Effortless

One of my favorite authors, Greg McKeown, released book #2, Effortless, back in April, and since I’m a HUGE fan of his life-changing first book, Essentialism, I could not wait to read this one. I pre-ordered this book the day it became available, and I waited and waited for it to come. Once it finally showed up in my mailbox, I saved it for a flight I was taking in a few days so I could dive in without distractions. And dive in, I did. And it did not disappoint.

And while I’ve already posted about this book before, today I’m sharing more about what made me love, love, love this book. Loved it.

Anyway…what is probably the main premise of the book, which Greg shares in both the preface and in the acknowledgements, is a scripture from Matthew 11:30:

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Easy and light. Effortless.

When you’re trying to be productive and reach your goals and do all the things, doing things the “easy” way is often looked at as lazy, or lacking, or not important, or not impressive, and so on, as Greg points out.

Hard, on the other hand, is often equated with success, high productivity, being impressive, and being important, and it’s often seen as necessary to be both successful and productive.  We’re rewarded for working “hard.” And the harder, the better!

Likewise, “being busy” is also often equated with working hard, achieving success, looking successful, etc. We wear “being busy” like a badge of honor—a gold star. We tell people how busy we are, and we want them to know it! Because being busy can also often relate to our self-worth.

Before reading Effortless, while I like to think I’m pretty good at managing my time and efficiency, I still found myself operating on the left side of this photo more than I wanted. I was sometimes getting caught up in all the mess—the tangles—of life, and it was costing me time, energy, brain power, feelings of fulfillment and success, and more.

But in the book, Greg invites us to ask this question when we have something we need and/or want to accomplish:

How can I make this effortless?

Great question, right?

To illustrate this important question and the effect it can have in our lives, Greg has shared one example in the book and in all of the podcasts I’ve been listening to where he’s been a guest (because I really want to get this!), and this example really spoke to me…because I have been this person before:

The story is about a university professor Greg was coaching who is hard working, meticulous, organized…all the things. She’d regularly do things like stay up until 4AM working on a presentation for a church youth group activity (no on asked her to do this or expected this from her), and she’d feel guilty for even taking time to eat lunch.  One day, a fellow professor came to her to have her and her team video his classes for the semester, and her mind automatically went to how they’d video from different angles, do intros and outros, add music, and other things they’d do to really make these videos amazing.

Then she remembered the question Greg asked her to ask herself when she was tempted to make things hard:

How can I make this effortless?

So, to better answer this question, she talked to the professor, and what he actually needed was a way to record a few classes for one student who would miss some classes due to an athletic commitment. They decided to have a fellow student video the classes on his phone and send them to the student.

A 10-minute conversation saved her and her team FOUR MONTHS of what would’ve ended up being unnecessary work.

So, I’ve been trying to ask myself this question before I get mixed up in the tangle, and I’ve been seeing some great results!

How I’ve been making things more effortless

• I saved some repeatedly sent work emails as templates in Evernote so I only need to tweak them when I send them. I even highlighted the parts that need to be customized each time. This saves brain power used up by writing commonly-needed emails over and over again from square one.
• Instead of keeping important notes in my work notebook, I take a picture of them and add them to Evernote. This saves me time (and often frustration when I can’t find what I’m looking for) having to go back through and find the notes I need.
• I’ve added notes to Evernote for new processes I’m learning for work so I don’t have to figure things out more than once. Or forget things. I’d really rather not forget things. This has been a huge time saver too.
• I keep a “master” packing list in Evernote, so I only have to make a few tweaks when I’m getting ready to go out of town AND I’m way less likely to forget anything. That’s been a huge life-saver and time-saver.
• I ordered school supplies to donate for a church service project through Walmart—saving a trip to Walmart. Even if I lived closer to Walmart, it still takes time to go in and get what I need.
• I ordered a craft supply I needed through Amazon instead of having to stop in at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. Again, saving valuable time and money since going into a store often leads to buying more than what I went in for.

For those last two, even if ordering online rather than going into a store can be a little bit more expensive, I’ve saved time. Which, when you take into consideration the time value of money, I’m actually saving money. And stress. Lots of stress.

Think about it…

How can you make at least some of the things in your life effortless?

Doing as many things as possible the effortless way can be a huge game-changer and stress-saver, for sure, allowing us more time and energy for the essentials—the things that matter most.