I keep my phone next to my bed for when I wake up with ideas. Except I don't actually capture them.
Because when I unlock my phone to open the notes app, I see notifications. Email. Messages. Twitter. By the time I've scrolled through everything, I've forgotten what I wanted to write down.
Or I do remember, but opening the notes app means scrolling through hundreds of random notes trying to find where this idea should go. So I just don't write it down.
Last month I put a notes widget on my lock screen. Now I can write ideas without unlocking my phone. No notifications. No distractions. Just tap and type.
That's a stupid small change. But it's the difference between capturing dozens of ideas and losing all of them.
This is what I mean by friction.
You're Not Fighting Yourself
Most productivity advice assumes your problem is willpower. Just try harder. Be more disciplined. Wake up at 5am and attack the day.
That's nonsense.
I've watched people spend thousands of dollars on courses about discipline and habits and mindset. Then they go back to environments designed to make them fail.
You can't willpower your way out of a high-friction environment. It doesn't work. I know because I tried for years.
Here's what actually works: designing your life so the things you want to do are easy, and the things you don't want to do are hard.
This isn't a new idea. Behavioral economists have been studying it since the 1970s. They call it choice architecture.
But almost nobody applies it to their own life.
Choice Architecture (Without the Academic Nonsense)
Choice architecture is just a fancy way of saying: your environment shapes your decisions more than you think.
Companies know this. That's why the healthy food is on the top shelf at eye level in corporate cafeterias, and the cookies are in the back. That's why your email inbox has a red notification badge that makes your brain itch until you check it.
They're designing environments that make certain choices easier and others harder.
You can do the same thing for yourself.
Example: I used to waste 15 minutes every morning deciding what to wear. Not because I care about fashion. Because I'd stand there looking at my closet thinking "Is this too casual? Too formal? Did I wear this yesterday?"
So I bought five identical black t-shirts and three pairs of identical jeans. Now I don't decide. I just grab whatever's clean.
Saved me 90 hours a year. That's more than two full work weeks.
The problem isn't that you lack discipline. The problem is that you're using discipline to fight friction that shouldn't exist in the first place.
What Is Friction, Actually?
Let me define this clearly: friction is anything that makes it harder to do what you want to do.
Physical friction: The gym is 30 minutes away, so you don't go as often.
Time friction: Setting up your development environment takes 20 minutes, so you put off starting projects.
Decision friction: You have 47 browser tabs open and can't remember which one has the document you need.
Mental friction: Your desk faces a window and you spend half your work time staring outside instead of focusing.
All of these drain energy. And the insidious part is you don't notice them until you fix them.
I had a client who wanted me to automate their invoice process. Took me an hour to build. Saves them 3 hours a week. That's 156 hours a year they were losing to a problem that took 60 minutes to solve.
But they lived with it for two years because "it's not that bad."
That's friction. It's not catastrophic. It's just there, slowly making everything harder.
How I Actually Do This
Every few months I do what I call a friction audit. It's embarrassingly simple.
I spend an hour listing every annoying thing in my life. Then I fix as many as possible, starting with the easiest ones first.
The framework comes from rationalist blogs and behavioral economics, but I'm going to give you the practical version without the theory.
Here's how it works:
Step 1: Spend 30 minutes listing friction points in your life. Just brain dump everything that annoys you, slows you down, or makes you avoid things you want to do.
Step 2: Put these in a spreadsheet. Add a "difficulty" column and rate each one from 1-10. (1 = could fix right now, 10 = requires months of work or tons of money)
Step 3: Sort by difficulty and start fixing things, easiest first.
That's it. No complicated system. No app required.
The key insight is that solving easy friction makes the hard friction easier to solve. If you're spending zero energy on small annoyances, you have more energy for big problems.
My Last Friction Audit
I'm going to walk through my actual list from two months ago. Some of these are going to sound ridiculous. That's fine. The point isn't to judge, it's to identify.
Morning Routine
My phone is next to my bed, so I check it immediately when I wake up. This leads to 20 minutes of scrolling before I even get up.
Solved: Started putting my phone across the room before bed. Have to physically get up to turn off the alarm. By the time I'm standing, I'm awake enough to not immediately check social media.
I don't eat breakfast because I don't have easy food available. So I get to 11am, realize I'm starving, and make poor decisions about lunch.
Solved: Started meal prepping on Sundays. I make a big batch of overnight oats, hard-boiled eggs, and cut up vegetables that store well. Takes 90 minutes once a week. Now I have grab-and-go breakfast ready every morning.
