Speaker 1: About four years ago, I was sitting in an airbanb
Speaker 1: in New York, and instead of being out exploring the city,
Speaker 1: I was curled on the couch reading a book called
Speaker 1: Essentialism by Greg McEwan. You know when you read a
Speaker 1: book and it transforms the way you think about something, Well,
Speaker 1: that's what Essentialism did for me.
Speaker 2: And when I.
Speaker 1: Think about that book, I think about how it really
Speaker 1: made me prioritize what I choose to work on. And
Speaker 1: it also turned me into a huge Greg McEwan fan.
Speaker 1: And when I found out that Greg had written a
Speaker 1: new book called Effortless, I was beyond excited to read it.
Speaker 1: And I was even more excited when Greg said yes
Speaker 1: to my invitation to be on How I Work. So
Speaker 1: if you have ever struggled your way through a really
Speaker 1: tough project, or if you're maybe feeling like you're working
Speaker 1: harder than ever before, but maybe you don't have the
Speaker 1: results to show for it, I think you are going
Speaker 1: to love this chat with Greg. We talk about some
Speaker 1: really practical strategies to make hard work well effortless. My
Speaker 1: name is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and
Speaker 1: the founder of Behavioral Science Consultancy Inventium, and this is
Speaker 1: how I work a show about how to help you
Speaker 1: do your best work.
Speaker 2: So writing a book is hard work.
Speaker 1: And I know this because I'm currently working on my
Speaker 1: third one, which Greg and I actually talk.
Speaker 2: About during this interview.
Speaker 1: But I was keen to know from Greg how did
Speaker 1: he go about writing his latest book effortless and make
Speaker 1: that process effortless for himself.
Speaker 3: Well, there were some things that I did that made
Speaker 3: it a lot harder than it needed to be. An
Speaker 3: example is is any day that I worked beyond let's
Speaker 3: say three hours as a max. You know, if I
Speaker 3: tried to do four hours or six hours or longer,
Speaker 3: I didn't just hit diminishing returns, I'd hit negative returns.
Speaker 3: So diminishing returns is where every unit of effort you
Speaker 3: put in you're getting a little less back. But negative
Speaker 3: returns are where for every unit of effort you're putting in,
Speaker 3: you're actually getting a worse overall result. So you know,
Speaker 3: the manuscript is getting worse than it was before I
Speaker 3: started that day. You know, you're you're you're going backwards.
Speaker 3: And so I learned that I needed to get the
Speaker 3: pace right. So so I said, okay, you know every day.
Speaker 3: I'm going to work on it five days a week.
Speaker 3: I will open the Google doc. That's my minimum standard.
Speaker 3: I will go into it. But the but the maximum, okay,
Speaker 3: never more than three hours. We're just going to you know,
Speaker 3: resolve it that way. Similar upper and lower bounds for
Speaker 3: the number of words written. You know, less than one
Speaker 3: hundred words, but never more than five hundred words. You know,
Speaker 3: you're trying to make sure that you don't use up
Speaker 3: more mental energy. Then you can recuperate each day that
Speaker 3: you're not using up more mental energy this week, Then
Speaker 3: you can recuperate this week. Why because you want to
Speaker 3: be able to sustain the pace and get the you know,
Speaker 3: get the job done.
Speaker 1: Talking about the upper and lower bounds idea which I
Speaker 1: found really interesting in terms of going, okay, well, this
Speaker 1: is the minimum I have to do in a day,
Speaker 1: and this is also the maximum. How did you go
Speaker 1: about setting those upper and lower bounds for yourself?
Speaker 3: If you're trying to find the right pace, you just
Speaker 3: have to create some self awareness as to what is
Speaker 3: your optimal input on whatever project you're working on. So
Speaker 3: for me, you know, I had to keep asking the question,
Speaker 3: how can I make this as effortless as possible to
Speaker 3: write a book that can have a significant impact. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm not changing the goal, I'm not changing the aspiration,
Speaker 3: but I'm trying to constantly challenge myself in finding a
Speaker 3: better strategy. Another thing that I did was to try
Speaker 3: to make sure that I had the right team working
Speaker 3: with me. People that I had a high trust relationship with,
Speaker 3: so I'd trust their work, trust their research. An editor
Speaker 3: who'd worked with me on Essentialism before effortless, you know,
Speaker 3: working with her again, I trust is so high she
Speaker 3: can go in and work on it. There were times
Speaker 3: when we'd be working in this same you know, shared
Speaker 3: doc together, or at the same time, a researcher Jonathan Cullen,
Speaker 3: who would be bringing in stories specifically that I'd asked
Speaker 3: him to go and gather Italian. My editor would be
Speaker 3: working on a section that I'd previously written the day before,
Speaker 3: and it was almost like a Harry Potter esque scene
Speaker 3: where you could see everybody working seamlessly together. And there
Speaker 3: were so many moments like that through the process that
Speaker 3: I thought, this is effortless, you know, it's effortless, on effortless.
