Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

by Greg McKeown

When the essentials become too hard to handle, you can either give up on them or you can find an easier way. Essentialism was about doing the right things; Effortless is about doing them in the right way.

we all want to do what matters. We want to get in shape, save for a home or for retirement, be fulfilled in our careers, and build closer relationships with people we work and live with. The problem isn’t a lack of motivation; if it were, we would all already be at our ideal weight, live within our means, have our dream job, and enjoy deep and meaningful relationships with all the people who matter most to us.

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

achieving our goals efficiently isn’t unambitious. It’s smart. It’s a liberating alternative to both hard work and laziness: one that allows us to preserve our sanity while still accomplishing everything we want.

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.

Whenever your efforts yield a one-time benefit, you are getting a linear result.

With residual results you put in the effort once and reap the benefits again and again. Results flow to you while you are sleeping. Results flow to you when you are taking the day off. Residual results can be virtually infinite.

“If you keep it simple, less can go wrong,”

Our brain is wired to resist what it perceives as hard and welcome what it perceives as easy. This bias is sometimes called the cognitive ease principle, or the principle of least effort. It’s our tendency to take the path of least resistance to achieve what we want.

trying too hard makes it harder to get the results you want.

Effortless Inversion means looking at problems from the opposite perspective. It means asking, “What if this could be easy?” It means learning to solve problems from a state of focus, clarity, and calm. It means getting good at getting things done by putting in less effort.

Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn, has said, “I have come to learn that part of the business strategy is to solve the simplest, easiest, and most valuable problem.

When we remove the complexity, even the slightest effort can move what matters forward.

When a strategy is so complex that each step feels akin to pushing a boulder up a hill, you should pause. Invert the problem. Ask, “What’s the simplest way to achieve this result?”

The broaden-and-build theory in psychology

Positive emotions open us to new perspectives and possibilities. Our openness encourages creative ideas and fosters social bonds. These things change us. They unlock new physical, intellectual, psychological, and social resources. They create “an upward spiral” that improves our odds of coping with the next challenge we face. The benefits don’t stop with us either: when we express gratitude to others, we see their faces light up. They seem less burdened and more expansive. A positive cycle results.

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

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

people don’t really buy products or services. Rather, they “hire” them to do a job.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,” said Maya Angelou.

“For after all,” as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “the best thing one can do when it is raining, is to let it rain.”

Relaxing is a responsibility. “To maximize gains from long-term practice,” the study’s lead author, K. Anders Ericsson, concluded, “individuals must avoid exhaustion and must limit practice to an amount from which they can completely recover on a daily or weekly basis.”

Dedicate mornings to essential work. Break down that work into three sessions of no more than ninety minutes each. Take a short break (ten to fifteen minutes) in between sessions to rest and recover.

Recent sleep science found that participants who used water-based passive body heating—also known as a bath—before bed slept sooner, longer, and better.

according to this research, the key is the timing of the bath or shower: ninety minutes before bedtime. The lead author explains that the warm water triggers our body’s cooling mechanism, sending warmer blood from our core outward and shedding heat through our hands and feet. This “efficient removal of body heat and decline in body temperature” speeds up the natural cooling that makes it easier to fall asleep.

“We spend a third of our lives asleep. Perhaps it is time for you to evaluate if you could be doing it better.”

The recipe for taking an Effortless Nap is as follows: Notice when your fatigue has gotten to the point that you feel it is real work to concentrate. Block out light and noise using an eye mask and a noise canceller or earplugs. Set an alarm for a desired time. As you try to fall asleep, banish all thoughts about what you “could be doing.” Your to-do’s will all still be there when you wake up. Only now, you’ll be able to get them done faster, and with greater ease. The first few times, this may take some effort. You may not actually fall asleep. But keep trying. Once you’ve figured out the time of day you’re likely to need a nap, block your calendar for it. With some practice, naps will become effortless—and guilt-free.

When we end our war on our body’s natural rhythms, when we let others pass us in the unwinnable race for the most achieved with the least rest, our lives gain texture, clarity, and intention. We return to our Effortless State.

Listening isn’t hard; it’s stopping our mind from wandering that’s hard. Being in the moment isn’t hard; not thinking about the past and future all the time is hard. It’s not the noticing itself that’s hard. It’s ignoring all the noise in our environment that is hard.

One study found that by training our attentional muscles we can improve our processing of complex information moving at great speed.

