The Hidden Cost of Friction

(Transcript edited for clarity.)

Hi, I'm Wes. Welcome to The Hidden Cost of Friction.

I recently did an episode called Your Environment Is Always Training You.

This is kind of a follow-up because it ties directly into that environment discussion.

If you haven't watched that episode, you might want to give it a watch because it ties directly into this.

Today we're talking about the hidden cost of friction.

When I talked about how your environment is constantly training you, I talked about intentionally designing your environment so it can help you reach the success you want instead of working against you.

When I say the hidden cost of friction, remember that friction works both ways.

Friction can make it harder to achieve whatever you want.

But if you make the things you don't want to do - the things that pull you away from the success you want - harder to do, then friction can support you too.

So keep both of those in mind as we go through The Hidden Cost of Friction.

Where is friction making the right action harder than it needs to be for you?

What friction are you putting in your life, or tolerating in your life, that you can do away with to make your path to success easier?

Friction is anything that makes an action harder to start or continue.

One unnecessary step might not seem important, but repeated friction quietly costs you time, energy, consistency, and progress.

It can definitely destroy your momentum.

I'm going to give you a quick example.

In the publishing process here for Your Life Systems, everything starts with getting ready to do an episode.

That's what I'm doing right now: doing this episode.

After that, it launches a whole bunch of different things.

It helps me create assets that go a lot of different places.

It leads to wherever you're watching this episode and other things like that.

But there are multiple steps.

There's a whole page of steps covering everything that happens, from the idea for an episode, to getting the index card, script, manuscript, or whatever you want to call it, to the recording.

Then, once it's recorded, there are the editing, thumbnails, descriptions, keywords, and all the publishing assets that come from it, whether they're written, podcasts, or other things.

It's a huge, long list with multiple steps.

So any step I can shorten saves me not only then, but every time for every episode going forward.

I recently found one.

This is going to sound simple, and I work with computers a lot.

I've worked with computers for most of my adult life.

But every once in a while, you find something - or at least I do - that instantly saves a lot of time.

When I tell you this, you might already have figured it out, but for an older guy like me, this is a huge time saver.

I have to download seven things every time I do an episode.

What I was doing was downloading each one, opening the file in a Word document, then saving that Word document to a folder on my computer.

That's what I have to do.

I have to download the files, verify they're what they need to be, then save them to a particular folder on my computer.

I was doing that one at a time for seven things.

Recently I figured out I can download all seven at one time, then move all seven into the folder at one time.

Again, I'm sure a lot of you already knew this or would have figured it out long before I did.

But that one quick thing is going to save me hours and hours over time because I'm not doing it one at a time anymore.

As I was setting up this system, I'm always looking for ways to reduce friction.

That's what we're talking about.

Doing those files one at a time was creating friction.

I still did it, but most importantly, it created a loss of time that I could have been using for something else.

That's just a quick example.

But is there something you have right now that's causing friction?

Maybe it makes something harder to do, harder to think about, harder to accomplish, or it costs you time that you could eliminate or reduce.

If you're not working on it, there's no way you're going to solve it.

So identify sources of friction and see what you can do to get rid of them.

Every extra step, like the ones I was just talking about, creates another opportunity for delay, distraction, or quitting.

Repeated friction drains your mental energy.

It can keep you from doing your best work before you even start your best work.

Think about when you do your best work.

You do much better work when you're mentally clear.

If you put too many steps of friction before that work, they drain your mental energy.

Then you may never end up doing your best work, even if you finally get started, because you're not as mentally sharp as you would have been.

Small changes to a system can make consistent action much easier.

I'm not talking about changing huge things.

Remember the example I used.

I have this whole page of steps.

I didn't change the whole thing.

I found one simple thing that saves me time every time I go through the process.

After every episode, I go through this process, and the process is about a page long.

Everything I can do to make a small change, reduce one small bit of friction, or save one small bit of time compounds every time I go through the list.

Friction is cumulative.

Think about this.

Let's say I've got 25 steps on the list, and every single thing I do uses mental energy.

I have to expend some bit of mental energy for each of those 25 steps.

By the time I get through all 25, that's cumulative.

I've had to use mental energy for all 25 steps.

So every one of those steps I can automate does the opposite.

It gives me back more mental energy.

Let's say I can reduce the 25 steps to 20.

That's an increase in the mental energy I have available.

Let's say I can get it down to 10.

That cuts the mental energy I expend to less than half.

So I have more mental energy to do the things that are more important, or equally important, and be as sharp as I want to be while I'm doing them.

Reduce the number of steps between deciding and doing.

That's friction.

I have a terrible history of information over-gathering.

I don't know if that's a real word.

But it means I get information, research, research, dig up information, and instead of taking action as soon as I have enough information to act, I sometimes continue to gather more.

So I've increased the number of steps between deciding and doing by gathering more information.

What I should do is gather enough information to get started, then start doing.

That's a type of friction.

Friction can show up in a lot of different ways.

You need to prepare tools, information, and your environment before the action is supposed to start.

That's why I have the publishing list.

I don't have to remember and think through the whole list every time.

I've got it memorized by now because I've done it so many times.

But I sat down first and created the list.

Then I adjust the list as I add things or find improvements, like the shortcut I just told you about that reduced something in the list.

You need to prepare before you begin.

Once you begin, every time you have to stop or think things through, friction gets introduced.

Every time friction gets introduced, it slows you down, steals your momentum, and makes you do less than optimal work.

Remove friction from actions you want more of.

If there's friction on something you want more of, like working toward your success, remove as much of it as you can.

In my example, I want the publishing process to get done correctly as quickly as possible.

So I'm trying to remove as much friction as possible from that.

On the opposite side, add as much friction as possible to actions you want less of.

You might have heard me mention this in another episode because I've used the example a few times: candy bars.

I don't buy candy bars because I can't have them in the house.

If I have them in the house, I'll eat them.

I don't want to eat candy bars because they're not healthy for me.

So how do I introduce friction into that?

I don't buy them.

I don't have them in the house.

If I'm going to eat a candy bar now, I have to get ready and drive to town to get one.

That's friction.

I've introduced more friction into that action.

If the candy bar were sitting on the counter, there wouldn't be much friction.

I could just walk in and get it.

That's an example of introducing more friction to the things you don't want.

Before blaming discipline, ask whether the system is unnecessarily hard to use.

If you're struggling with a system you've created or put into place, or with a workflow, don't question the system before you look at where the friction is.

The system might be fine if you identify the bottlenecks or the big friction and remove them, or figure out ways to work around them.

So in closing, don't ask only whether your plan can work.

Ask how easy it is to start, how easy it is to continue, and how easy it is to repeat.

Remember, we're talking about friction and the hidden cost of friction.

So I'll say it again.

Don't ask only whether a plan or system can work.

Ask how easy it is to start, continue, and repeat.

Basically ask: Where could the possible friction be that I can remove now?

You don't need to make important work harder than it already is.

You can remove unnecessary steps and make the next right action easier.

When you think about friction, think about what you can remove to make it easier to get where you want.

And on the opposite side, think about what friction you can put in place to make it more difficult to go in the direction that pulls you away from your goals.

I'm Wes. This is Your Life Systems.

Thanks for being with me.

Like, subscribe. See you soon.

What's Next?

·        Identify one useful system or workflow that feels harder than it should.

·        List the unnecessary steps, repeated decisions, interruptions, or bottlenecks inside it.

·        Remove or automate one small source of friction rather than redesigning everything.

·        Prepare tools, information, and the environment before the work begins.

·        Add friction to one action that repeatedly pulls you away from your goals.

·        Evaluate the system by how easy it is to start, continue, and repeat.

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