Speaker 3: It's just amazing to watch this team working together and
Speaker 3: to enjoy it so much.
Speaker 1: Now, what's the question that you recommend asking when you're
Speaker 1: feeling overwhelmed by what you have to work on to
Speaker 1: help sort of reset our thinking.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that you can invert the typical overachiever mindset.
Speaker 3: So let's set some context here. I wrote this book
Speaker 3: for what my brother Justin calls the hit squad. This
Speaker 3: is for people who are hard working, intelligent, talented, right,
Speaker 3: that's the hit squad part of it. This is who
Speaker 3: the book is for. And you know that's who's listening
Speaker 3: to this conversation right now. These are people who want
Speaker 3: better results continually. In fact, probably nobody listening to this
Speaker 3: would mind if they could have ten x results, ten
Speaker 3: x results in their career, in their relationships, in their business,
Speaker 3: if they're running a business, I mean, you know, that
Speaker 3: would be fine. They aspire to significant breakthrough results. The
Speaker 3: complication is that there's not one of them, not one
Speaker 3: person listening to this can work ten times harder. And
Speaker 3: it's that contradiction or that creates this challenge, because if
Speaker 3: you want better results, but you're already running out of space,
Speaker 3: you're already pushing yourself to the limit or sometimes well
Speaker 3: past it, and then you say, well, I'm not getting
Speaker 3: the results they want, therefore I need to push even harder.
Speaker 3: Then what you do is burn out and you still
Speaker 3: don't get the results. That really matters so much to you. Now,
Speaker 3: contrast that with what I'm arguing in Effortless, which is
Speaker 3: what if you could make the trivial things in your
Speaker 3: life harder but the essential things significantly easier. Well, the
Speaker 3: value proposition there is that you that you could achieve
Speaker 3: the results you want, the breakthrough results you want, but
Speaker 3: not only without burning out, but also with an upgrade
Speaker 3: in your lifestyle you enjoy the experience more all along
Speaker 3: the way. That's who Effortless is for, and that's why
Speaker 3: I wrote it.
Speaker 1: And what's that key question that you talk about in
Speaker 1: the book in terms of something we can ask ourselves
Speaker 1: to help reset our thinking when we are feeling really
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by what we're working on.
Speaker 3: I think the question you're pointing to is just how
Speaker 3: can I make this effortless? How can I make this easy?
Speaker 3: It's not something that I would advocate everybody ask. If
Speaker 3: somebody is not putting in any effort at all, then
Speaker 3: there's a lot of upside to just, you know, getting up,
Speaker 3: getting off your behind and going and getting on with
Speaker 3: the job at hand. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: results you can improve. I'm fully in favor of effort.
Speaker 3: I believe in it myself. I believe in it for
Speaker 3: my children, I believe in it for the businesses I've
Speaker 3: worked with and built. Nevertheless, as I already said that,
Speaker 3: there's this limit. So one, when we ask a better question,
Speaker 3: we get a better answer. And so simply by inverting
Speaker 3: the question we normally ask, which is how can I
Speaker 3: get better results by working harder? You say, how can
Speaker 3: I get better results by making it, you know, as easier?
Speaker 3: What what if? What would this look like if it
Speaker 3: was easy? And I remember working with someone in you know,
Speaker 3: perfect sample of someone in the hit squad. Who is
Speaker 3: the type of person she said, who's up till four
Speaker 3: in the morning photo shopping for a youth activity at
Speaker 3: church the next day, and no one's asking her to
Speaker 3: do that. But that's you know, she's just wanting better
Speaker 3: results and thinking the only way to it is relentless
Speaker 3: self sacrifice. And she even feels if she eats lunch
Speaker 3: that she feels guilty. And so I said, well, look
Speaker 3: ask this. You know, invert, invert this, break out of
Speaker 3: that paradigm, out of that mindset. Let's see if there
Speaker 3: isn't you know what would happen if you asked that question,
Speaker 3: how can this be effortless? You want a great result,
Speaker 3: but how can you do it in an easier way?
