability compounds over time. You develop a reputation once, but then opportunities flow to you for years.

Teach others to teach, and you get exponential impact. You craft the right story once, and it can live on for millennia.

stay aligned on roles, responsibilities, regulations, rewards, and desired results.

Strike a problem at its roots,

“You get what you give.”

make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”

combining learnings from a range of disciplines—psychology, history, mathematics, physics, philosophy, biology, and more—we produce something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

the most useful knowledge comes from fields other than our own.

the life expectancy of a book is proportional to its current age—meaning, the older a book is, the higher the likelihood that it will survive into the future.

Read to Absorb (Rather Than to Check a Box).

But absorbing yourself fully in a book changes who you are, just as if you had lived the experience yourself.

take ten minutes to summarize what I learned from it on a single page in my own words. If

Being good at what nobody is doing is better than being great at what everyone is doing. But being an expert in something nobody is doing is exponentially more valuable.

Gaining unique knowledge takes time, dedication, and effort. But invest in it once, and you’ll attract opportunities for the rest of your life.

Whenever we want a far-reaching impact, teaching others to teach can be a high-leverage strategy.

Stories are bridges from past to present.

simplify the message to a short whiteboard sketch that could be explained in under ten minutes.

Go for the straightforward message that can be easily understood and repeated.

Make the most essential things the easiest ones to teach and the easiest ones to learn.

So what we need is not more knowledge but new skills and strategies that allow us to apply that knowledge without taxing our working memory.

The beauty of the checklist is that the thinking has been done ahead of time.

eventually 90 to 95 percent of all customer service functions will be fully automated.

Schedule your annual physical as a recurring appointment on the same day each year,

your dentist appointments on the same day every six months.

Sign up for regular delivery and automated payment of your recurring medicines from your pharmacy. Set your phone to turn on “nightlight” mode two hours before bedtime.

Set up regular calls or get-togethers with the people who matter most. Set calendar reminders for friend and family member birthdays. Preorder flowers or gifts to be sent on key birthdays, anniversaries, or other annual events.

Have a percentage of your paycheck automatically deposited in savings each month. Schedule a weekly meeting to review your finances as a family, and annual meetings with a financial adviser. Automate budgeting with an app that tracks your spending. Set up regular monthly or annual donations to your most valued charities.

annual safety checklist

recurring shopping lists

Delegate meal planning

recurring meetings with a mentor.

hour every quarter to review your personal career goals.

minutes every morning to read an article on an important topic not directly related to your job.

one hour each day for something that brings you joy.

Results in and across teams is to have systems in place to ensure that the engine is constantly well oiled.

integrity, intelligence, and initiative,

A high-trust structure is one where expectations are clear.

Results: What results do we want? Roles: Who is doing what? Rules: What minimum viable standards must be kept? Resources: What resources (people, money, tools) are available and needed? Rewards: How will progress be evaluated and rewarded?

it usually takes less time to manage a problem than to solve it.