Think of your kitchen. Where are the glasses? Close to faucet and fridge. Where are the coffee beans? Next to the coffee machine. And the pans? Under the stove or in the cupboard next to it. The arrangement of things makes it easy for you to do what you want: drink water, make coffee, or fry an egg. You don’t have to pay special attention to the task. You can do it without thinking. The design makes it easy.
Now take a look at your work. How easy is it to turn intention into action, find and exchange fresh ideas, make informed and balanced decisions, or influence behavior and experience in the desired way? If it's hard, it could be because you don't have a supporting context and established habits. You have not made it easy by design.
The brain loves ease. It developed in times of scarcity, when food was hard to get. Saving energy became an evolutionary qualifier. Even today, the brain is obsessed with maintaining energy. Lazy and cautious, it is always in the market for simple and safe solutions. For the brain, things are easy when it doesn't have to spend excessive energy to figure out what's going on and what to do about it.
What’s easy? To choose the status quo, and the default setting. Follow a guide, sign or line. Plug and play. Keep the old and stick to the familiar. Ignore or delegate. Eat and drink too much. Move and train too little. Talk too often or be…