Speaker 3: And she gets a call then from a professor she
Speaker 3: works at a university who wanted her to record a
Speaker 3: semester worth of his class, and she just almost automatically
Speaker 3: jumped into the overachiever of mindset. I'm going to get
Speaker 3: three different cameras in the room, so we'll get different angles,
Speaker 3: we'll edit it all together, We'll have intros and outros, graphics, slides, music,
Speaker 3: We'll we'll just wow him. And then she remembered the
Speaker 3: coaching and she said, okay, invert this. Can I get
Speaker 3: the result that he wants with it in an easier way?
Speaker 3: And so then she started asking questions around that. Well,
Speaker 3: in just a few minutes of talking with him, she
Speaker 3: discovered that this was really for one student who just needed,
Speaker 3: you know, to have a few of the classes because
Speaker 3: he's going to be missing them for an athletic commitment.
Speaker 3: And the solution they came up with was just have
Speaker 3: another student record it on their iPhone and send it
Speaker 3: to him whenever he was going to miss. The professor
Speaker 3: was delighted. He hadn't thought about that because he was
Speaker 3: over complicating it. And she puts hangs up from the
Speaker 3: phone and she says, I just saved four months of
Speaker 3: time for an entire team for the sake of ten
Speaker 3: minutes with this inverted question. So that's the question, how
Speaker 3: can I make this essential thing effortless?
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: Now in the book you talk about how Richel's habits
Speaker 1: that we've put our thumb print on, and I love
Speaker 1: that way of thinking about rituals, and I want to
Speaker 1: know what are some of your work rituals.
Speaker 3: One ritual that I picked up from another entrepreneur is
Speaker 3: that if I'm going to have a lot of phone
Speaker 3: calls to make with people, you know, I may just
Speaker 3: literally go and sit in the hot tub and call
Speaker 3: them all back. You don't have to be you know,
Speaker 3: you don't have to be so formal about it all.
Speaker 3: And it turns what could just feel a bit like
Speaker 3: drudgery into something that's funny. And I tell people and
Speaker 3: it's not a secret, and we just laugh about it,
Speaker 3: and we get the job done still, but it's in
Speaker 3: a more enjoyable environment. And so you know, that's the idea,
Speaker 3: is to splice together something that previously you thought, well
Speaker 3: it's essential, but it's drudgery, and you say, well, well
Speaker 3: what if you could combine it with something enjoyable you
Speaker 3: want to do anyway, and you create a ritual from it,
Speaker 3: so then you actually look forward to doing it.
Speaker 1: I love that hot tub example. What are some other
Speaker 1: things like? I'm thinking of email for example? That is
Speaker 1: definitely a non enjoyable task for many people.
Speaker 2: Have you cracked making email more enjoyable.
Speaker 3: I have a friend who's amongst the most highly productive
Speaker 3: people I have you know, I've ever met. I don't
Speaker 3: even quite know how he does everything he accomplishes. It
Speaker 3: is pretty remarkable. And one of the things he does
Speaker 3: when he's very responsive in email. If I respond, if
Speaker 3: I email him, he might email me within two minutes.
Speaker 3: He's very responsive, but he'll be very very succinct in
Speaker 3: his answer, so he's not carrying the burden. You know
Speaker 3: when somebody sends you an email and you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't know what to say about that. Yes, right,
Speaker 3: and then you hold on to that and it sits
Speaker 3: in your inbox. I've been guilty of this. I've had
Speaker 3: email sit in my inbox for days, weeks, months sometimes
Speaker 3: and you process it ten times, twenty times sometimes because
Speaker 3: you keep seeing it. Oh yeah, I've got I don't
Speaker 3: know what to do about it, and then you move
Speaker 3: on to something else, and then eventually, oh sorry, I
Speaker 3: didn't get back to you, you know, and you don't
Speaker 3: say it, but dot dot dot, I haven't known what
Speaker 3: to say all this time. It's and you, You've you
Speaker 3: take that email task and you you make it ten
Speaker 3: times harder than this friend of mine deals with it.
