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. In Buffett’s words, “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.”Ĭhapter 2: Enjoy: What If This Could Be Fun?īelieving essential activities are, almost by definition, tedious, we are more likely to put them off or avoid them completely. They are looking for investments that are easy to say yes to: no-brainer businesses that are simple to run and have long-term competitive advantages. Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in history, who has described the investment strategy at Berkshire Hathaway as “lethargy bordering on sloth.” They are not looking to invest in companies that will require enormous effort to achieve profitability.
And actually, in fact, part of doing strategy is to solve the easiest problem.” Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn, has said, “I have come to learn that part of the business strategy is to solve the simplest, easiest, and most valuable problem. Marketing author Seth Godin once shared the following: “If you can think about how hard it is to push a business uphill, particularly when you’re just getting started, one answer is to say: ‘Why don’t you just start a different business you can push downhill?’ ” Asking the question “What if this could be easy?” is a way to reset our thinking. It may be because we are overcomplicating something in our own heads. When we feel overwhelmed, it may not be because the situation is inherently overwhelming.
Chapter 1: Invert: What If This Could Be Easy? Effortless Inversion But when we apply Effortless Action to high-leverage activities, the return on our effort compounds, like interest on a savings account. Residual results can be virtually infinite.Įffortless Action alone produces linear results. Results flow to you when you are taking the day off. Results flow to you while you are sleeping. With residual results you put in the effort once and reap the benefits again and again. But what if those results could flow to us repeatedly, without further effort on our part? It’s a one-to-one ratio the amount of effort you put in equals the results received. Every day you start from zero if you don’t put in the effort today then you don’t get the result today. Whenever your efforts yield a one-time benefit, you are getting a linear result. There are two types of results: linear and residual. But do the reverse, and you’ll get the trivial things done but run out of space for the things that really matter.Įssentialism was about doing the right things Effortless is about doing them in the right way. The lesson is similar to the one I’d always ascribed to: if you prioritize the most important things first, then there will be room in your life not only for what matters most but also for other things too. The sand are things like social media and doom swiping. The small pebbles are less important things like work and career. The big rocks represent the most essential responsibilities like health, family, and relationships. This time she puts the large rocks in first. The teacher then gets a new empty container of the same size. Then she tries to place some larger rocks on top.
She pours in some small pebbles at the bottom. The Dilemmaīig rocks theory: It’s the well-known story of a teacher who picks up a large empty jar. This cycle can continue until we are burned out and exhausted, and still haven’t produced the results we really want. And the more depleted we get, the more our return on that effort dwindles. After all, there’s an upper limit to how much time and effort we can invest. It is true that hard work can equal better results. There is no cadence, only grinding effort. But these days many of us are pushing harder and harder all the time. There are times to push hard and times to rest and recuperate. Introduction: Not Everything Has to Be So Hard
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