The twelfth chapter of James Clear’s book Atomic Habits talks about the importance of making habits you want to form as simple as possible to complete. He talks about The Law of Least Effort (check!), the idea that people will naturally gravitate to whatever is easiest for them to do. To help form good habits, Clear suggests reducing the friction required to do them as much as possible.

The Recurrer app tries to do exactly this, within the parameters of the app. It obviously can’t make completing the tasks themselves any easier, but it streamlines the process of getting to the tasks, eliminating friction along the way. You can add a new task with one tap and it will default to a weekly(ish) schedule. The typical time taken to complete the task can be explicitly defined – or you can let the app work it out based on how long it’s taken you to complete the task in the past. Relevant links or Google searches are also always only one right swipe away. It’s a to do list with minimal friction.

Which is all well and good. But the main way in which the Recurrer app reduces friction in the task completion process is the way in which it automatically orders your tasks for you. This eliminates a mental friction – the decision process about which task you should do next.

Of course, you can override the Recurrer suggested order if you like. The app is not the boss of you. But sometimes there are days when you lack the mental energy to make decisions about what you should be doing next. On those days, there’s something reassuring about turning your brain off and just following the Recurrer suggestions, working your way down a list of priorities that’s been ordered for you. You’ll get things done without even thinking about it. It’s difficult to get more frictionless than that.