Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

by Greg McKeown

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?” In the illustration on this page, we see that when we remove the complexity, even the slightest effort can move what matters forward. Momentum grows with the force of gravity. Execution becomes more effortless.

Tewson had an idea—one that would affect the lives of millions of people. If she could make charitable giving “active, emotional, involving and fun,” she thought, perhaps it could ease the whole interaction. Her idea was to pair something people already liked to do—in this case, watch comedy on TV—with contributing to the plight of people in need. The charity was called, brilliantly, Comic Relief. Comic Relief is best known for Red Nose Days, the first of which took place in February 1988.

More than 150 celebrities and comedians participated. The televised event attracted thirty million viewers: more than half the country. People in every corner of the country bought red clown noses, with the proceeds going to the charity. It raised £15 million in a single day. And it’s since become a biannual ritual that, over the next thirty years, managed to raise £1 billion for the most disadvantaged people in Africa and for depressed areas within the UK. Giving to charity is important. Participating in a day of comedy is enjoyable. By bringing charity and comedy together, Tewson made giving easier. As a result, not only do more people participate, they actually look forward to participating again, year after year. We all have things we do consistently not because they are important but because we actively look forward to doing them. Maybe it’s listening to a particular podcast, watching a favorite TV show, singing karaoke, dancing to our favorite tunes, or playing games with friends.

At the same time, we all have important activities we don’t do consistently because we actively dread doing them. Maybe it’s exercising, doing our finances, washing the dishes after dinner, returning emails or voicemails, attending meetings, or waking up our teenagers for school. Not every essential activity is inherently enjoyable. But we can make them so. Why would we simply endure essential activities when we can enjoy them instead?

So often we separate important work from trivial play. People say, “I work hard and then I can play hard.” For many people there are essential things and then there are enjoyable things. But this false dichotomy works against us in two ways. Believing essential activities are, almost by definition, tedious, we are more likely to put them off or avoid them completely. At the same time, our nagging guilt about all the essential work we could be doing instead sucks all the joy out of otherwise enjoyable experiences. Fun becomes “the dark playground.” Separating important work from play makes life harder than it needs to be.

It’s no secret that many essential activities that are not particularly joyful in the moment produce moments of joy later on. If you exercise and eat better, you will eventually be healthier and lose weight. If you read every day, you will eventually develop expertise. If you meditate regularly, you will eventually develop a greater sense of calm in your life. But these are all lag indicators—meaning, you experience the reward after the action has taken place, sometimes weeks, months, or years afterward. But essential activities don’t have to be enjoyed only in retrospect. We can also experience joy in the activity itself. We simply reduce the lag time between the action and satisfaction by pairing the essential activity with a reward.

the joy of the experience was enough of a reward in and of itself. “There are many experiences in our work and personal life that are boring, mundane, or even stressful. We often feel that we have no options but to endure them or avoid them,” Culberson says. But “if we can break down the processes into those steps, we may find ways to make the steps more bearable, or better yet, fun.”

or relax in your hot tub at some point. So why not pair it with running on the treadmill or doing the dishes or returning phone calls? Perhaps that seems obvious. But how long have you tried to force yourself to do the important but difficult thing through sheer determination, instead of making it fun?

you too can stack and combine your most essential and most joyful activities to construct new effortless experiences.

Some rituals have meaning beyond what can be fully appreciated by the outside observer. Like how Agatha Christie wrote her best mysteries while eating apples in the bath. How when Beethoven prepared his coffee each morning, he would count, one by one, exactly sixty beans for his cup. How the ancient Romans in the time of Caesar, prone to devise a ritual for almost every aspect of daily life, made a religious ceremony of their first shave—the depositio barbae. No matter how silly these behaviors may seem on the surface, doing them consistently can ground us, sooth our anxieties, and return us to an Effortless State in ways that are often understandable only to us.

