I was generously gifted a copy of “Lost Souls” (also called “Half Moon Bay”) by Penguin Random House SA. I am always excited about new mystery and thriller books and so I was so happy to see this one!
What I didn’t realise is that this is the third book in a series called “Clay Edison” and that may have contributed to my overall confusion and lower rating of this book.
Overall, the book was well written. I enjoyed reading about all the characters and the beginning of the story was interesting and intriguing. You know how a book starts with a few different threads but somewhere along the way, the threads start to weave together and things start falling into place for the final reveal or that AHA moment when the penny drops? Well, that just never seemed to happen for me with this book.
It seemed like there were 2 separate stories in one book – which sounds awesome but I wasn’t sure which mattered more or why. I also struggled to keep up with all the different characters throughout the book – sheesh! But that could just be my sieve brain at work. I really struggle with books that have many characters (*cough* Game of Thrones *cough*)
What I did love was the investigation and forensics elements of this book. I am always so fascinated by police and detective work and seeing the lengths they sometimes have to go to to try and solve a crime. So that aspect of this book was exciting and kept me drawn in trying to see what would happen. It is more of a slow-burn but still keeps you engaged.
This wasn’t a terrible book by any means but there were some confusing parts and that’s why I had to rate it lower. As I said above though, that this is the third book in the series and that could explain some of why this was the case.
Loved the writing style and the characters and their humanness – the main detective is a husband and father of a newborn and trying to do this tough job. So seeing that other side of him trying to do his best as a husband and father as well was very endearing.
I would still recommend this book to anyone who loves detective work and crime related stuff. But I’d recommend reading the first 2 books in the series before diving into this one.
I am grateful to have received a review copy of Effortless from Penguin Random House South Africa. I have really been enjoying reading the most recent thoughts and seeing the studies into psychology and business and leadership themes. So I was really excited to receive this one! 😃
Published: April 2021 Pages: 272 Genre: Non-Fiction, Self Help, Productivity
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
I’m sure that we can all agree that we are finding working in this day and age exhausting and overwhelming. Everything and everyone is always so busy. In order to make sure we get everything done, we work hard and often by putting in extra hours. “Strangely, some of us respond to feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by vowing to work even harder and longer. It doesn’t help that our culture glorifies burnout as a means of success and self-worth. The implicit message is that if we aren’t perpetually exhausted, we must not be doing enough (p. 7).” What Effortless suggests is that this is not true, and we can still work hard and achieve excellent results but without burning ourselves out in the process. I can hazard a guess that we all wish we didn’t feel so tired all the time or like a rat stuck on a wheel when it comes to the work culture as the demands are relentless and the work is never-ending. Imagine a world where we could put in hard work once and yield the benefits or results long term. The main point of this book could be described simply as: “Do not work harder, but work more effectively.” Simplicity is key.
The book is divided up into three sections. The first section talks about the effortless state. What the author means by effortless state is when we are physically rested, emotionally unburdened and mentally energised. When we are completely aware, alert, present, attentive, and focused on what’s important in this moment. Then we are able to focus on what matters most with ease. Before the author even gets into practical steps, he titles the first little section as “Not everything has to be so hard.”
Section 2 talks about effortless action. Effortless action means accomplishing more by trying less. We stop procrastinating and take the first obvious step. We arrive at the point of completion without overthinking. We make progress by pacing ourselves rather than powering through. We overachieve without overexerting. This was an eye-opening chapter for me. It wasn’t mind-blowing in its revelation necessarily, but it stated some things in a way that makes you realise you have never thought of it like that before. “Haven’t you ever found that when you do your very best work, the experiences feel effortless? You act almost without thinking. You make things happen without even trying to make things happen. You are in the zone, in flow, in peak performance (p. 98).” McKeown talks about how we often complicate processes just by how much we think about them. We often overthink and this is what causes the problem. We need to be able to move to a space where we don’t overthink and we are just able to do.
