This book questions the puritanical belief that you ought to be working hard, and suggests that rather than working yourself to death you should look for the simplest solution to problems. Ask yourself if you’re doing too much. Look for the simplest way to achieve the result you want, and look for a way to make it fun. It’s full of useful life hacks, like how to get over procrastination and perfectionism, how to make boring jobs more fun, and when to stop working.

Well written and practical, there is a refreshing pragmatism to the author's approach that is especially appealing (and needed) at a time when many of us are feeling a little out of control and lacking certainty. Although some of the ideas shared might seem quite obvious, they're presented in a way that encourages you to think about your own habits differently, inviting you to gently question yourself and identify where you might be able to make healthy changes to help your life flow with a little more ease.

I've not read the author's first book "Essentialism", but I felt that this book was a standalone work that can be read independently, although it is a follow on book.

I thought the first part of the book was overly wordy and was trying too hard to sell the idea of "effortless". A little like an infomercial, it promised many times that I would be able to make things more "effortless" and gave examples of people who had. However, I wanted the "how to" now and not be made to wait for it. Once I got through the first part of the book it was fine, and the "how to's" rolled off the page and I was gratified at last.

You may be familiar with the term “work smarter… not harder”, it originated in the 1930s from a man called Allen F. Morgenstern. In essence I felt that this is what this book was trying to say, but giving real world up to date examples. The book is certainly current as one such example was making masks for Covid -19. It was these parts of the book that I enjoyed the most, reading about how people had transformed processes or simplified their work. In fact this is a technique of "telling stories" that the book itself recommends.

The key concepts of effortless are recapped at points throughout the book so you can easily get a quick reminder without reading the whole book again. Another chestnut of advice from my childhood of "less haste, more speed" is also expanded on in the book to provide evidence of why "Mother knew best" afterall!

The marginal return of working harder was, in fact, negative.

That's what happened to Patrick McGinnis. It's no exaggeration to say that he devoted his life to the company he worked for, struggling through, even when he was ill, only to find that he was working for a bankrupt company. His stock had fallen by 97%, he had lost his health and his job had little value. He made a bargain with God; if he survived, he would make some changes. He did survive and came through stronger - and richer. There is, you see, a different way: great things are not reserved for those who bleed, for those who almost break.

Before you start to wonder if this book might be the answer to all your problems I'd better tell you that Greg McKeown is clear that life can be hard for all sorts of reasons and the book can't eliminate those hardships. It can help when you feel that life has already been stripped down to its essentials and it still feels impossible to cope. If you've read McKeown's Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less you'll know what he's talking about. He describes the difference between the two books as Essentialism was about doing the right things. Effortless is about doing them the right way. My immediate reaction was that it might be a waste of time to read Effortless before I read Essentialism: how would I understand how to do things the right way if I didn't know what the right things were? But - I'm a reviewer and we don't always get books in the order we'd like them, so I persisted and I'm glad that I did.

You're going to learn how to reintroduce your effortless state: that's the point at which you're relaxed and it's actually easy to do things. Then you'll learn how to take effortless action and get effortless results. That might sound simple and too good to be true - when I put it so bluntly - but you are going to have to examine yourself, your motivations and be prepared to be brutal about changes you're going to make.

We all tend to add layers of complexity to life. We over-complicate - now is the time to strip it away. Most of us have been brought up to feel that working less hard is lazy. More effort somehow makes us feel good. Effortless gives us lots of ideas as to how we can improve our lives in big and small ways. I'll give you a couple of examples but you really should read the book to see what is going to make your life better.

A small change: we all have those little annoyances. Every time you try to close a drawer you have to adjust the contents to make it close smoothly. It only takes a second or two, so you don't bother to cure the problem but it annoys you every time it happens. Cure the problem - it will only take a short time - and you've saved the time and the annoyance. Every time I went into my greenhouse the door caught on one of the retractable shades: I'd reach up and move it out of the way. Yesterday I reached up and put a clip in position so that the door didn't catch the shade: problem solved and annoyance dispensed with.

A bigger adjustment: most of us have grudges which we keep on our payroll. The next time you encounter one of these grudges, ask exactly what job it's doing for you. I found a couple on my personal payroll and dismissal proceedings have been started. I feel lighter already.

A quick solution to a boring task: pair it with something that's fun. I've started doing the ironing whilst listening to an audiobook.

Effortless isn't a long read but it's certainly not a quick one: I found myself going back over whole chapters to fully absorb the points being made. It's remarkably free of jargon and there are plenty of anecdotes to illustrate the points being made. It's inspirational and I'd like to thank the publishers for making a copy available to the Bookbag.

I was impressed by the book, which puts our desire to do things the hard way down to a Puritan work ethic. But you can't always evade drudgery, as even the author admits. But looking for an easy way does not always appear to be a solution, and the book brings this to mind. What if there is an easier way? It is a valuable perspective on things because the easy way is so easily forgotten as an option. That is why the book is a welcome reminder that working harder maybe just gives a person burnout, although some people manage it, it is not necessarily the only way.