Our rituals are habits with a soul. They have the power to transform a tedious task into an experience that creates joy. When we invite joy into our daily routine, we are no longer yearning for the far-off day when it might arrive. That day is always today. When we attach small fragments of wonder to mundane tasks, we are no longer waiting for the time when we can finally allow ourselves to relax. That time is always now. As fun and laughs lighten more of our moments, we are drawn back further toward our natural, playful Effortless State.

When you focus on something you are thankful for, the effect is instant. It immediately shifts you from a lack state (regrets, worries about the future, the feeling of being behind) and puts you into a have state (what is going right, what progress you are making, what potential exists in this moment). It reminds you of all the resources, all the assets, all the skills you have at your disposal—so you can use them to more easily do what matters most. In the figures below, we can see that when we focus on what we have, those things expand.

Gratitude is a powerful, catalytic thing. It starves negative emotions of the oxygen they need to survive. It also generates a positive, self-sustaining system wherever and whenever it is applied. The broaden-and-build theory in psychology offers an explanation for why this is the case. 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.

Put simply, a system is self-sustaining if it requires less and less investment of energy over time. Once it’s set in motion, maintaining it becomes easier, then easy, then eventually effortless.

BJ Fogg, founder of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University, says that to create a new habit we simply need to look for something we already do and then attach a new behavior to it. He calls this a habit recipe, the simplest version of which is: “After [X] I will [Y].” We can apply this idea to make gratitude a habit, by using the following recipe: After I complain I will say something I am thankful for.

In that remarkable moment, he decided to forgive. That is not to say he did not feel anger, or did not suffer, because he did. But what he didn’t do was make the suffering even harder for himself by wallowing in resentment and fury. Instead, he turned his energy, his life force, toward letting go.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,” said Maya Angelou. So Jonathan decided to start believing them. He let go of his unrealistic expectations for how he wished they would behave. He accepted reality as it was and would be. Only then could he find true acceptance: the necessary first step toward a new trajectory for his life. “For after all,” as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “the best thing one can do when it is raining, is to let it rain.” When we let go of our need to punish those who’ve hurt us, it’s not the culprit who is freed. We are freed. When we surrender grudges and complaints in favor of grace and compassion, it’s not an equal exchange. It’s a coup. And with every trade, we return closer to the calm of our Effortless State.

with his energy restored, he was able to meet the challenge with relative ease. He was clearheaded about what he could and couldn’t take on. He was able to make decisions more quickly and execute them more efficiently. Rest proved an antidote for both pre-existing and future stress. It kept him grounded in the Effortless State.

regular spurts of “doing nothing” are the best way to achieve that. He said, “If you treat it that way, it keeps their minds fresher. And if their mind is fresher, they’ll play a better

“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.”

Many of us struggle with the tension between not doing enough and doing too much. Have you ever pushed yourself so far past the point of exhaustion one day that you wake up the next morning utterly depleted and need the entire day to rest? To stop this vicious cycle in its tracks, try this simple rule: Do not do more today than you can completely recover from today. Do not do more this week than you can completely recover from this week.

The easier way is to replenish our physical and mental energy continuously by taking short breaks. We can plan those breaks into our day. We can be like the peak performers who take advantage of their bodies’ natural rhythm.

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.

So Bergeron immediately shifted her approach. Her entire life became about five things: training, recovery, nutrition, sleep, and mindset. And the results have been remarkable.

When we are struggling, instead of doubling down on our efforts, we might consider pausing the action—even for one minute. We don’t need to fight these natural rhythms. We can flow with them. We can use them to our advantage. We can alternate between periods of exertion and renewal.

People who sleep less than seven hours a night are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, asthma, arthritis, depression, and diabetes and are almost eight times more likely to be overweight.

He went to bed at the same time every night, turned off digital devices an hour before bed, and before turning in, took a hot shower. He then tracked his sleep on his smartwatch for a month. He noted his heart rate, time in bed, time asleep, quality of sleep, and percentage of deep sleep. Why the hot shower? 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.

He felt sharper, more creative, and more present. He woke up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle another day.

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.

