3 Techniques to Start Doing Hard Things
Use energy management, social influence, and starting momentum to overcome easy mode.
One of the most powerful forces in human behavior is the law of convenience. It dictates much of our lives but most don’t realize how it works.
Humans evolved to conserve energy. We take the path with the least effort or least number of obstacles unless there is a compelling reason to act differently.
In other words, nature made us lazy by default.
But this was for good reasons. We have limited energy. If we had spent our physical or mental energy on trivial matters, we wouldn’t have survived.
Yet in our modern society, we are slaves to convenience. And businesses exploit our natural desire for it.
Most products aren’t new behaviors but easier and better ways of doing something. Online ordering is an easier way to shop. Ubers are an easier way to hail a car.
Convenience is a net gain but has its trade-offs. It can put us into easy mode and prevent us from seeking more fulfilling experiences that make life rich.
The Hidden Costs of Easy Mode Living
In the 2008 Pixar film Wall-E, we are presented with a dystopian society where humans are depicted as overweight, reclining in chairs, and engrossed in a hologram screen.
In a sense, we are already living a version of this world. Convenience turns into a standard way of living. We are fish, unaware we are swimming in water.
If my 14-year-old self glimpsed into my life, he would imagine GPS, Ubers, remote work, and ChatGPT have made my life happier and more productive. But that would be the wrong conclusion.
No matter how much convenience we acquire, we will always be burdened with new issues.
Today’s culprits are the war for our attention and our overwhelming abundance of choices. But compared to ten years ago, life is in easy mode. Always living in this mode makes you less tolerant of flipping the switch to hard mode.
However, we can toggle between hard and easy, if we know the right code to flip the switch.
How Energy Drives Our TV Habit
Long before streaming, live programming was the only way to watch new episodes of your favorite TV show.
It was called appointment television and Thursdays were “Must See TV” for NBC.
Friends was placed at the 7 pm time slot and Seinfeld at 8 pm. NBC strategically placed them to take advantage of our weakness for convenience.
The shows slotted at 7:30 and 8:30 have long been forgotten, but they regularly ranked in the top 15 in terms of viewership.
The reason? We couldn’t be bothered to change the channel. But it wasn’t only convenience that made us watch mediocre TV. It was our energy levels.
TV is always at the tail end of a long day of work or school. Most of us plop ourselves onto the sofa to relax. And if’s not a TV, it’s likely Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.
For that reason, we need awareness of our energy and match it with the right activities.
How to Manage Energy Levels
Our energy is not only limited but has natural ebbs and flows.
According to the book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” by Daniel H. Pink, timing is essential to align peak periods of energy with the right activity.
Most of us have our best mental energy shortly after we wake up. Yet, most of us squander this time on trivial or urgent tasks. Instead, we need to stick to doing hard things right away.
My top form is between 8 and 11 AM. This is a sacred time for hard activities.
Jeff Bezos, employed a similar approach when he was CEO of Amazon. He scheduled his most important meeting at 10 a.m.
“I like to do my high-IQ meetings before lunch. Like anything that’s going to be really mentally challenging, that’s a 10 a.m. meeting. And by 5 p.m., I’m like, I can’t think about that today; let’s try this again tomorrow at 10 a.m.”
Energy levels are like ocean waves. You have to catch big ones to pair with your most important and challenging activities.
Along with timing, energy is a limited resource. If you put energy towards cooking labor-intensive meals on a weeknight, you are likely to take the path of easy mode by the time you finish eating.
This is why takeout always feels guilt-free when you plan it in advance. Recently, I had to book hotels for an upcoming vacation. I made the decision to borrow the energy (and time) from cooking, to do this important yet stressful task.
Moreover, better energy levels can be optimized by getting rest. Sleep not only gives you more energy but enhances your ability to make better decisions on effectively using it.
Finally, energy is dictated by the law of motion. Once you start, you typically won’t stop.
Emptying the dishwasher will lead to wiping down the table.
Starting a run will lead to running a couple of miles.
Writing a sentence will lead to writing a paragraph.
Often, momentum can carry us if we can start. And there are two levers to make it easier to start and sustain doing the hard thing.
Use People to Alter Your Behavior
Like convenience, social influence has a large impact on how we behave.
One of the first studies you learn in organizational psychology is the Hawthorne effect. It states when people are being watched, they alter their behavior or performance to conform to expectations.
I regularly use social influence as a tool to do hard activities. Social influence comes in two forms; indirect and direct observations.
Let’s go over a few examples of each.
Indirect
When writing articles like these, I like to get myself to a cafe. Not only does changing environments and caffeine help but being in public kicks me into high gear. The barista and patrons don’t know I am writing but the mere presence makes me sharper. I am unlikely to procrastinate versus being at home by myself.
Working out at a gym works the same way. Seeing strangers work out beside me makes the task of lifting heavy weights easier.
Direct
Anytime you are part of a team or group doing an activity in a communal way, it adds a dimension of accountability.
My running speed improves when I run with a run club or a friend. Coordinating and scheduling with others is another factor in forcing yourself to be in hard mode. You look bad if you don’t show up. Again, showing up is always the hard part.
Along with writing in cafes, I joined a virtual writing group. Cultivating a writing habit is hard, so why go it alone?
We get on a Zoom call and write for an hour then the group leader will ask someone to discuss what they wrote. Social accountability works even in its minimal form.
People and situations alter behavior when no immediate consequences or stakes are involved. Left to our own devices, we procrastinate because who are we harming except our future selves?
In most cases, using social influence still means starting alone. So how do we make starting easier?
Getting Started is Everything
Whenever we contemplate doing something, it's a slippery slope. It turns into negotiating. This inevitably ends up taking us toward the path of doing the easy.
Paradoxically, it's never doing the hard thing, but thinking about it that makes us decide to procrastinate.
To prevent contemplation, we need to use speed to quickly start the activity.
Speed is building convenience into your behaviors. And to go fast, we must remove obstacles and make tasks frictionless as possible to get going.
Let’s go back to my examples of running and writing since both are hard behaviors to start.
I go to run club on Monday evenings at 6 pm. We know evenings our vulnerable to the law of convenience since energy levels are not optimal and staying in and taking it easy feels better.
This is where removing obstacles can make the decision easier.
For me, it's checking the weather, changing into my running gear, and deciding how I’ll get to the meet-up spot.
If I do these three things, I’ve turned my vague intention into something real. Even though I haven’t stepped outside, I feel in motion.
For writing in the morning, I get my cursor to the line where I will type my first sentence. I also make sure I have my document open when I open the lid of my laptop.
These minor obstacles might feel inconsequential but they take away micro-decisions to start and prevent countless other possibilities to avoid doing the hard task.
Conversely, adding steps (friction) and slowing yourself down is a way to prevent going into easy mode. This is especially true for our phones.
Don’t Waste Your Potential
It’s in our DNA to want everything made easy and effortless but this makes life boring and unsatisfying.
At the same time, our energy and attention are finite. We can’t go hard on everything. This means picking our battles.
Once you identify those areas, intentionally manage your energy levels, use social influence, and set up routines so you aren’t relying on motivation.
There is one caveat though. Life is messy. Don’t over-invest in the idea of always needing certain conditions.
Sometimes we need to simply ignore how we are feeling in the moment and just act. Yet, this type of discipline can only be done in small doses.
To win against easy mode, we have to look for solutions outside of ourselves.
Thanks for reading!
Irfan
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