Effortless Summary
Effortless offers actionable advice for making the most essential
activities the easiest ones, so you can achieve the results you
want without burning out.
General Thoughts
Effortless is Greg McKeown’s long-awaited follow-up to his
bestselling debut book, essentialism. While I enjoyed Effortless,
I couldn’t help but feel many of McKeown’s ideas have been
covered elsewhere (and in greater detail).
For instance, Effortless Inversion is better known as inversion, a
mental model with a chapter of its own in Shane Parrish’s, The
Great Mental Models Vol. 1. Covering topics that have been
written about elsewhere is fine, of course, but I was hoping to
see a fresh take on the idea.
That said, I appreciate McKeown’s ability to simplify complex
ideas and distill them in one book around one central theme.
Surpassing Essentialism was undoubtedly challenging for
McKeown, but he’s done a fine job writing a book that rivals his
first.
The Five Big Ideas
, 1. Invert to Avoid Overwhelm
In chapter 1, McKeown shares an experience where a company
invited him to present to an audience on leadership. However,
due to his over-preparedness, he bombed. In his own words, “It
was my most humiliating professional failure—ever.”
McKeown realized, later, that trying too hard makes it
harder to get the results you want. This is because we’re
conditioned to believe that we must also overdo if we are to
overachieve. As a result, we make things harder for ourselves
than they need to be.
McKeown invites the reader to look at problems from the
opposite perspective and ask, “What if this could be easy?” as a
means to reset one’s thinking. He calls this idea, Effortless
Inversion and, while rooted in problem-solving, is helpful in
other areas, too.
When Tim Ferriss needed to make a sales quota in an earlier
job, he asked himself, “What would this look like if it were
easy?” and realized he could close more prospects if he called
earlier than the other sales reps. (For more on Ferriss’ other
questions, read tools of titans.)
2. Reduce the Lag Indicator to Make
the Essential Effortless
Effortless offers actionable advice for making the most essential
activities the easiest ones, so you can achieve the results you
want without burning out.
General Thoughts
Effortless is Greg McKeown’s long-awaited follow-up to his
bestselling debut book, essentialism. While I enjoyed Effortless,
I couldn’t help but feel many of McKeown’s ideas have been
covered elsewhere (and in greater detail).
For instance, Effortless Inversion is better known as inversion, a
mental model with a chapter of its own in Shane Parrish’s, The
Great Mental Models Vol. 1. Covering topics that have been
written about elsewhere is fine, of course, but I was hoping to
see a fresh take on the idea.
That said, I appreciate McKeown’s ability to simplify complex
ideas and distill them in one book around one central theme.
Surpassing Essentialism was undoubtedly challenging for
McKeown, but he’s done a fine job writing a book that rivals his
first.
The Five Big Ideas
, 1. Invert to Avoid Overwhelm
In chapter 1, McKeown shares an experience where a company
invited him to present to an audience on leadership. However,
due to his over-preparedness, he bombed. In his own words, “It
was my most humiliating professional failure—ever.”
McKeown realized, later, that trying too hard makes it
harder to get the results you want. This is because we’re
conditioned to believe that we must also overdo if we are to
overachieve. As a result, we make things harder for ourselves
than they need to be.
McKeown invites the reader to look at problems from the
opposite perspective and ask, “What if this could be easy?” as a
means to reset one’s thinking. He calls this idea, Effortless
Inversion and, while rooted in problem-solving, is helpful in
other areas, too.
When Tim Ferriss needed to make a sales quota in an earlier
job, he asked himself, “What would this look like if it were
easy?” and realized he could close more prospects if he called
earlier than the other sales reps. (For more on Ferriss’ other
questions, read tools of titans.)
2. Reduce the Lag Indicator to Make
the Essential Effortless