Everyone got better at focusing on the important and ignoring the irrelevant.

There is no such thing as an effortless relationship. But there are ways we can make it easier to keep a relationship strong. We don’t need to agree with the other person on everything. But we do need to be present with them, to really notice them, to give them our full attention—maybe not always, but as frequently as we can. Being present is, as Eckhart Tolle has said, “ease itself.”

a practice used by the Quakers called the Clearness Committee.

As Parker Palmer, an expert in the Clearness Committee process, has written, “Each of us has an inner teacher, a voice of truth, that offers the guidance and power we need to deal with our problems.” The intent of the exercise is to help people amplify this inner voice and gain clarity on how to move forward.

How can we call up this state of heightened perception and focus on demand? I recommend the following daily practice. 1: Prepare Your Space (two minutes) Find a quiet place. Turn off your phone. Let people know you will be taking ten minutes. Take a moment to clear off your desk. To put things back in their proper place. 2: Rest Your Body (two minutes) Sit comfortably with your back straight. Close your eyes. Roll your shoulders. Move your head from side to side. Release tension in every part of your body. Breathe normally and naturally. 3: Relax Your Mind (two minutes) It’s natural for your mind to be full of thoughts. Just acknowledge them. Notice them. Let them come and let them go. 4: Release Your Heart (two minutes) If thoughts of someone who has wronged you arise, say, “I forgive you,” and imagine you are cutting a chain that tethers you to them. 5: Breathe in Gratitude (two minutes) Relive a moment in your life that you are really thankful for. Experience it again, using all of your senses. Remember where you were, how you felt, and who you were with. Really breathe the gratitude in. Repeat this step three times.

An Effortless Summary Part I: Effortless State What is the Effortless State? The Effortless State is an experience many of us have had when we are physically rested, emotionally unburdened, and mentally energized. You are completely aware, alert, present, attentive, and focused on what’s important in this moment. You are able to focus on what matters most with ease. INVERT Instead of asking, “Why is this so hard?,” invert the question by asking, “What if this could be easy?” Challenge the assumption that the “right” way is, inevitably, the harder one. Make the impossible possible by finding an indirect approach. When faced with work that feels overwhelming, ask, “How am I making this harder than it needs to be?” ENJOY Pair the most essential activities with the most enjoyable ones. Accept that work and play can co-exist. Turn tedious tasks into meaningful rituals. Allow laughter and fun to lighten more of your moments. RELEASE Let go of emotional burdens you don’t need to keep carrying. Remember: When you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. When you focus on what you have, you get what you lack. Use this habit recipe: “Each time I complain I will say something I am thankful for.” Relieve a grudge of its duties by asking, “What job have I hired this grudge to do?” REST Discover the art of doing nothing. 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. Take an...

The goal is to get to the point where you try without trying—where your movement becomes smooth, natural, and instinctive. That is what is meant by Effortless Action.

Past a certain point, more effort doesn’t produce better performance. It sabotages our performance. Economists call this the law of diminishing returns: after a certain point, each extra unit of input produces a decreasing rate of output. For example, if I write for two hours I can produce two pages. But if I write for four hours I can produce three pages. The rate of output is slowing down. More effort at this point should be questioned. But sometimes overachievers double down on effort. They see the reduced output and mistakenly think the answer is to push even harder.

Past a certain point, more effort doesn’t produce better performance. It sabotages our performance.

Negative returns: the point where we are not merely getting a smaller return on each additional investment, we are actually decreasing our overall output.

It’s not just that overall output suffers; it’s a recipe for burnout as well. This is an example of overexertion, or in everyday parlance, trying too hard.

to get an important project done it’s absolutely necessary to define what “done” looks like.

if you think of most of the essential projects you are working on, how clear is your idea of what completion looks like?

To avoid diminishing returns on your time and effort, establish clear conditions for what “done” looks like, get there, then stop.

The first action may be the tiniest, easiest-to-overlook thing. But it is surprisingly fierce.

When we’re struggling to name the first obvious action, we need to either make it a little easier to get started on what’s important now or make it a little harder to do something trivial instead. Looking at that first step or action through the lens of 2.5 seconds is the change that makes every other change possible. It is the habit of habits.

No matter how simple the step, it’s still easier to take no step.

What are the minimum steps required for completion?

In order to succeed at something, you have to get it done.

“Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.”