Distractions that keep us from being present in the moment can be like cataracts for our minds. They make noticing what matters harder. And the longer they are left untreated, the more debilitating they become. Less and less light comes in. We miss more and more. Eventually we become blind to what really matters most. Fortunately, cataracts can be removed. As we remove the cataract, the light gets to the retina again, and we can see the things we were missing before, clearly and easily.

the evidence also points to Curry being an extreme outlier—it wouldn’t be wrong to say genius—in his ability to process sensory input, even in the most stressful, complex, and fast-moving situations. In simplistic terms, he’s seeing more of the game, allowing him to exploit opponents’ positioning to create shots, find passing lanes, and force turnovers.”

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

professional athletes were better at processing complex, fast-moving information than the other groups. But even more useful for those of us unlikely to make the NBA was the fact that all groups improved, very quickly, with practice. Everyone got better at focusing on the important and ignoring the irrelevant.

To be in the Effortless State is to be aware, alert, and present, even in the face of fast-moving information and the endless onslaught of distractions. And that’s no small thing, because in that state of heightened attention we see differently. We are able to laser in on the things that are important. We notice things that were always right under our noses but that we missed before.

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.”

When we’re fully present with people, it has an impact. Not just in that moment either. The experience of feeling like the most important person in the world even for the briefest of moments can stay with us for a disproportionate time after the moment has passed. There is a curiously magical power of presence.

I have on many occasions asked audiences to think of someone who was completely present with them in their life, then describe what that was like for them in one word. I have learned not to be surprised by the volume, strength, and variety of the adjectives offered. Words include generous, valued, understanding, refreshing, authentic, worthy, peaceful, important, special, splendid, seen, symbiotic, focused, raw, intimate, important, invigorating, empowering, quiet, golden, magical, warm, impactful, engaging, validating, accepting, and priceless.

You would think these people were describing someone who had moved mountains for them. But they weren’t. They were describing a person who was fully present for them. When we are fully present with another person, we see them more clearly. And we help them see themselves more clearly as well.

The greatest gift we can offer to others is not our skill or our money or our effort. It is simply us. None of us have infinite reserves of focus and attention to give away. But in the Effortless State, it becomes far easier to give the gift of our intentional focus to the people and things we really care about.

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.

Negative returns: the point where we are not merely getting a smaller return on each additional investment, we are actually decreasing our overall output. For example, there is a point in writing where you start making a manuscript worse by working on it longer. The same can be said for composing a song, drafting a blueprint, preparing a legal argument, or writing computer code, along with many other endeavors. You are fatigued. Your judgment is impaired. Every ounce of extra effort you put in now is detrimental. It is an example of false economy to continue at this point.

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.

Haven’t you found that when you do your very best work, the experience feels effortless? You act almost without thinking. You make things happen without even trying to make things happen. You are in the zone, in flow, in peak performance. This is the sweet spot for doing what matters.

The goal is to accomplish what matters by trying less, not more: to achieve our purpose with bridled intention, not overexertion. This is what is meant by Effortless Action.

And so the most expensive naval project in Sweden’s history sailed less than a mile before being buried in the sea—all because the king had made the project almost impossible to safely complete by constantly redefining what “done” looked like.

Whether we’re writing a book proposal, putting together a presentation for clients, building a ship, or doing anything else, tinkering can improve things significantly—at first. But there comes a point where the law of diminishing returns sets in—a point where our efforts begin to outpace our improvements. I define “done” as the point just before the effort invested begins to be greater than the output achieved. To avoid diminishing returns on your time and effort, establish clear conditions for what “done” looks like, get there, then stop.

we can opt for taking the minimum viable first action: the action that will allow us to gain the maximum learning from the least amount of effort. This principle always reminds me of the line from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Though she be but little she is fierce.” The first action may be the tiniest, easiest-to-overlook thing. But it is surprisingly fierce.

A microburst in April Perry’s vernacular is a ten-minute surge of focused activity that can have an immediate effect on our essential project. It’s the little burst of motivation and energy we get from taking that first obvious action. And from there your energy—and your confidence—only builds with every subsequent action.