The Fallacy of Effort

Here’s a common situation. You live together with siblings, roommates, parents, whoever. This means you share a few spaces, you share the refrigerator, you share objects and household duties. And then … some of them completely ignore that. They will empty a milk carton but just not throw it away. They will not clean up their stuff, not place things where they should be, which is obviously a major source of annoyance and frustration.

When asked about this, the perpetrators will often defend themselves with phrases like these.

• “Why would I clean up my stuff? I’ll need it again soon anyway.”
• “Why would I throw something away in the right place? It’s much less effort to toss it wherever is closest.”
• “Why would I empty that half-empty yoghurt carton before buying/grabbing a new one? That just takes me more effort!”
• “Why would I be careful when using objects or moving around? It takes me a lot of effort, while the chance of me breaking something is very low!”

In general, the defense is “but what I do takes less effort, so why would I ever do something that takes more effort?” Many people even pride themselves on the fact that they’re “lazy” or never “spend more energy than needed” on anything.

I’ve given household chores or shared objects/spaces as my example, as it’s specific and something basically everybody has experienced. But this applies to anything. People will say they want to have a certain skill (“I’d love to write books!”), but then defend themselves when they make absolutely no effort to reach that goal. People will defend terrible government policy by stating it takes the least effort (or funds, or change) to implement.

Problem solving requires solving the problem

The first issue here, of course, is that this is only a tiny fraction of the picture. The goal of problem solving is to solve the problem, it’s not to use the least effort possible. As such, there are countless low-effort actions … that simply do not solve the problem. But humans are very good at rationalizing their behavior, so they’ll just skirt the issue and redefine the problem. Or say it’s “not their problem”.

Instead of throwing away what they don’t need anymore, people will just kick the stuff to another corner of the room. Yes, least effort. No, problem not solved.

Instead of being careful to maintain expensive material (such as a phone/laptop) as long as possible, people will just do whatever they please with it. Which causes fractured phone screens before the thing has reached the ripe old age of one week old. Least effort, but your number of problems has only grown.

That’s why I always advocate to not respond to any “superficial statements”, be it excuses or explanations. Simply always ask: “What’s the problem exactly and why would this action solve it?” In coming up with an answer, you’d hope people realize their actions don’t actually solve the problem, and their approach of least effort has no value at all. Any other statements are completely irrelevant when you have an argument about behavior that’s causing problems. Anything that doesn’t define the problem more clearly or a solution, is irrelevant to the entire discussion.

And then people generally realize that saying “it’s less effort for me” is not actually worth anything.

It’s literally not true

The second issue here, of course, is that this isn’t true no matter how you look at it.

In most cases, a problem is shared. It’s about a shared living space, it’s about society, it’s about dealing with other people. Which means that your “least effort” approach, simply means that the bulk of the effort is pushed onto someone else’s shoulders.

You can probably guess why I gave these examples: I’ve been the one, for years, to clean up after those around me. What they “gain” in energy saved, is lost by me. And often this is doubly lost: it was never my problem to begin with, so I need to spend extra energy noticing what others have done and then deciding if I’m going to fix it again.

In other words, their “least effort” approach, only saves them a little bit of energy, while wasting a ton of extra energy in the bigger picture.

Some people truly don’t realize this. Once you make a child see that their mother is always tired and has no time to play with them because they carry the burden of effort, they will generally change their ways. Because they hadn’t thought about that. They just thought about themselves and saving energy in the moment, while ignoring the fact that clothes magically ended up back in their closet, washed and folded.

Actions are not fixed

But even disregarding that, and just assuming lots of people are ignorant or assholes, this still isn’t true.

Actions don’t have a fixed cost of effort.

Even in the exact same circumstances, the same action (or solution to a problem) can require wildly different levels of energy. I’ll give you two examples.