Speaker 3: He deals with it instantly. And so since since my
Speaker 3: last exchange with him, I thought, yeah, I've got to
Speaker 3: process email differently in the next Literally since then, I've
Speaker 3: just made just been decisive every single thing and just
Speaker 3: responded quickly. And I thought, there's something quite nice about
Speaker 3: about getting a quick response from someone and not just
Speaker 3: having it disappear and never know whether you're going to
Speaker 3: hear back from them again. And I found it. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a hyper efficient way of dealing with email.
Speaker 1: Hey there, Amantha, here, we're going to get back to
Speaker 1: Greg in a moment, and in the next part of
Speaker 1: this interview, Greg gives me some advice on how to
Speaker 1: make a big project that I am working on much
Speaker 1: much easier.
Speaker 2: And if you're enjoying how I.
Speaker 1: Work, make sure you connect with me on these socials
Speaker 1: because I post quite a bit of extra content there.
Speaker 1: So hunt me down on LinkedIn, look for Amantha Invera.
Speaker 1: I think I'm the only one. Or follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Amantha or on instagt, which I'm getting back
Speaker 1: into for various reasons, and you can find me there
Speaker 1: at amount of eye. You talk about reducing the lag
Speaker 1: indicator for essential activities and a reward. Can you give
Speaker 1: an example of how you've applied that concept to your work,
Speaker 1: whether it be with your writing or consulting or something
Speaker 1: like that, maybe even with writing the book, like because
Speaker 1: that can be you know, fairly grunt worksh day after
Speaker 1: day hitting a word count.
Speaker 2: I'm right in the middle of that process myself, so
Speaker 2: with rating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm working on my third book at the moment
Speaker 1: and on a fairly tight deadline.
Speaker 3: And you're feeling and you're feeling the stress of it.
Speaker 1: I am like, I've I've got a calendar on my
Speaker 1: whiteboard that literally says how many words I want to
Speaker 1: have written by the end of each week in order
Speaker 1: to hit my deadline in October, And like every day
Speaker 1: like I enjoy the writing, but then some days it's
Speaker 1: like I'm doing this just so I don't fall behind.
Speaker 2: And I'd love to know, like maybe if you have
Speaker 2: any advice for me.
Speaker 1: On how I can you know either like reduce the
Speaker 1: lag indicator, because certainly, come October, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: feeling really happy because I'm going to be submitting a
Speaker 1: complete manuscript. But right now, I'm in the thick of it,
Speaker 1: and I've got all these things that I need to
Speaker 1: do and research and write about, and I feel overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: and it like it doesn't feel terrible, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: yet feel effortless, and like, you know, I feel good
Speaker 1: when I hit my word count for the day, but
Speaker 1: it can feel like hard work on some mornings.
Speaker 2: So what should I do?
Speaker 3: Greg? Yeah, I got to ask a couple more questions
Speaker 3: about it. How are you on a scale of one
Speaker 3: to ten on your like your energy level right now,
Speaker 3: like your overall physical fatigue. I'm good, I'm good. Yes,
Speaker 3: you're sleeping well, very in resting well, You're relaxing. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: so then you come to do the job. Which part
Speaker 3: is hard? Is it? The thought about writing? Like you go, oh,
Speaker 3: I've got to do that again.
Speaker 1: I think it's the idea that I have to write
Speaker 1: this book, but I also have to do my job
Speaker 1: in terms of my full time job. My hours have
Speaker 1: not increased in terms of what I do within my
Speaker 1: consultancy inventium, but now, all of a sudden, sixty thousand
Speaker 1: words have to appear from nowhere by October nineteen.
Speaker 2: So I write.
Speaker 1: I write every day as part of my job, and
Speaker 1: so you know, I enjoy the process of writing most days,
Speaker 1: although some days I'd prefer to be doing something else.
Speaker 1: And so it's just kind of going, oh, gosh, I've
Speaker 1: got this huge extra project that I have to do
Speaker 1: along with everything else that I'm working on, and sometimes
Speaker 1: that can feel a little bit overwhelming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can imagine. That sounds like it's the I mean,
Speaker 3: even what you just said that the sixty thousand words
Speaker 3: that alone just feels like, oh my goodness, I'm really
Speaker 3: going to get sixty thousand words done. So what do
Speaker 3: you do now? Tell me your current process?