I waste energy deciding what to eat for dinner every single night. By the time I figure it out, I'm tired and just order takeout.
Solved: Meal prep again. I cook two different proteins and a batch of rice on Sunday. Then I just mix and match throughout the week with different sauces and vegetables. Not fancy, but it works.
Work Setup
My desk is in a shed separate from my house. Which sounds cool until you realize I have to walk outside every time I need something. Water bottle? Walk to the house. Forgot my notebook? Walk to the house. Need to use the bathroom? Walk to the house.
Solved: Set up a small station in the shed with everything I need for a full work session. Water jug, snacks, backup chargers, notepad. Now I only make the trip once in the morning and once at the end of the day.
I have two monitors but one is a terrible old one. The color calibration is off and I avoid using it, which means I'm cramming everything onto one screen.
Not solved yet: New monitor costs $300. I keep putting it off because it "seems expensive." But I'm literally doing this for 8+ hours a day. The ROI is obvious. Buying it next week.
My chair hurts my back after 2 hours. So I end up working from the couch, which is even worse for my posture.
Solved: Bought a proper office chair. Cost $400. Felt like too much money. Then I calculated that I sit for 40 hours a week, which is 2,000+ hours a year. That's $0.20 per hour. Easiest purchase decision ever.
I lose my headphones constantly. This sounds trivial but I'd spend 10 minutes a day looking for them.
Solved: Bought a hook next to my desk. Headphones go there. Always. That's 60 hours a year I'm not searching for things.
Consulting Work
I don't have a standard template for discovery calls. So I reinvent the wheel every time and forget to ask important questions.
Solved: Made a Trello board with my standard questions and process. Now every call is consistent and I don't forget anything. Also makes me look more professional.
I procrastinate on invoicing. I hate doing it, so I put it off, which means I sometimes wait 2-3 weeks to actually bill clients.
Solved: Set a calendar reminder every Friday at 3pm. "Do invoicing." Takes 15 minutes. I do it even when I don't want to because it's scheduled.
I don't have a clear project intake process. Clients email me, I respond with questions, they answer some of them, I ask more questions, it takes a week to get basic information.
Solved: Created a simple intake form with all the questions I always ask. Send it as soon as someone reaches out. Cuts the back-and-forth from a week to a day.
My client communication is inconsistent. Some clients I update weekly, some monthly, some only when they ask. This makes some clients nervous and others annoyed.
Solved: Set Wednesday as "client update day." Every client gets a Slack message or email with progress. Even if it's just "still working on X, should be done by Friday." Consistency matters more than the content.
Side Projects
I have a list of blog post ideas but they're scattered across Apple Notes, my phone, random text files.
Solved: One note file for all content ideas. That's it. Doesn't need to be complicated. Just needs to be in one place.
I want to record more technical videos but my lighting is terrible.
Not solved yet: Need to buy a basic ring light. Costs like $50. Keeps putting it off because "I'll do it later." Classic friction. Ordering it after I publish this post.
I start projects and abandon them because I lose track of what I was doing.
Partially solved: Started keeping a PROGRESS.md file in every project folder. When I stop working, I write one sentence about what I need to do next. Makes it 10x easier to pick back up.
Health
The gym I go to is 30 minutes away. So I skip it a lot because "it's too much of a time commitment."
Solved: Found a gym 10 minutes from my house. Also bought some basic equipment for home - dumbbells, a bench, resistance bands. Now if I don't feel like driving, I can still get a workout in. Removed the excuse entirely.
I love working out but my program is inconsistent. Some weeks I hit the gym 5 times, other weeks twice. Makes it hard to track progress.
Solved: Set specific days and times. Monday/Wednesday/Friday at 6am. Saturday at 10am. Treat it like a meeting. Miss one, fine. Miss two in a row, something's wrong.
I get to the gym and waste 10 minutes figuring out what to do. End up doing random exercises instead of following a plan.
Solved: Created a simple rotation in my phone notes. Push/Pull/Legs/Upper. Each day has 5-6 exercises written down. Walk in, look at my phone, start lifting. Zero decision making.
My pre-workout routine takes too long. Finding my gym clothes, filling my water bottle, packing my bag. By the time I'm ready, I've lost motivation.
Solved: Pack my gym bag the night before. Lay out my clothes. Fill my water bottle. Now I just grab and go. Removed 15 minutes of friction.