Habits

Habits. Most of us can tie our shoelaces without thinking about it, without looking at our shoe, without even consciously making the decision. It’s such an ingrained habit that it has a direct pathway in our brain and body. Which means the effort expended is as minimal as can be. Our brains don’t need to think about it, our fingers have no hesitation or wasted movement, it doesn’t require our focus.

This is why most people say to ignore fickle motivation and discipline, and instead rely on habits to get things done. Because once it’s a habit, you actually use minimal effort to do the thing, and you remove any hurdle to doing it.

It’s why people place their running shoes beside the bed, so they are already in their running shoes when they get out of bed the next morning. Hurdle lowered, habit reinforced, and they will actually get enough exercise.

It’s why I placed my keyboard underneath my desk. Before that moment, I barely recorded any new song ideas. Once the keyboard was within easy reach, and it was a habit to quickly snatch it and connect it, I suddenly had 50 new recordings that week. Because it became a habit I never broke, actually doing a hard thing (turning a keyboard on and recording some vague idea in my head) … became effortless.

In other words, you’re (usually) not actually saving yourself any effort when you pick the approach of “least effort”. When you build a habit to instantly throw away an empty drink carton, it will take you less energy than deciding to let it be half the time. When you build a habit to clean up your room every Sunday, it will take you less energy than coming up with all sorts of excuses for why you don’t have to do it half the time.

Or, for a different example, take closing a door (or cupboard) behind you. Again, I have mountains of experience with people who don’t do this, even after there have been some bad consequences to this. Whenever I leave the house with someone like that, they’ll say things like this: “Oh but we’ll be back in 5 minutes, don’t need to lock the door, right?”

No! You do need to lock the door! Because not doing it is breaking a habit. Because not doing it actually takes more energy, because it’s a conscious decision to go against your physical habit. Sticking to your habit to close/lock doors after yourself will save you tremendous effort in the long run. So yes, do it even when the situation doesn’t really require it. Do it anyway. Don’t even think about breaking it, and you will actually use “least effort”.

Since discovering this long ago, I’ve been able to do more in a day and be less tired as a result. By making it a habit to back up my files at the end of each day, for example, I do it automatically. I can even be thinking about something else, singing a song, exercising on my desk bike, it doesn’t matter. The movements happen automatically and I can always sleep knowing I won’t lose weeks of work.

Before that time? I had the same excuses. “Oh but it’s so much effort, and do I really need to back up those 2 chapters I wrote today?” This thought alone, this conscious debate or doubt in your mind, already takes more effort than just doing the habit.

Flow

Flow. Something that has interested me more and more the past few years, especially because I’m a game developer.

In games, your goal is to give the player a loop of actions (“game loop”) they can repeat over and over, which will give them fun. For years, flow was said to be a “component” of that. You had to keep players in a “state of flow” to keep them playing: provide challenges that are always not too easy and not too hard.

More and more, however, we realize that FLOW and FUN are just the same. Flow is simply our name for the state of being where you can keep putting effort into something, because it feels rewarding and it doesn’t tire you. If a game achieves good flow, players can play a complex game for hours without feeling like it took any effort.

You can probably guess where I’m going with this. It’s somewhat related to the habits section above.

An action can be effortless and quick if done while in flow, if done with momentum. The same action can be tedious and extremely hard if you lack that.

I’ve seen this countless times. When someone is in a good mood, they will clean up after themselves. They will magically know where to place things and to carefully handle shared objects and they will put in the work to do things the right way. When in a bad mood? When out of flow? All of that seems a distant memory, too hard to even try, and it’s thrown overboard.

While, in reality, that person in a good mood will not be tired after putting in all that “extra effort”. No, they’ll just continue being in a good mood and move with the flow. That person in a bad mood that didn’t do all those things (clean up, household chores, etcetera) will feel tired anyway.

Especially hyperactive artists like me can relate to this. When in a flow, I can write 5,000 words and still feel like I haven’t done a thing. When out of flow, when lacking momentum, even starting on a single paragraph can feel like running a marathon.

