Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

by Greg McKeown

2.5 seconds is enough time to get caught up in nonessential activities too. The big tech companies understand this in their relentless competition for our attention. They are constantly testing new ways to offer us smaller units of information: 280 characters on Twitter, “likes” on Facebook and Instagram, newsfeeds we can scroll through and absorb at a glance. These bite-sized activities may not feel like wasting time—after all, we think, what’s a few seconds? The trouble, of course, is that over time these activities rarely add up to making progress on the goals we hope to achieve. They are easy but pointless.

At one point in the meal, Bezos said, “We need something to make the ordering system frictionless. We need to make it so the customer can order products with the least amount of effort. They should be able to click on one thing, and it’s done.” Recalling the experience, Hartman says his marching orders were clear: “The goal was to make it easier.” Bezos recognized that “the more steps there were, the more time they [the customer] had to change their mind. If you can get the user to buy it with one click they are more likely to make the purchase.”

Amazon filed a patent for the one-click process that lasted the better part of twenty years, giving them a huge advantage over online competitors. It’s impossible to isolate the precise value of that single innovation, but it has, clearly, been enormous.

It’s striking to me that Hartman spent months trying to make each step in the online ordering process simpler but never thought to try removing steps to make the process itself simpler. There is a huge difference between the two.

Jobs came at it from the opposite angle. He started at zero and tried to figure out the absolute minimum number of steps required to achieve the desired outcome.

Just two easy steps. If there are processes in your life that seem to involve an inordinate number of steps, try starting from zero. Then see if you can find your way back to those same results, only take fewer steps.

“Manifesto for Agile Software Development.” In it, they codified a set of principles for developing better software by removing obstacles and friction to create an effortless user experience. One of the twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto states, “Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.” By this they mean that the goal is to create value for the customer, and if this can be done with less code and fewer features, that is exactly what ought to be done. While this principle refers to the process of software development, we can adapt it to any everyday process by saying, “Simplicity—the art of maximizing the steps not taken—is essential.” In other words, regardless of what our ultimate goal is, we should focus on only those steps that add value. Every nonessential step comes with an opportunity cost, so for each nonessential step removed, we gain more time, energy, and cognitive resources to put toward what’s essential.

You might be surprised at how many seemingly complex goals can be obtained, and how many seemingly complex tasks can be completed, in just a few steps. As sportswriter Andy Benoit observes, most geniuses “prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.”

focusing on the elegance and sophistication of the aircraft was actually an impediment to progress. An ugly aircraft that could be crashed, repaired, and redesigned fast would make it much easier to make progress on what really mattered: building a plane that could, as MacCready put it, “turn left, turn right, go up high enough [at] the beginning and the end of the flight.”

you want to “build a better airplane,” don’t try to get everything exactly right the first time. Instead, embrace the rubbish “no matter how ugly it is” so you can crash, repair, modify, and redesign fast. It’s a far easier path for learning, growing, and making progress on what’s essential.

Many of us are kept back from producing something wonderful because we misunderstand the creative process. We see something exceptional or beautiful in its finished state and we imagine it started out as a beautiful, Baby Yoda version of what we are looking at. But exactly the opposite is true.

Is there something new you want to learn but feel overwhelmed by? Something that you know would add great value to you either personally or professionally but that you feel intimidated by because of the long road to mastery? Then try your own version of the “bag of beads” exercise and shift your focus to making as many mistakes as possible when you’re starting out.

There is no mastery without mistakes. And there is no learning later without the courage to be rubbish.

As American poet and memoirist Maya Angelou put it, “When I am writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced I’m serious and says ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’ ”

So if you are feeling overwhelmed by an essential project because you think you have to produce something flawless from the outset, simply lower the bar to start. Whether it’s writing a book, composing a song, painting a canvas, or any other creative pursuit that calls to you, inspiration flows from the courage to start with rubbish. By embracing imperfection, by having the courage to be rubbish, we can begin. And once we begin, we become a little less rubbish, and then a little less. And eventually, out of the rubbish come exceptional, effortless breakthroughs in the things that matter.

