Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

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.

Mistakes are dominoes: they have a cascading effect. When we strike at the root by catching our mistakes before they can do any damage, we don’t just prevent that first domino from toppling, we prevent the entire chain reaction.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

When you simply can’t try any harder, it’s time to find a different path.

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.

According to the late Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor who had been named the world’s top management thinker, people don’t really buy products or services. Rather, they “hire” them to do a job.

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

He didn’t just think that working endless hours would lead to success; he thought it was success.

Dreams are fertile ground for creative solutions to what burdens us all day.