Easy, the French art of not trying too hard

Since the 19th century, influenced by anglo-saxon work ethics and capitalist productivism, we tend to establish a connection between effort and work.

And yet, claims Ollivier Pourriol, one does not need to work more to work better, one simply needs to work efficiently, that is, intuitively: since Montaigne, French philosophers have put forward that a certain ‘I don’t know’ can sometimes reap in more results than effort and persistence.

Rounding up lessons learnt from the likes of Descartes and Gainsbourg, Stendhal and Hélène Grimaud, Françoise Sagan and Napoléon, Rodin and Zidane, Cyrano de Bergerac and Valmont, Simone Weil and Alain Passard, Ollivier Pourriol explains how to be efficient à la française, not only at work but also in love, sports, the arts et al.