Slow Is Smooth, Smooth Is Fast

even under the harshest of conditions, the goal was doable, thanks to that one simple rule: they would not exceed fifteen miles a day, no matter what.

The False Economy of Powering Through When we try to make too much progress on a goal or project right out of the gate, we can get trapped in a vicious cycle: we get tired, so then we take a break, but then we think we have to make up for the time lost, so we sprint again. For example, I had a friend who was desperate to finish writing her business plan. So one weekend, she decided to spend every waking minute on it. She powered through. But it burned her out to the point that she couldn’t bear to think about the plan, much less work on it again for weeks. She said, “When I tried, my brain just shut down.”

When we’re trying to achieve something that matters to us, it’s tempting to want to sprint out of the gate. The problem is that going too fast at the beginning will almost always slow us down the rest of the way. The costs of this boom-and-bust approach to getting important projects done is too high: we feel exhausted on the days we sprint hard, drained and demoralized on the days we don’t, and more often than not we wind up like those British explorers, feeling battered and broken and still no closer to achieving our goal. Luckily, there is an alternative. We can find the effortless pace.

Holding back when you still have steam in you might seem like a counterintuitive approach to getting important things done, but in fact, this kind of restraint is key to breakthrough productivity. As Lisa Jewell, author of some eighteen bestselling novels, put it, “Pace yourself. If you write too much, too quickly, you’ll go off at tangents and lose your way and if you write infrequently you’ll lose your momentum. A thousand words a day is a good ticking over amount.”

Ben Bergeron is a former Ironman triathlete who trains the fittest athletes in the United Kingdom. Clearly, he is not lacking in the physical stamina to work extra hours when a client requires it, but he has a rule that keeps him performing well professionally and personally: he leaves the office at 5:25 p.m. every single day. On a slow day, he leaves the office at 5:25 p.m. On a busy day? He leaves the office at 5:25 p.m. It’s nonnegotiable. Even if he is in a meeting, as soon as the clock strikes 5:25 p.m., he just stands up and walks to the door. He doesn’t have to think about it. By now, everyone he works with knows that no rudeness is intended. It’s simply that his upper bound is 5:25 p.m.

Whether it’s “miles per day” or “words per day” or “hours per day,” there are few better ways to achieve effortless pace than to set an upper bound.

in our overenthusiasm for getting things done, we may make the mistake of thinking that all progress is created equal. All progress is not created equal.

how can we maintain a steady pace when any number of unexpected crises could pop up and throw us off schedule? Since the end of the Cold War, the military has used the acronym VUCA to describe our global environment: one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. In response to this new normal, the military has developed several approaches we can apply to make it easier to do what matters on our own everyday battlegrounds. One is captured in the military mantra “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast”—meaning, when you go slow, things are smoother, and when things are smooth, you can move faster.

This is particularly true in conflicts where the ability to move in a coordinated fashion while staying alert to possible threats from every direction—and often while carrying weapons—is key. If you stop or move too slowly, you become an easy target. “But if you move too fast, you get surrounded and outflanked,” as consultant Joe Indvik writes.

“If you look closely at how elite infantry move, it looks like this: somewhere between a walk and a run, underscored by quick but careful footfalls, with weapons raised while rhythmi...

When you go slow, things are smoother. You have time to observe, to plan, to coordinate efforts. But go too slow and you may get stuck or lose your momentum. This is just as true in life and work as it is on the battlefield. To make progress despite the complexity and uncertainty we encounter on a daily basis, we need to choose the right range and keep within it.

We can establish upper and lower bounds. Simply use the following rule: Never less than X, never more than Y.

