Pressing the Easy Button

How do you go about completing tasks or solving problems? Are you someone who has difficulty allowing yourself to “press the easy button” when it comes to solving a problem in your life? If so, have you stopped to ask yourself why?

It helps to examine underlying assumptions and beliefs you hold about what it means for something to be “easy.” By rethinking old messages you have about what is worthy of your time and resources, you can approach tasks differently in such a way that results in less stress, greater ease, and fulfillment in other areas of your life.

Why It's Harder for Some to Adopt an Easier Approach to Life

You may have heard different phrases that communicate this notion of doing things in an easier and more thoughtful way, such as “work smarter, not harder,” or “less Is more.” However, when I encourage “doing less” with my clients and to “go easy” on themselves, I sometimes hear words back such as lazy, not real, entitled, fake, cheat, burden, giving up, luxury, or privilege.

We internalize messages about what it means to have things be “easy.” Familial and cultural upbringing influences our willingness to adopt practices that promote more ease.

My personal experience as someone raised in an Asian immigrant household led to my own set of assumptions and beliefs I held about what “easy” meant. I observed my parents practice frugality and resourcefulness. They made trade-offs in life that required sacrifice, often of their time and energy.

I’ve heard other children of immigrant families describe how family members constantly rationalized their decisions not to do something like spend money to help fix a problem. Sometimes it had to do with the sheer lack of available resources but sometimes not. Regardless of how inefficient it may have been over the long term, it was deemed prudent not to pay for something, not to ask for help outside of the family, or not choose some other variation of the easier path. Choosing an easier option and doing less could mean you were viewed as lazy, entitled, or ungrateful.

If you carry these sorts of assumptions about the concept of “easy,” then it makes sense why you opt for doing things just as it was modeled to you. This is done despite the fact that taking the harder approach may be costing you more time, more money in the long run, and, most importantly, your mental health and well-being. What I’ve told myself in the past to justify this self-sacrifice is “At least I can feel a sense of temporary gratification for being a hard worker who has put in 'real' effort.” But this pattern of putting off one’s own mental health and well-being adds up.

To what end are you willing to keep paying this non-monetary, but significant cost to your well-being?

The Benefits of Choosing the Path of Least Resistance

When we are faced with options, our minds often go to what it will cost us over what will be gained. We fixate on what is at stake whether it is our reputation, money, or our sense of control.

This is a type of cognitive bias called loss aversion which is common to humans when it comes to decision-making. Because it is such a normal and natural inclination for our minds to do this, it takes deliberate practice to pivot our minds toward what we can gain if we choose to take a different approach to a problem.

To jumpstart this shift in mindset, I’ve included a couple of benefits you can experience when choosing a path of less resistance:

1. You will feel less stressed in the long run.

If you are not allocating so much time trying to fix small problems, you will have less on your plate which can result in less stress. We all have that experience of accumulating an unnecessarily long list of small, non-urgent, and non-important to-do items. This accumulation of uncompleted tasks negatively impacts our mood, anxiety, and stress levels.

Decide on the non-important, non-urgent things you can let go of. “Letting go” can mean you delegate it to someone else, pay for something to resolve it, or cross it off your to-do list altogether. You will start to feel mentally and physically lighter when there are fewer outstanding items constantly asking for your attention.

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2. You will be a better person in relationships.

Some people have a hard time asking for help or delegating tasks to other people because they fear this will make things worse for someone else. This zero-sum thinking is not helpful nor is it often true.

We underestimate the benefits others experience when we make things better for ourselves. People around you stand to benefit from a better version of yourself. Next time you’re inclined to feel guilty for outsourcing, delegating, or saying no to completing a task, think big-picture of how doing and feeling better about yourself can add to the collective well-being of those around you.

3. You will have time back to do things that are more important and fulfilling to you.

The point of doing less is not just so you can do nothing (although that is totally OK, too!). The point is to reclaim those pockets of time and mental energy back which can be used toward things that really matter and fill you with a greater sense of life satisfaction.

For example, a client finally decided no longer to spend a grueling one to two hours every other Friday afternoon trying to do accounting by hand and now pays a monthly service fee for accounting software that organizes things quicker and more efficiently. This went a long way in freeing up this client’s time and mental energy which they started to dedicate to afternoon visits to friends or taking walks at the end of a long work week.

Imagine how you too can use reclaimed hours to benefit your life in simple creative ways.

Start to Value Your Own Time and Energy

To be clear, this is not a pitch to mindlessly throw money at any and all things in your life. This is a challenge to dig deeper and examine how you value your own time, energy, interests, and relationships.

Start to see your time and energy as resources you need to protect and honor just as you would someone else’s. It’s easy to dismiss the effort and time we put into things as “simply necessary” but we need to remember that it matters more than that.

Call to Action: Start to examine your beliefs and practice little steps:

1. Examine your assumptions and long-held beliefs about “easy” versus “hard” effort. Talk to others to compare and contrast your beliefs and life experiences with the concept. Ask yourself: "What are the messages I heard growing up about doing things the 'easy' way versus hard approaches to problems? How have I been making things harder for myself and why? How can I start to challenge beliefs that may be outdated?"
2. List the benefits of reclaiming your time and energy. Take stock of the benefits you have to gain if you are open to letting things be easier for yourself. How will this free up resources and where else can you allocate them? What are the areas in your life where you can afford to invest more time, resources, and energy that will yield better “results” in terms of your emotional, mental, social, and physical health?
3. Redefine "easy" and experiment with this new version of the Easy Button in your life. Based on your inventory of where you would like to reinvest your time and energy, list small action steps you can take to press that “easy button.” Whatever version of an “easy button” looks like for you, practice something small starting today and see how it feels.

A Little Goes a Long Way

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear writes:

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance transforms your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

In this case, an action results from the decision you make to choose the path of least resistance and to choose the option in life that promotes more ease in your life. With each action, you are “voting” for the kind of person who allows themselves to be treated with greater kindness and generosity.

It will get easier with time to ask for help, to say no to requests, and to opt into things that will reduce the burden you carry on a regular basis. You and those around you will experience the benefits of living with less stress and “pressing the easy button.”