Who Should Read Effortless, by Greg McKeown?

When I first read the book Essentialism, it literally changed my life. So when I heard  that Effortless was coming out, I immediately pre-ordered it. Now at the time, I wasn’t sure if it was a book about productivity or habits or something else entirely, but now after reading it, I can most definitely say I’m still not really sure, by the way, I’m Tara Wagner, a breakthrough coach and lifelong entrepreneur.  I help other entrepreneurs master the mindset and the skills necessary to crush their goals, not their soul. If that sounds like your jam, give this video a thumbs up,  be sure to check out this playlist for other books, I might recommend you read and also be sure  to watch to the end, to figure out who I think Effortless would actually be a good read for.

Essentialism was a book about eliminating, systematically learning how to do away with what didn’t truly deeply matter. And it was a game-changer for me. It came to me at just the right time with just the right message and in just the right way for me to actually be able to implement it.

But over the years, since reading it, I have learned that Essentialism is anything but effortless, which is why I was so excited when Effortless came along, thinking that the author Greg McKeown had finally figured out what I haven’t yet and has finally unlocked the way to make the essential easy, because where Essentialism is a book about how to do away with what doesn’t matter. Effortless was meant to be a book about how to make what’s left, easier to do, except that it still leaves you feeling like that’s anything but effortless.

The book breaks down into three parts: Effortless State, Effortless Action, and Effortless Results. Effortless state asks the question, how can we make it easier to focus?  But it doesn’t clearly answer that question. It tries to teach you how to live in a state of being that’s supposed to be effortless, but really all this section is about is how to not make things more difficult than they already are. The five chapters invert, enjoy, release, rest, and notice are mostly about a mindset or approach to things.

Each chapter reads like a collection of essays on really good ideas that got ended too abruptly before the action steps or the takeaways were really brought home.

It was kind of like just as I was starting to see the importance of each concept within the chapter, it would stop abruptly, jumped to the next idea, and leave me feeling a little bit lost, totally unsure of how I was actually supposed to implement that. That was mostly fine though because it was really just thinking maybe this section isn’t resonating with me. It’s not clicking with me simply because I’m just not needing this.

I am, however, needing effortless action and effortless results as a person who’s juggling her own business, multiple health issues, and a deep desire to prioritize the most important people in my life.

So I moved into part two effortless action with some pretty high hopes, effortless action attempts  to answer the question, how can we make essential work easier? And this part was loads better than  the first. You could really say this section is more about how to approach your priorities or  your goals in a way that removes friction from the progress.

The chapters define, start, simplify,  progress, and pace. Still offer a lot of mindset, which is a good thing.

And there’s more practical  guidance. But for me personally, someone who practices and teaches really similar things to  entrepreneurs, I was really hoping for more. Even when I read a book, that’s not teaching me something new, I’m still reading it in terms of, is it being taught really well?  Is this something that I would want to give to a client with a lot of trust, a lot of faith that it’s going to change their lives? While the book touches on a lot of really important concepts, a lot of really important mindsets tools, skills.

 It doesn’t really touch on them in a very good way.

They’re not taught in a way that really allows people to allow it to sink in, to have takeaways from it that are actionable in their life. For instance, the examples that he uses, it’s great to hear about a South Pole expedition, that succeeded because they paced themselves.  But how does that apply to a small business owner or a professional who is up against very  real deadlines, who is trying to meet the needs of clients and customers while also meeting the needs  of family and their own wellbeing? There were very few relatable stories and even less guidance on how to actually make this stuff effortless.

And then there’s part three effortless results, which tries to answer the question, how can we get the highest return on the least effort?  A great question, but again, a pretty choppy section without a lot of practical application, the chapters learn, lift, automate, trust and prevent are all good topics, essentially trying to convey the importance of knowing how to learn efficiently, how to leverage others, how to use automation to free up brainpower and how to be proactive.

But each chapter barely even  scratched the surface. Most of it really could have used a book of its own. And some of it didn’t  even seem clear how it belonged.

And once again, at the end, I was still left thinking, how do I apply this? Let me give you an example with the chapter on prevent. This entire chapter is really about being proactive and preventing issues before they arise, which is crucial. It’s something that I teach all the time because it’s something that makes sense, but it’s hard to actually do in practice. However, this whole chapter didn’t have a single practical piece to it.

Number one, there wasn’t a lot of prevention. It was just a matter of catching things as they were annoying you and fixing them so that you didn’t have to continue to fix them over time, which is great, but that’s not actually prevention. There was a short section on striking at the root, which is basically getting to the root of the problem versus addressing the symptoms again, super important, but not a lot of practical advice on how you actually figure out what those most important most essential things are for you to do. The most practical piece of this entire chapter was the statement measure twice cut once.

But unless you are in a field that requires you to measure a lot of things, that’s probably not going to be really practical advice for your actual life or work.

What I’ve learned over the years of coaching women, coaching entrepreneurs  is that we know that we need to be proactive. We know we need to put in preventative measures, but the gap between knowing something and actually putting it into action is where we all fall, which means you can think you have the mindset for things. You can think you understand it, but until you know how to actually do it, you don’t actually understand it, your mindset, your concepts around it, your approach around it is always going to be half-baked because action is the thing that solidifies the knowledge. It solidifies the mindset where you could literally write an entire book around the idea of proactiveness, just getting ahead of problems.  We’ve got six pages and not even six full pages with all the diagrams.

Overall, the whole book just reads a little choppy, a little bit like the least amount of effort went into finishing it.

That doesn’t mean that I think the book is a worthless read though.  There were a few nuggets that were really useful for me. Like the sentence “do not do more today than you can recover from by tomorrow” or the concept of using a done for the day list or pacing yourself with a daily range of work. I will never do less than X, never more than Y.

But really, I was just genuinely expecting to get more than three nuggets from the entire book. So, who do I think should read Effortless? If you’re about to read Essentialism for the first time, following it up with Effortless would not be a terrible idea. Also, if you’re in a place where you don’t need more strategies to apply, you just need regular reminders or immersing yourself in the conversations that are going to help you keep on track with what you’re already doing.  Effortless could be good for that, but if you’re truly struggling to juggle genuinely important things in your life, and you’re feeling the strain of that Effortless is not going to be a game-changer for you and truth be told, I don’t know one book that would be.

If you have a great recommendation for a book like that, be sure to comment below with the title and if you’ve read Essentialism or effortless, make sure to also comment with your takeaways and who you think each book would be good for. Also let me know if you’re in the same boat, juggling, truly essential things, but finding it anything but effortless.

Don’t forget to leave a fist bump in the comments to let me know you made it to the end of this one, give this video a thumbs up and check out this playlist of other book recommendations.

Thanks so much for watching. I’ll see you in the next one.

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