Speaker 2: What I do.
Speaker 1: Now is the very first thing I do on almost
Speaker 1: every workday unless I've got a commitment like a keynote
Speaker 1: or something that is not movable in terms of time.
Speaker 1: Is that I will write but between one thousand to
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred words per day, and I will do that
Speaker 1: five days a week.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of words.
Speaker 1: It's quite a lot of words. But having said that,
Speaker 1: a lot of the research has been done, so that
Speaker 1: makes it a lot easier.
Speaker 3: Is the hardest thing, just oh, I've done this for
Speaker 3: a while, I'm in the Is it that you're sort
Speaker 3: of in the y of the motivational curve where you're
Speaker 3: halfway done with it and so you've already put in
Speaker 3: a lot of work which you're not actually close to
Speaker 3: the end. Is that the experience you're having.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's it. I absolutely do. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think I'm right in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: And funnily enough, I'm at about the halfway point of
Speaker 1: the first draft. Like I haven't gone through my own edit,
Speaker 1: you know, littlone submitted it to my actual editor. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel, yeah, I feel like right in the trenches
Speaker 1: at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's you know, the yuke of motivation. For those
Speaker 3: who don't know about it is that you feel you
Speaker 3: feel more motivated at the beginning of a project and
Speaker 3: at the end of a project, and as you get
Speaker 3: as you get close to halfway, that's that's the lowest
Speaker 3: the lowest EBB in any project because you can still
Speaker 3: see how much is left to go, but you don't
Speaker 3: have the evidence of success because it's not actually finished.
Speaker 3: And so so I think you might want to construct
Speaker 3: some sort of reward system for like the next literally
Speaker 3: the next two weeks. You know something that you say, Okay,
Speaker 3: like what's what's a reward that you just something that
Speaker 3: would just be really enjoyable for you? What do you
Speaker 3: love to do? Regardless of this, I love.
Speaker 1: To read fiction, and I right now would love to
Speaker 1: get a massage that would be really nice. That is
Speaker 1: not something I've had done in quite a while. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are two things that come to mind.
Speaker 3: Okay, here's here's you could do this. You say, Okay,
Speaker 3: we have ten days worth of work, so not completing
Speaker 3: the manuscript, but ten days of hitting your goal. I'm
Speaker 3: going to say for you a thousand words. I'm reducing
Speaker 3: your goal for you a thousand words a day, and
Speaker 3: every day you've done a thousand words, counter off, and
Speaker 3: I want this graphically in your office so you can
Speaker 3: You're like you're a you know, a child in primary school,
Speaker 3: and you're marking off each day and at the end,
Speaker 3: you know, Okay, the end of ten days of doing this,
Speaker 3: I get a massage. Okay. That is one thing that
Speaker 3: I think you literally could do. I think on the fiction,
Speaker 3: I wonder whether even like you schedule your time to
Speaker 3: write your book, whether you don't say, okay, as soon
Speaker 3: as I hit five hundred words, I read a chapter
Speaker 3: of my of a book that I love right now,
Speaker 3: just give my brain a little bit of a break,
Speaker 3: so you do like, let's say, how long does it
Speaker 3: take you to do you a hundred thousand words?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'd say sort of nineteen minutes to two hours,
Speaker 1: I'd say.
Speaker 3: So maybe you say, actually, fine, you do it like that.
Speaker 3: You say, I'm doing a nineteen minute sprint. You don't
Speaker 3: even have to call it a sprint. We do a
Speaker 3: ninety minute segment and then I read for ten minutes
Speaker 3: out of a book that I am really looking forward to.
Speaker 3: So you could have that right on your desk. You
Speaker 3: set your time, you say, ninety minutes from now, I'm
Speaker 3: reading that, well, you know, I'm just going to keep
Speaker 3: going on this with a cycle. There's really interesting research
Speaker 3: that I came across in writing Effortless, which is done
Speaker 3: by Anders Eriksson, that he was curious about the sleep
Speaker 3: rhythms that we all know about, these ninety minute rhythms
Speaker 3: that you have. Each of us to have a good
Speaker 3: night's sleep need three of these cycles. And he just questioned, like,
Speaker 3: what if that isn't a sleep phenomenon, what if it's
Speaker 3: a human phenomenon, that isn't just a nighttime thing, but
Speaker 3: just a life thing, that we're all just rhythmic beings
Speaker 3: that they continue into the day. And he found as
Speaker 3: he continued this research that it did continue into the day.