In the last section of the book, he discusses effortless results. McKeown suggests that once we have put in the initial effort and simplified our thinking and processes down to the essentials, we will yield effortless results. The trick to this is not rocket science. It’s more about being intentional with setting up the foundations of the things that matter. If we are tired of forgetting friends and family’s birthdays, we must take the 30 minutes and put those birthdays in our calendars to repeat annually to ensure we stop forgetting all their birthdays. It’s only a 30 minute input but the stress is hugely relieved and the reward of remembering the birthdays lasts for ages. If we want to make sure we cover our system/process well, we should take the time to create a checklist that we can work off of, because what that does is remove the mental space it takes up when nothing is written down and each week’s routine things need to be given mental space to remember. But once we have made a checklist, we can function more effortlessly because we know it’s already taken care of (the thinking has already been done) and we now only need to follow the checklist.
This book is filled with a load of helpful and practical nuggets. It’s a simple, quick to read guide on how to practically implement things into our lives that would cause our lives to feel less busy and overwhelming, more streamlined and more effortless. Each point that the author brings across has a little story or analogy that goes with it. I really enjoyed those stories as it brings the point home in a unique way. It also makes the point that much stickier. As I’ve mentioned, nothing in this book is mind-blowing but the simplicity with which it is communicated is incredibly helpful and makes you, as the reader, feel like it is easy to achieve these things in your own life. One of the chapters is dedicated to taking the first obvious action. He says, if we need to clean out our garage, for example, it feels overwhelming as a whole and so we leave it for months or even years. But that’s because we think of the whole task. But all we need to do is take the first obvious action. We need to buy boxes with which to organise the stuff in the garage. Or make the phone call to that company that specialises in cleaning out spaces. It’s a simple solution that we all know but we just don’t do it.
Again, as with previous books, I am encouraged to see that some of the practices he mentions in this book are things that I have already implemented in my own life. For example, having a checklist in place. Taking the time to automate processes. I was blown away to realise that many people don’t take the time and effort to save birthdays in their calendars themselves, or to add proper names and descriptions into their contacts on their phones, or to write down in one place everything that needs to be done so that nothing is missed. It has revealed to me that I am more organised than I think but it’s one of those things that seems to come more naturally to me. And one thing my mom taught me as I was growing up is that it’s worth taking the extra minute or ten to do something properly because ultimately it serves you better in the long run. So take the time to wipe the tomato sauce bottle now when you mess, otherwise it’s going to be very sticky next time and make it nearly impossible to get the lid off (or back on). That’s a silly example that illustrates a really great principle that I’ve always stuck to.
Talking about principles, my favourite part of this book was Chapter 11. It’s a chapter entitled “Learn.” “As our lives become increasingly busy, overwhelming, and fast-paced, it’s tempting to seek out easy instructions or methods that we can apply to a problem right away, without expending much mental energy. This is a mistake. Why? A method may be useful once, to solve one specific type of problem. Principles, however, can be applied broadly and repeatedly. At their best, they are universal and timeless.” He talks about learning the principle behind things so that we get a lot more leverage out of it. If we learn the how and why of things, we can apply the knowledge again and again. This in turn means that we save on the time and energy it takes to try and solve problems as we encounter them. Specific methods (which only solve individual problems) produce only linear results. But if it’s residual results we’re after, we must look to learning and teaching principles.
Man, all the elements of this book just work so well together to suggest a healthy, well-rounded approach to simplifying life and making it feel more effortless. My biggest takeaway is to always be evaluating the things I am doing and making sure I am doing them in the least complicated way as this will ensure it is easily replicable and sustainable. I also need to work at taking the first obvious action, especially for tasks or endeavours that seem overwhelming on the whole. Taking the first step reveals the second step. Another helpful tip from the book with regards to this is to define what “done” looks like. To know what I am working towards and then to just get started. And one last thing from the book is to become ok with starting with rubbish. I am realising that it’s ok to start with a rough draft and work on it to get to the perfect final product but I am hard on myself and don’t allow room for rough drafts which only adds stress and pressure to myself. So I am working on becoming truly content with the fact that there actually needs to be a growth path from the first draft to the final output. It’s never going to be perfect the first time.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who feels overwhelmed and just needs clear, easy-to-understand guiding principles on how to simplify life and to create systems in order to create capacity for the things that really matter, instead of being bogged down by the non-essentials that so often eat up all of our time.
All The Books and I 
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