Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

by Greg McKeown

Larry Silverberg is a “dynamicist” at North Carolina State University. That simply means he is an expert in the movement of physical things. For example, he has studied the movement of millions of free throws over twenty years. One thing he has found over the years is that the most important factor for successfully shooting a free throw is the speed at which you release the ball. To achieve the kinesthetic sweet spot takes practice and muscle memory. 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. If you try too hard when shooting a free throw, you’ll tense up and move too fast. This is similar to what happens to many overachievers who have been conditioned to believe that more effort leads to better outcomes. When they invest a lot of effort and don’t see the results they want, they lean in harder. They work longer hours. They obsess over the situation more. They are trained to see the lack of progress as a sign that yet more effort is required. What they haven’t learned is that: 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 s...