Essential Project: Finish reading Les Misérables in six months Lower Bound: Never less than five pages a day Upper Bound: Never more than twenty-five pages a day Essential Project: Hit my sales numbers for the month Lower Bound: Never less than five sales calls a day Upper Bound: Never more than ten sales calls a day Essential Project: Call my family every week for a month Lower Bound: Never talk for less than five minutes Upper Bound: Never talk for more than an hour Essential Project: Complete an online class Lower Bound: Never less than signing in to the class every day Upper Bound: Never more than fifty minutes taking one practice test each day Essential Project: Complete the first draft of a book Lower Bound: Never less than five hundred words a day Upper Bound: Never more than one thousand words a day

The lower bound should be high enough to keep us feeling motivated, and low enough that we can still achieve it even on days when we’re dealing with unexpected chaos.

Once we get into the rhythm, the progress begins to flow. We are able to take Effortless Action.

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.

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?”

Accept that work and play can co-exist.

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 effortless nap.

Achieve a state of heightened awareness by harnessing the power of presence. Train your brain to focus on the important and ignore the irrelevant. To see others more clearly, set aside your opinions, advice, and judgment, and put their truth above your own. Clear the clutter in your physical environment before clearing the clutter in your mind.

What is Effortless Action? Effortless Action means accomplishing more by trying less. You stop procrastinating and take the first obvious step. You arrive at the point of completion without overthinking. You make progress by pacing yourself rather than powering through. You overachieve without overexerting.

Set an effortless pace: slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Reject the false economy of “powering through.” Create the right range: I will never do less than X, never more than Y. Recognize that not all progress is created equal.

This is what it means to achieve Effortless Results: not to achieve a result once through intense effort, but to effortlessly achieve a result again and again. What do I mean? Whenever your inputs create a one-time output you are getting a linear result. Every day you start from zero. If you don’t put in the effort today, then you don’t get the result today. It’s a one-to-one ratio: the amount of effort you put in equals the results received. Linear results exist in every area of endeavor. For example:

Residual results are completely different. With residual results you exert effort once and reap the benefits again and again. Results continue to flow to you, whether you put in additional effort or not. 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.

A person who makes the one-time decision to exercise every day has made a residual decision. An entrepreneur who sets up her business to work even when she is on vacation for six months has a residual business.

A person who does something every day, habitually, without thinking, without effort, is benefiting from residual action.

The thought of getting perpetual results might seem improbable if you are used to taking one action and getting one result. But there are tools we can use to turn our modest effort into Effortless Results, again and again. Residual results are like compound interest. Benjamin Franklin summarized the idea of compounding interest best when he said, “Money makes money. And the money that money makes, makes money.” Put another way, when we are generating compound interest, we are creating effortless wealth.

Lever: Automating Modest Input, Residual Results Automate something once, and then forget about it as it continues to work perpetually. Write up a cheat sheet once, and use it every day afterward. Write lines of code, or hire someone to write them, and then they will perform the same actions thousands of times. You can write a book once, but then millions can read it even hundreds of years later.

Lever: Preventing Modest Input, Residual Results Solving a problem before it happens can save you endless time and aggravation later on. Strike a problem at its roots, and you can prevent it from resurfacing again and again. Preventing a crisis now is always easier than managing it in the future.

Learning the right thing once is a bargain. A one-time investment of energy up front yields Effortless Results again and again over time.

Learning something new is often a series of attempts, failures, and adjustments. Neural connections that result in success are reinforced and grow stronger. Like a tree that can support the growth of new branches as it grows thicker and stronger, our brains can now grow connections, incorporating that new information into our existing foundation of knowledge. Meanwhile, unproductive connections eventually become weaker and, like dead branches, break off.

Munger’s approach to investing and life is the pursuit of what he calls “worldly wisdom.” He believes that by 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. Munger sees isolated facts as useless unless they “hang together on a latticework of theory.”

in analyzing almost eighteen million scientific papers, the best new ideas usually come from combining existing knowledge in one field with an “intrusion of unusual combinations” from other disciplines. This is why Munger is wise to “believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out.” As he puts it, “I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart.”

The exchange of ideas across disciplines breeds novelty. And turning the conventional into something novel is often the key to effortless creativity—not only in science but in areas ranging from investing, to music, to making movies.