Speaker 3: And so the ramification of that is that we should
Speaker 3: prioritize three pieces of work in the morning in ninety
Speaker 3: minute approximately ninety minute cycles, so that you do your
Speaker 3: ninety minutes, and you take a break for ten minutes,
Speaker 3: ten even as many as fifteen minutes, you go for
Speaker 3: a walk. In this case, you read it fictional, you know,
Speaker 3: your fiction book, not at the end of the day. Only. Okay, well,
Speaker 3: I've saved up all day. Now I can read a
Speaker 3: bit of fiction. But you build that into your schedule
Speaker 3: so that you take that ten minutes, give your brain
Speaker 3: a rest, and you're signaling to yourself going forward, like, hey, listen,
Speaker 3: I write, and then I have this enjoyable ritual almost
Speaker 3: immediately following it, well, immediately following it. How does that
Speaker 3: sound to you? Does that sound like a nice ritual
Speaker 3: for you?
Speaker 2: It does, it does, Greg. I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I've been taking notes as you've been talking, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to do that from monday.
Speaker 2: I'm loving the sound of that.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you, Yeah, And just to connect the dots here,
Speaker 3: it's what we're trying to do. Rituals are habits with
Speaker 3: a soul. Habits are what we do. Rituals are how
Speaker 3: we do them. And if you can create the right ritual,
Speaker 3: you enjoy the experience of doing it. I'm still trying
Speaker 3: to think for you about what would make that first
Speaker 3: ninety minutes, you know itself more enjoyable. Let me ask
Speaker 3: you this, what are there some days you say, some
Speaker 3: days you really enjoy it, versus other days it feels
Speaker 3: more drudgery, right, which makes sense. I mean there's ups
Speaker 3: and downs for all of us, But what is it
Speaker 3: on the days that you enjoyed the experience. What's different
Speaker 3: for you?
Speaker 1: I think one of the things, and I've had this
Speaker 1: advice from a couple of guests on the show. I
Speaker 1: think it was Adam Grant and Rachel Botsman, and they
Speaker 1: both talked about how they would essentially end their workday
Speaker 1: with this concept of parking on a downhill slope, like
Speaker 1: they would finish work, you know, like if it was
Speaker 1: writing work, it would be mid sentence or mid paragraph.
Speaker 1: And I think when I've kind of when I start
Speaker 1: the day and I've got that momentum, like I've actually
Speaker 1: started writing the chunk that I'm going to be working
Speaker 1: on the following day, and I've started that the day before,
Speaker 1: then it does it kind of feels effortless, like I
Speaker 1: get I can get into flow much more quickly.
Speaker 2: So that's definitely something I've noticed.
Speaker 3: That that puts me in mind. So so of course
Speaker 3: you can. That's a specific thing you could put into
Speaker 3: a ritual. I'd probably encourage you to write up a
Speaker 3: ritual like a recipe for you with writing, because yours
Speaker 3: will be different to mine, will be different to Adams,
Speaker 3: like everyone has their own rituals. And but if you
Speaker 3: can pay attention to your what works for you or
Speaker 3: you add that in it. So we've obviously this is
Speaker 3: now sort of our third specific piece of the ritual
Speaker 3: for you know, for you that you have this on
Speaker 3: a list so that you can keep coming back to
Speaker 3: it and tweaking what really works and what and what doesn't.
Speaker 3: I think I think that that's that's part of this,
Speaker 3: you know, creating a ritual. I John Acuff would be
Speaker 3: a great guest at your show if you want to
Speaker 3: have him on. He wrote a book recently called Soundtracks,
Speaker 3: and he's terrific and and one of the things that
Speaker 3: he said is that in his wife came to him
Speaker 3: and said, you are You're miserable to be around through
Speaker 3: the two years that you write a book. And then
Speaker 3: she said, and you're and then you're you're really miserable
Speaker 3: to be around for the two years marketing the book afterwards.
