Effortless
The Truth About Hard Work
The marginal return of working harder is, in fact, negative
When you simply can’t try harder, it’s time to find a different path
The Effortless Way
This book can’t eliminate your hardships
It won’t help downplay your burdens, but it will help lighten them
Burnout is not a badge of honor
The Big Rocks Theory
The large rocks must go in first to fit in the jar
Big rocks are your essential responsibilites: health, family, relationships
Small rocks and pebbles: work, career
The sand is social media and doom swiping
Right things in the wrong way
If you don’t follow the big rock theory, you’ll get the trivial things done, but have no time for the important things
Essentialism is doing the right things, effortless is about doing them in the right way
Another way
Acheiving our goals efficiently isn’t unambitious. It’s smart.
What could happen in your life if the easy, but unimportant things became harder and the essential things became easier?
Part I: Effortless State
The most essential things can be the easiest ones
If you’re trying too hard, find the easier path
Avoid burnount, and get the right results
Part II: Effortless Action
Perfectionism makes essential projects hard to start
Self-doubt makes them hard to finish
Trying to do too much too fast, makes it hard to sustain momentum
You have to simplify the process
Part III: Effortless Results
Two types of results: linear and residual
One-time benefit is a linear result
Residual results: put in the effort once, and reap the benefits again and again
Perpetual Load Theory
Our brain’s processing capacity is large, but limited
Our brain is programmed to prioritize emotions with high affective value - fear, resentment, anger
This makes the effortless state difficult
What if this could be easy?
Hard work may not be well named
Trivial things are easy. Important things are hard (not true)
We accept the right way is the harder way
Path of Least Effort
Cognitive ease principle: take the path of least resistance
What if we embraced this tendency?
When you try too hard
Trying too hard makes it harder to get the results you want
Behind most failures, you will find the same error of trying too hard
In order to achieve, we must overdo (not true)
Invert
Turn an assumption upside down, and ask what if the opposite were true?
What is this could be easy? Find an indirect approach
If overwhelmed, ask how are you making this harder?
What if we could enjoy it?
At the intersection of essential and enjoyment is effortless
Pair essential activities with enjoyable activities
Release
When you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have
When you focus on what you have, you get what you lack
Habit recipe
Each time I complain, I will say something I’m thankful for
Complaining is easy, but trivial
Habits vs Rituals
Habits are what you do
Rituals are how you do it
Rest
Do not more today than you can recover from tomorrow
Break down essential work in three sessions of no more than 90 minutes each
Notice
Awareness is about being more present
Train you brain to focus on the important and ignore the irrelevant
Clear clutter in your physical environment before clearing it in your brain
How you make progress
Pacing yourself instead of powering through
Take the first obvious step
Define
Before you get started, define what done looks like
Take 60 seconds to focus on the desired outcome
Start
Break the first action done in the smallest, concrete step
10 minute micro-burst of focused activity to boost energy and motivation
Simply
To make the process simpler, remove the steps
Maximize the steps not taken
Not everything requires going the extra mile
Rubbish
Zero-draft, start a project with rubbish
Fail cheaply: make learning sized mistakes
Pace
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
Create a range: lower limit, and upper limit
I will never do less than X, or more than Y
Principles
Learn principles, not just methods and facts
Understand the first principles deeply, and then apply them
Blue ocean
Being good at what nobody is doing is better than being great at what everybody is doing
Being an expert at what nobody is doing is exponentially more valuable
Levers
Use teaching to harness the strength of ten
Live what you teach, and notice how much you learn
Sesame Street it - stories that are easy to learn and understand
Automate
Use checklists every time, so you don’t need to rely on your memory
Seek choices that eliminate future decisions
High-tech for essential tasks, and low tech for non-essential tasks
Trust
It’s the engine oil of frictionless, high-functioning teams
Make the right hire once, and it will continue to produce results again and again
Three I’s: Integrity, intelligence, initiative
Prevent
Don’t manage the problem, solve it before it happens
Measure twice, cut once
It takes less time to manage the problem then solve it