NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Times (UK) Best Book of the Year • From the author of the million-copy-selling Essentialism comes an empowering guide to achieving your goals. It all starts with a simple principle: Not everything has to be so hard.

“In a world beset by burnout, Greg McKeown’s work is essential.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human 

“At a time when fear, uncertainty, and our ever-growing list of responsibilities have come to feel like much too much to handle, Effortless couldn’t be timelier, or more necessary.”—Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play

Do you ever feel like:

• You’re teetering right on the edge of burnout?
• You want to make a higher contribution, but lack the energy?  
• You’re running faster but not moving closer to your goals?
• Everything is so much harder than it used to be?

As high achievers, we’ve been conditioned to believe that the path to success is paved with relentless work. That if we want to overachieve, we have to overexert, overthink, and overdo. That if we aren’t perpetually exhausted, we’re not doing enough.

But lately, working hard is more exhausting than ever. And the more depleted we get, the more effort it takes to make progress. Stuck in an endless loop of “Zoom, eat, sleep, repeat,” we’re often working twice as hard to achieve half as much.

Getting ahead doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it. No matter what challenges or obstacles we face, there is a better way: instead of pushing ourselves harder, we can find an easier path. 

Effortless offers actionable advice for making the most essential activities the easiest ones, so you can achieve the results you want, without burning out.  

Effortless teaches you how to:
• Turn tedious tasks into enjoyable rituals
• Prevent frustration by solving problems before they arise  
• Set a sustainable pace instead of powering through
• Make one-time choices that eliminate many future decisions
• Simplify your processes by removing unnecessary steps
• Make relationships easier to maintain and manage
• And much more   

The effortless way isn't the lazy way. It's the smart way. It may even be the only way. 

Not every hard thing in life can be made easy. But we can make it easier to do more of what matters most.

The New York Times bestselling author of Essentialism takes on the holy grail of human performance: How can we make it easier to get the right things done?

It's normal to feel overwhelmed by the hard things in life, from the big, weighty challenges to the everyday frustrations. But lately doesn't it seem like we're feeling this way a lot more often than we used to?

The problem isn't a lack of motivation or effort; if it were, we would already have achieved all our goals. The problem is that motivation and effort are limited resources. And the more we deplete them, the more burnt out we get, making it even harder to produce the results we want.

There is a better way: We can make the most essential tasks the easiest ones. In Effortless, McKeown shows us how, in three easy phases:

• Return to the Effortless State: By removing distracting thoughts and emotions, we regain the mental energy and clarity to focus on the right thing at the right time.
• Take Effortless Action: By simplifying our processes, embracing imperfection, and finding the right pace (and sticking to it), we make the important work itself easier to do.
• Achieve Effortless Results: By choosing high-leverage activities--like learning what no one else knows, automating essential steps, and solving problems before they happen--extraordinary results continue to flow to us.

By making it easier to get the right things done, we can accomplish more of what matters, without burning out.

“An empowering guide to achieving your goals without wrecking your health, your sanity, or your relationships.”—Rodger Dean Duncan for Forbes
 
“Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most . . . gives us the much-needed permission to take the path of least resistance. . . . In a society that expects hard work, but then rewards hard work with more hard work . . . Effortless is profound in its simplicity.”—Vice

“Based on behavioral economics, philosophy, physics, and neuroscience, in his new book, Effortless, Greg McKeown unveils tips to working smarter, not harder. They are simple yet brilliant strategies, and therefore easy to apply.”—Ruth Gotian, PhD, for Forbes

“If you’re squandering energy on pointless tasks and struggling to complete what really matters, this book is your salvation. With brisk prose, great stories, and keen insights, it shows how to flip the script—and make the trivial stuff harder and the crucial stuff easier. In a world beset by burnout, Greg McKeown’s work is essential.”—Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human

“As much as I loved Essentialism, I think Effortless is even better—and just what the world (and at least I) desperately needs at this moment. Many will benefit from McKeown’s wisdom and great storytelling.”—James M. Citrin, leader, CEO Practice | Board Practice, Spencer Stuart

“Every once in a while, a new book comes along at just the right moment. At a time when fear, uncertainty, and our ever-growing list of responsibilities—both at work and at home—have come to feel like much too much to handle, Greg McKeown’s new book couldn’t be timelier, or more necessary.”—Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play

“We’ve been taught that the more important the goal, the harder we must grind to achieve it, which leads to inevitable exhaustion and overwork. In his inspiring and important follow-up to Essentialism, Greg McKeown masterfully flips this script, arguing instead that the more essential the task, the more effortless we should make its completion. A much-needed corrective to burnout culture.”—Cal Newport, author of A World Without Email and Deep Work

“We all pride ourselves on being hard workers, but what should we do when we want to push ourselves even harder and have reached our upper limit? In his new book, Greg McKeown offers the solution: Instead of giving up, burning out, or sacrificing our sanity, we can find an easier path. Full of simple strategies we can adopt right away, Effortless shows that achieving more doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it out to be.”—Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global