Speaker 3: And it really challenged him to think, well, how am
Speaker 3: I thinking about this work? And and you know many
Speaker 3: as many writers have have read the idea, well, it's
Speaker 3: easy to write. All you have to do, is, you know,
Speaker 3: is to pull up a typewriter and bleed that kind
Speaker 3: of language. And the idea that writing is one of
Speaker 3: the hardest things you'll ever do, and all that thinking,
Speaker 3: that is a paradigm, that is a way of thinking,
Speaker 3: and he recognized it as such, and he suddenly said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to choose a new soundtrack. I'm going to
Speaker 3: choose a new way of thinking, a new mantra. And
Speaker 3: the phrase he pulled was light and easy, that he
Speaker 3: was going to try to make writing as light and
Speaker 3: easy as possible, and that that's what he'd keep thinking about.
Speaker 3: And as soon as he started getting oh yeah, that's right,
Speaker 3: it's hard. Be so happy afterwards, but it's hard right now,
Speaker 3: he'd go, hold on, stop that that's the one way
Speaker 3: of thinking about this. What about light and easy? And
Speaker 3: one of the things he did in his ritual is
Speaker 3: he went and bought a pair of the Nike shoes
Speaker 3: that were used in the the very famous now two
Speaker 3: hour marathon. You know, they make big headlines around the
Speaker 3: world to get the first person who ever ran a
Speaker 3: marathon under two hours. And he was wearing these particular
Speaker 3: shoes they've created for him, and you know, they are,
Speaker 3: of course light and easy, They're as light as possible,
Speaker 3: and he wore those every day that he wrote as
Speaker 3: a symbolic reminder to reinforce this new soundtrack not miserable
Speaker 3: and you know, blood, sweat and tears to get this done.
Speaker 3: Light and easy. And so you know, I'm not saying
Speaker 3: you have to go buy those shoes. I've never done that,
Speaker 3: but I've enjoyed the mantra the soundtrack light and easy.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of what you wrote about talking about
Speaker 1: what are the minimum steps required for completion?
Speaker 2: And I really loved that concept.
Speaker 1: Are you able to talk about, like how you've applied
Speaker 1: that idea with processes in your work life?
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, just to set that up just for
Speaker 3: a second. You can. There's all sorts of examples of
Speaker 3: this in business. But I interviewed Mike Evangelist, who that's
Speaker 3: his real name, but he worked at a DVD burning company,
Speaker 3: and this was when DVD burning was brand new by
Speaker 3: one of these machines that cost thirty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: The manual alone was a thousand pages long. You can imagine.
Speaker 3: And Apple comes along and says, well, we'd like to
Speaker 3: buy that because we want the software that you've built,
Speaker 3: and we've got to put that standard on the new Mac.
Speaker 3: So they're given a couple of weeks to prepare a
Speaker 3: slim lined streamlined I think as the term. I'm looking
Speaker 3: for version of what they've had before. And they just
Speaker 3: keep stripping this away. That's stripping away and stripping away,
Speaker 3: and they're so proud of what they've been able to
Speaker 3: do in a couple of weeks. And they're ready for
Speaker 3: the presentation to Steve Jobs. And he comes into the
Speaker 3: room and before they get to the presentation, he walks
Speaker 3: up to the whiteboard and he draws the rectangle and
Speaker 3: he draws this little you know, square within it that
Speaker 3: says burn. And he says, this is the app we're
Speaker 3: going to build. You just draw, take what you want
Speaker 3: to burn, you put it here, and then you click
Speaker 3: that button. That's the whole app. And as soon as
Speaker 3: he did that, they all felt embarrassed about the deck
Speaker 3: that they'd prepared. They never shared the presentation because compared
Speaker 3: to what he'd just shown, it looked so complex. There
Speaker 3: was so many steps and pieces to it. And that
Speaker 3: was when he learned what he thought was a really
Speaker 3: sort of lifelong valuable lesson, which is that Steve Jobs
Speaker 3: was starting with zero. It wasn't taking complexity and whittling
Speaker 3: it down. He was starting with zero and saying, you know,
Speaker 3: can I achieve it in one step?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And if not one, can I do it in two steps?
Speaker 3: But that's the idea. And so from that the goal is,
Speaker 3: can you solve a problem entirely by having in a
Speaker 3: one step thing? Can we remove the steps entirely instead
Speaker 3: of streamlining your process, you're saying, let's start from zero.
Speaker 3: Can we do the whole thing in one step? So
Speaker 3: that's the principle, a particular way to approach simplification, it
Speaker 3: says Agile talks about it in the manif Agile manifesto.