I skip leg day because I hate it.
Not solved yet: Still skip leg day. Need to figure this one out. Maybe find exercises I don't hate? Or just accept I'm going to have chicken legs?
My lifting shoes are worn out and my form feels off.
Solved: Bought proper lifting shoes with a raised heel for squats. $140. Form immediately improved. Wished I'd done this a year ago.
I forget to drink water during the day. Then by 3pm I have a headache and realize I haven't had anything to drink.
Solved: Keep a large water bottle on my desk. The kind that holds 40oz. Fill it once in the morning. Just the visual reminder of seeing it there makes me drink more.
Money
I don't know how much I'm actually making from consulting because my tracking is inconsistent.
Solved: Made a simple spreadsheet. Every invoice gets logged with date, client, amount. Takes 30 seconds per invoice. Now I actually know my numbers.
I overspend on subscription services I don't use.
Solved: Went through my credit card statement and cancelled 6 subscriptions. Saves me $80/month. That's $960/year for 20 minutes of work.
I lose receipts for business expenses.
Solved: Take a photo immediately and put it in a dedicated folder. Doesn't matter if it's organized. Just needs to exist when tax time comes.
Social
I'm bad at staying in touch with friends.
Not solved: This is a hard one. I keep thinking "I should text them" but then don't. Need a system but haven't figured out what works yet without feeling forced.
I agree to meetings I don't actually want to take.
Solved: Started saying no more. "I'm pretty slammed right now, but maybe in a few weeks?" Most people don't follow up. The ones who do are usually worth meeting.
I'm not intentional about who I spend time with.
Partially solved: Realized I was hanging out with people out of obligation rather than enjoyment. Started being more selective. Sounds harsh, but my time and energy are limited. Now I prioritize people who make me better and vice versa.
Random
My house is always slightly messy and it bothers me.
Solved: Crazy thought - just put things back immediately after using them. Don't set the glass down "for now." Don't leave the tools on the counter. Put it away right then. House stays clean without ever doing a "cleaning session."
I have books I want to read but they're on a shelf across the room.
Solved: Moved the books next to my bed. Now I actually read before sleeping instead of scrolling my phone.
My passwords are a mess and I reset them constantly.
Solved: Finally set up a password manager. Should have done this years ago. Single best quality-of-life improvement this year.
Why This Actually Works
The magic isn't in any individual fix. It's cumulative.
Each small friction point you remove gives you back a little bit of energy and time. Remove 20 of them and suddenly you have hours of time and tons of mental space you didn't have before.
I tracked this. Before my last friction audit, I spent roughly 90 minutes per day on annoying small tasks and decisions. After fixing the easy stuff, it's down to about 30 minutes.
That's 7 hours per week. That's 365 hours per year. That's nine full work weeks I got back by spending one afternoon making a list.
The other thing is momentum. Once you start fixing friction, you notice more friction. And you get better at solving it quickly.
Like, I used to live with annoyances for months. "My monitor cable is too short so I have to sit in an awkward position." Now I just order a longer cable the moment I notice it. Problem solved in 2 days for $12.
The Difficulty Scores Matter
Here's the key: start with the easiest problems first.
Don't try to solve your whole life in one day. Pick the things you rated 1 or 2 and knock those out first.
Why? Because solving easy problems builds momentum. And with less friction in your life, the hard problems become easier to tackle.
I see people do this backwards all the time. They try to fix the big complicated thing first, get overwhelmed, and give up without fixing anything.
Fix the easy stuff first. Then the medium stuff. Then the hard stuff.
What I Didn't Include
Some friction is worth keeping.
I don't automate everything in my life. I still make coffee manually every morning because I enjoy the ritual. I could buy an automatic coffee maker. I choose not to.
The point isn't to optimize every second of your life. It's to remove the friction that's actually holding you back.
Ask yourself: "Is this thing making my life better, or is it just here because I haven't fixed it yet?"
If it's making your life better, keep it. If it's just inertia, fix it.
Do This Today
You don't need to do a full audit right now. Just fix one thing.
Pick the most annoying small problem in your life and solve it today. Shouldn't take more than 20 minutes or $50.
Then tomorrow, fix another one.
In a month you'll have fixed 30 problems. In three months, 90.
Your life will be dramatically different.
Not because you developed incredible willpower or discipline. Because you designed an environment where doing the right thing is easy.
That's it. That's the whole thing.