I removed the 1-click option on Amazon and made a rule for myself: I can only buy things on Saturdays.
That little bit of friction made me far more mindful about where my money goes.
You’ve probably been there, late at night, half-tired half-bored, buying some trinket that, by morning, looks like complete bananas, asking this in your head,
“What was I thinking?!”
Good friction.
I never keep at home what I don’t want to overeat. If I want ice cream or cookies badly enough, I’ll need to walk to get them.
Breakfast.
Easy.
I pre-boil eggs for a week, I have my sardines ready - I don’t have to have a single thought about what I’m eating and it turns out to be great every time - as I planned/shopped/prepped it.
My gym clothes are out the night before. The gym’s a pleasant ten-minute walk away.
No friction for the things that make my life work.
Then there’s bad friction.
When I open Zoom for a client call and it asks me to verify my identity again, or it needs to update itself right when I need to get to work - I want to cancel my zoom subscription right away. (But too much friction to find a better solution)
When I try a new AI app and get hit with a maze of options and no roadmap - I cancel that trial immediately.
When someone sends me a pitch so complex I can’t even tell what they’re offering - I remember Alex Hormozi’s line:
“Confused customers always say no.”
That’s bad friction. It serves no one.
I’m reading The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder. It’s a great reminder that what we actually do depends less on how good something is and more on how convenient it is.
So, over to you, dear reader,
When you design your projects, products, or systems, do you design for the right kind of friction?
Are you making the right things easy and the wrong things hard?
