Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

Essentialism was about doing the right things; Effortless is about doing them in the right way.

As sportswriter Andy Benoit observes, most geniuses “prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.”

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

We live in a complaint culture that gets high on expressing outrage: especially on social media, which often seems like an endless stream of grumbling and whining about what is unsatisfactory or unacceptable. Even if we don’t get caught up in it directly, it can still affect us. With enough secondhand griping, we get emotional cancer. We start to p

Consider taking the high-tech, low-effort path for the essential, and the low-tech, high-effort path for the nonessential.

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.

What could happen in your life if the easy but pointless things became harder and the essential things became easier?

Break down essential work into three sessions of no more than ninety minutes each.

PREVENT