Volume 12, Issue 25: Effortless

While looking for Greg Mckeown's Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less book, I found his Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most book. I listened to the audiobook multiple times last week to increase my retention of the content. Reflecting over the content, here's what I found to be the meaning of effortless for me.

Effortless first starts with essentialism, which is the art of doing only what matters most, and doing them mindfully and wholesomely. Effortless is then learning to do essential things with ease.

For me, effortless is when I divide a big task into manageable pieces and tackle each piece one by one over a defined time frame.

Effortless is when I set schedules ahead of time to do the things I need to do routinely such as my workouts, my home maintenance tasks and the like. Then I don't have to figure out what to do, and when to do it.

Effortless is when I maintain my weight and health by consistently walking and strength training for about an hour a day and eating mindfully, compared to being irregular at these practices and having to do extraneous workouts and heavy diet restrictions to get back in shape.

Effortless is baking a few weeks ahead of a birthday, preparing the frosting a week ahead of the birthday, applying the cram coat a few days ahead of the birthday and doing the final coat and decorating the cake a day or two ahead of the birthday.

Effortless is going through a challenging time without burdening myself with needless worry or guilt or overthinking. It is going through a difficulty with a positive mindset, choosing happiness. Effortless is going through a difficult season unburdened.

Effortless is choosing to do less when that is a viable option. If I have two family birthdays being celebrated at one event, effortless is baking and decorating one large cake rather than decorating two cakes.

Effortless is maintaining the tidiness of my closet or kitchen or pantry daily, than having to tidy up every now and then as a result of not having the discipline of returning things where they belong every time I use them.

Effortless is deciding my family's menu for the week ahead of time and doing the meal prep accordingly, rather than having to figure out what to cook each day and working on the dish from scratch.

Effortless is deciding and writing down what to wear for each day of the upcoming week over the weekend rather than facing the mental fatigue of figuring out what to wear each morning. I actually have a printed list of daily outfits for 3 weeks in a row, which is all the clothes I have my closet.

What does effortless look like to you? What can you do to make your life more effortless?

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi