The idea of friction
Friction is everywhere. It causes wear and tear between moving parts, breaking down structures natural and artificial. Something more intangible is psychological friction within ourselves.
This is a hidden force preventing positive progress in what we want to do. It comes up in struggling to get out of bed in the morning. It comes with figuring out how to use a new tool. It comes with struggling to understand what someone is communicating. It comes with anything that needs motivation, discipline or energy.
But energy is limited.
We want to reduce the friction, so that we spend less energy on the tedious, the annoying. We want to spend the energy on what's essential.
One of the best ways to do that, is to find the friction in actions we take every day, or otherwise repeatedly. If we can automate those, we encounter less friction every single day.
How I have applied this
I spend much time thinking about how I can automate tasks; which are tedious or just downright unpleasant for me to do. Upon closer scrutiny, I do so to:
- Reduce the error made from a lack of attention.
- Perform the action with consistency and reliability.
- Save time in repeating similar routines.
- Prevent emotion from derailing my thought process and going through with the best action.
Just as importantly, I derive joy from solving an intellectual challenging problem and enjoying compounding returns from its solution.