When was the last time you made an effort to remember someone’s mobile number?
When was the last time you travelled somewhere new in your city without using Google Maps?
When was the last time you wrote an email without ChatGPT’s help?
Been a while? Of course.
We live in times when convenience is the default mode of functioning, or at least heavily marketed as such. In Tier-1 cities at least, outsourcing almost anything and everything has become the way to live: why go to the market when fresh vegetables can arrive at your doorstep within minutes? Why bother sweeping the house when the house help is absent, when an instant domestic help app is just a tap away? And extending that same logic to our mental load, why use your brain for even simple math, like figuring out who owes how much after a movie night with friends, when GPT can do it for you?
We now outsource even the simplest tasks and constantly seek instant gratification, often without realising it. Watching a Reel of a juicy chicken burger is enough to make you open Zomato or Swiggy and have one delivered within 30 minutes. You may not have even been hungry. But you ordered it anyway. Psychologists warn that this behaviour is more loss than gain.
Friction-maxxing enters the chat
Which is why many people are deliberately introducing, or at least trying to introduce, some degree of inconvenience into their daily lives. They walk one kilometre home instead of booking a cab. They cook dinner instead of ordering online. They challenge themselves not to use their phone while folding laundry.
Jezer-Morton called it “friction-maxxing” in a piece she wrote for The Cut. Mind you, ditching technology is not the main motive here, increasing your participation is.
“Our brain did not evolve to function without effort. It is designed to engage, solve, remember, coordinate and regulate. When we remove too much effort from daily life, we also reduce the opportunities for the brain to stay active and adaptive,” explains Absy Sam, a Mumbai-based psychotherapist.
Say you’re in an official meeting and have been asked to jot down important notes. Today, it’s very easy to rope in an AI tool or record the conversation and use AI to generate the highlights later. But if you do that, you’re less likely to actively listen to what people are saying in the moment. You’re there, but not truly present.
Why we need friction-maxxing in 2026?
The issue isn’t convenience, but losing opportunities for mental participation. This constant autopilot mode is eroding our mental stamina. Which is probably why you now find it hard to do basic calculations without a device or to read a page without checking a notification.
Even attention span has shrunk so much that watching short-form Reels without 2X speed feels like a time-consuming task to many. It is no longer anecdotal. Research says so too. In the past two decades, the average time people stay focused on one task has dropped from 2.5 minutes to roughly 40 seconds.
Sam explains: the brain is designed to work a little before it gets a reward. Effort focus reward. That cycle keeps your attention strong and your mind sharp.
When rewards become instant – scrolling, notifications, one-click buying, AI finishing your sentences – the brain doesn’t need to focus deeply. It starts craving quick hits instead of staying with one task. That’s why people can feel restless, distracted, or mentally tired even though life is more convenient. Friction-maxxing can be an antidote.
What friction-maxxing can teach you
In 2026, it can teach maintaining attention, self-control, patience, and long-term thinking – the very abilities that help you work well, build relationships, and stay mentally steady. Very simple things, right? Turns out, a lot of us have lost these basic building blocks of emotional intelligence.
But how does friction-maxxing help regain it all? There’s science behind it.
“Memory improves when the brain has to work a little. Summarising in your own words or writing by hand forces you to process and organise information, which strengthens memory. Movement matters too. Even simple physical actions like walking or cooking activate not just motor systems but also attention and emotional regulation. The brain’s systems are deeply interconnected,” says Dr Avinash Kulkarni, consultant neurologist, Gleneagles BGS hospital.
“Studies suggest that manageable effort improves long-term learning compared to passive or easy consumption. People also report greater satisfaction when rewards follow effort rather than arriving instantly,” adds Sam.
The kind of friction to introduce varies from person to person. For parents, it may mean letting a child do a chore and allowing them to mess up (instead of taking over the task instantly). It may mean resisting the urge to track their every movement or solve every social conflict on their behalf. It may mean tolerating their boredom instead of eliminating it with a screen.
For someone struggling to manage a healthy lifestyle, it could mean deleting food-delivery apps for a month, cooking three meals a week at home, walking short distances instead of booking a cab, or eating without a screen in front of them. It may mean planning groceries in advance instead of relying on instant cravings.
For working professionals, it may mean writing a presentation from scratch before polishing it with digital tools (and not getting an AI-generated draft and then tweaking it), attending meetings without multitasking.
For people trying to improve relationships, it could mean having uncomfortable conversations instead of ghosting, calling instead of texting, apologising without over-explaining, or listening without preparing a response.
How much is too much?
Not that practising friction-maxxing is easy, but it’s important not to overdo it. The brain benefits from optimal challenge, not constant struggle.
“Research shows that learning and growth happen within a ‘window of tolerance.’ Too little challenge leads to boredom. Too much leads to overwhelm. When friction becomes excessive, the brain shifts into stress-response mode. Cortisol rises, learning drops, and behaviour becomes reactive,” explains Sam.
Experts say that when effort turns into chronic stress – marked by lack of rest, constant frustration, or unnecessary difficulty – stress hormones begin to interfere with memory, sleep, and emotional regulation.
“A practical way to judge this is how you feel afterward. Healthy effort usually leaves a person mentally alert or satisfied, even if the task required energy. Too much friction leaves you drained, irritable, or avoiding the activity altogether,” says Dr. Kulkarni.
Remember, “I must suffer to deserve success” or “I should never use technology” cannot be your mantra while friction-maxxing.
But could I friction-maxx while writing this piece? That’s a story for another day.
