Permission to Stop Equating Easy and Lazy - Granted
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
The oracle, Greg McKeown, wants us to stop equating EASY and LAZY.
Easy ≠ Lazy
Greg says, “Ask yourself, ‘What’s the simplest way to achieve this result?’ When we remove the complexity, even the slightest effort can move what matters forward.”
He often tells the story of a woman he was coaching who was an over complexifying, overachiever. He told her to experiment with doing the opposite of her tendency to overwork and overcomplicate and instead pause and ask how to do the task in an effortless manner. She worked at an educational institution and received a request to record a professor’s lessons for the rest of the year. Her natural tendency had her envisioning bringing her whole team into the project, editing the film, adding intros and outros and music to really impress the professor. But remembering her assignment from Greg to make things more effortless, she paused and asked the professor more questions. She found out the recordings were actually only requested because one student was going to miss a few classes because of athletic commitments. She asked if one of the other students could record the missed classes on their phone and share those recordings with the absent student, and the professor was completely happy with that idea. This effortless idea saved 4 months of work for her and her team.
I have definitely fallen into the overachieving, overcomplicating pack in my life. I have led that pack at times, and I have enabled the tendency in others. I used to work in finance, and a large amount of my time was spent providing reports and information to advisors ahead of client meetings “just in case” the clients would ask certain questions. So much time and effort could have been saved for doing more consequential work if people just had the policy that we would provide any unknown information if asked shortly after the meeting.
I digested the false equivalency that easy equals lazy early in life, as many of us do. As I get older and my plate has been piled higher, I recognize the wisdom in looking for the easiest way to solve most problems. Of course some issues take more time and effort to solve, but knowing there is another way to do life with more extreme simplicity can help us navigate between the two mindsets to create a life that is less exhausting.
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Sincerely Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team