Speaker 3: It's to maximize the steps not taken. If you can
Speaker 3: do this, you start to remove from yourself the need.
Speaker 3: No matter how easiest step is, it's still harder than
Speaker 3: taking no step. In fact, when I was first starting
Speaker 3: in the podcast, I remember the team, that production team
Speaker 3: sent me a list of instructions that I could send
Speaker 3: to guests, and there's like, you know, fifteen steps to it.
Speaker 3: I remember reading it myself just going, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: that is overwhelming number of steps. I just thought, there's
Speaker 3: no way I can send this out to guests. So
Speaker 3: it's just too much for them to handle if I
Speaker 3: can't even read it. And so I said, okay, what
Speaker 3: you know, start from zero was the minimum number of
Speaker 3: steps someone would need to take to chat with me
Speaker 3: on Zencaster. And once I had the answer, the process
Speaker 3: was literally and what I sent to people and said
Speaker 3: of these fifteen steps was one click on the link
Speaker 3: that I'm going to email you before the interview. Two
Speaker 3: I'll start and end the recording it. So all you
Speaker 3: need to do is chat. That was the instruction, And
Speaker 3: so it's a very liberating question to ask, like just okay,
Speaker 3: how can we start from zero? How can we do
Speaker 3: this at the minimum number of steps. You start to
Speaker 3: realize all the stuff that other people think needs to happen,
Speaker 3: including yourself in the past, don't need to happen.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Now time has flown, Greg, and I need
Speaker 2: to release you to the world.
Speaker 1: So I have one final question for people that want
Speaker 1: to learn more about you and get their hands on Effortless,
Speaker 1: which I highly recommend, such a great book as well
Speaker 1: as Essentialism. I still remember when I read that, I
Speaker 1: was actually traveling in New York, and I have such
Speaker 1: a clear memory of reading that book and fundamentally shifted
Speaker 1: my thinking on many things. So how can people consume
Speaker 1: more of what you're doing?
Speaker 3: Greg Well, I love that you just shared that about essentialism.
Speaker 3: These really go together, right. This is like the Paul
Speaker 3: McCartney and John Lennon, but both of those artists created
Speaker 3: music separately, but it was the magic happened when they
Speaker 3: went together. And you know, essentialism is about one question
Speaker 3: is what's essential? You know what is essential and if
Speaker 3: it's not essential, don't even do it effortless? Says Okay,
Speaker 3: how can you take that the essential few and make
Speaker 3: those essential few things effortless? And so it's together that
Speaker 3: they really I think that the magic can happen. You know,
Speaker 3: I would recommend that people come to essentialism dot com.
Speaker 3: There's a twenty one day challenge people can take there
Speaker 3: which takes you know, the essential things and breaks them
Speaker 3: down into small micro adjustments that make this easier to
Speaker 3: do what matters most. There's the What's Essential podcast. I
Speaker 3: just love for your listeners to subscribe to What's essentral
Speaker 3: podcast if they've enjoyed this conversation and you know, come
Speaker 3: join the party there. And beyond that, I would just
Speaker 3: encourage people to maybe maybe listen to the audiobook version
Speaker 3: of Effortless so that they can kind of get a
Speaker 3: quick overview of the of the whole arc of the
Speaker 3: book and the design of it. And those are a
Speaker 3: few options for people.
Speaker 2: Amazing. I will link to all that in the show notes. Greg.
Speaker 1: It has been an absolute joy and privilege chatting to
Speaker 1: you and also getting your advice on my book as well.
Speaker 1: I was very appreciated, so thank you.
Speaker 3: So looking forward to the book when it comes out,
Speaker 3: and it's been a pleasure be with you, Ammpha, thank you.
Speaker 2: Hello there. That is it for today's show.
Speaker 1: If you are enjoying How I Work, make sure you've
Speaker 1: hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening to this podcast from,
Speaker 1: because next week I've got Maggie.
Speaker 2: Beer on the show and she is awesome.
Speaker 1: We talk all about where her best ideas come from
Speaker 1: through to how to roast the perfect chicken. How I
Speaker 1: Work is produced by Inventing, with production support from Dead
Speaker 1: Set Studios, and a massive thank you to Martin Nimba
Speaker 1: who did the audio mix and makes everything.
Speaker 2: Sound better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.