Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

by Greg McKeown

Instead of trying to get better results by pushing ever harder, we can make the most essential activities the easiest ones.

Perfectionism makes essential projects hard to start, self-doubt makes them hard to finish, and trying to do too much, too fast, makes it hard to sustain momentum.

George Eliot, “What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?”

We don’t need to look far to see the principle in action. We buy something at the overpriced convenience store on the corner because it’s easier than getting in the car and driving to the store where prices are lower. We put our dishes in the sink instead of the dishwasher because one less step is required. We let our teenager text through dinner because it’s easier than inviting an argument by trying to enforce the no-phones rule. We accept the first, minimally credible information we find online about a subject because it’s the easiest way to get our questions answered. And so on.

When we fall victim to misfortune, it’s hard not to obsess, lament, or complain about all that we have lost. In fact, complaining is one of the easiest things to do. It’s so easy many of us do it incessantly: when someone is late to meet us, when our neighbors are too loud, when there are no parking spaces on the one day we are running late, when we watch the news, and so on.

“The key to this process is time. The sooner you identify a problem, the more likely you are to avert a dangerous situation.”

Mistakes are dominoes: they have a cascading effect. When we strike at the root by catching our mistakes before they can do any damage, we don’t just prevent that first domino from toppling, we prevent the entire chain reaction.

Whatever has happened to you in life. Whatever hardship. Whatever pain….They pale in comparison to the power you have to choose what to do now.