As such, if you actually want to save yourself effort, you want to keep yourself in flow. You want to have a mind-set that’s all about keeping momentum. Doing stuff leads to doing more stuff. Finishing one chapter leads to writing a second one with ease. Anything that would block you, that would sow doubts or hesitation, should be swiftly cast aside to stay in the flow.

This is hard to achieve, I know. It takes some practice, it takes a huge mind-set shift for some people, and even then it’s no guarantee. But it’s a simple idea that will actually save you a lot of effort, while also being a nice person that gets things done and cleans up after themselves.

In essence, get into the habit of doing good stuff, then make sure to never break those habits so you keep momentum.

And you can gamify this, if needed. I just stated that flow is usually defined as the perfect balance between “too boring/unstimulating” and “too hard/overwhelming”. For most, after doing a household chore a few times, it isn’t exactly challenging or stimulating anymore.

How to stay in flow? Challenge yourself! Change things up!

• Do the task in reverse order.
• Do it in a different location, at a different time, on a different schedule.
• Set yourself random challenges, such as doing it with your wrong hand.
• Or just put on music, podcast, whatever at the same time.

I once heard the quote: “Flow is the absence of thought.”

While it might give some people the wrong idea, I think it’s a good summary if you add “conscious” to it. Flow is the absence of conscious thought. Which is the slow, error-prone, hesitant, effortful kind of thought. When in flow, your intuitions and habits take over, and your conscious thought is reserved for only the things that need it. Which makes the more routine or administrative tasks in your day effortless—and those are the kinds of tasks that people tend to selfishly cast aside when lazy.

Conclusion

This is the fallacy, or maybe “paradox”, of effort. You need to put in a little effort consistently, to save yourself mountains of effort in the long run.

If you put in the effort to build habits, it pays off afterwards. If you put in the effort to regularly challenge yourself and stay in the flow, it reduces effort needed to do anything.

It’s less tiring to do stuff all day, than to work for a few hours, take a long break, and then have to start up again. It takes more effort to get over a hurdle twice, instead of getting over it once and then just continuing.

That’s why I generally have “short days” now, but I keep momentum throughout the entire day. It doesn’t mean I am hardcore working all day! No, no, no. I am not advocating for some unhealthy grind or whatever.

I only have one “most important” task in a day, and the rest is filled up with whatever minor thing comes to me. And sometimes that means more work on the main project; sometimes it means taking it slow and going for a walk outside. It just means that I never completely deflate and stop all momentum. Because I know—from the many times I let myself do that—it just means doing anything the rest of the day feels like too much effort. The thought “Oh let me just sit for a few minutes before I start writing again” has always turned into “sitting for hours until I go to bed feeling bad about not having done anything”.

If done right, this approach feels effortless to be immensely productive.

Many years ago, though, I did it wrong. I would work a few hours in the morning, then take a long break, then continue working all evening/night. Every single time, that second hurdle was almost impossible to get over. On the rare days that I just happened to keep going during the afternoon, I just … kept going into the evening as well. By putting in a little more effort to stay in flow, it saved me the pile of effort needed to get into the work again later that day.

Unfortunately, most people don’t see this. Or they don’t want to see it. They’ll stick to their demonstrably wrong idea that “doing the least in every situation” actually means “spending the least effort/energy”. They’ll stick to breaking good habits for all sorts of random reasons. They’ll think only of themselves, of the small picture, and even then they are wrong. Their lazy actions actively cost them more effort and conscious thought, every single day.

Hopefully, this article can at least shake some people out of that mind-set!

If not, at least I got my thoughts on this topic out into the world. In case anyone asks me again why I still lock my bike even if I’m only leaving it for half a minute. And yes, a friend of mine actually had her bike stolen once, when she left it at her front door for 20 seconds to grab something inside, which might have inspired some of these unbreakable habits ;)

Tiamo