Effortless

I read the book Effortless by Greg McKeown last week. The subtitle reads Make it Easier to Do What Matters Most. I loved Greg’s previous book Essentialism and posted about it here in this link. It struck a chord and I felt it was closer to what I have been thinking about for quite sometime. So, I picked up his next book Effortless.

In this book Greg talks about how one need not burnout in trying to achieve what he/she wants and provides some tips and tricks and even some framework to achieve things in a sustainable way. You will like this book if you are attracted towards the concepts like minimalism, essentialism and you are a fan of slow but a quality life rather than the hustle culture. It’s a good and easy read littered with many real life examples from the history. The story that stayed with me was about the South Pole expedition from two groups which emphasized the concept of setting an upper limit for any endeavour.

Below are some of the quotes/lines that I liked from the book that I had highlighted.

• When you simply can’t try any harder, it is time to find a different path
• Not everything has to be so hard. Getting to the next level doesn’t have to mean chronic exhaustion. Making a contribution doesn’t have to come at the expense of your mental and physical health.
• What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
• The Effortless State is one in which you are physically rested, emotionally unburdened, and mentally energized. You are completely present, attentive and focused on what’s important at that moment
• All too often, we sacrifice our time, our energy, and even our sanity, almost believing that sacrifice is essential in and of itself.
• We are conditioned over the course of our lifetimes to believe that in order to overachieve we must also overdo. As a result, we make things harder for ourselves than they need to be
• Do not do more today than you can completely recover from today. Do do not more this week than you can completely recover this week.
• Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.
• Prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.
• When you learn to teach, you teach yourselves to learn.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and hope you will like it too. I will finish the post with the final quote from the author which sums up the content.

If you take away just one message from this book, I hope it is this: life doesn’t have to be as hard and complicated as we make it. No matter what challenges, obstacles, or hardships we encounter along the way, we can always look for easier, simpler path.

Greg McKeown

Did any of these lines resonate with you? Let me know in the comments.