The 10% More Enjoyment Test
Enjoyment is a measure of efficiency. Enjoy the work 10% more and you are 10% more efficient.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 95%
Hudson redefines efficiency: doing something fast and ending up exhausted is not efficient. Efficiency is finishing with more energy than you started — the least energy spent per unit of output. Enjoyment is therefore a direct measure of efficiency, and also correlates with quality and staying power. The practice is a question asked in the moment — 'how do I enjoy this 10% more?' — with no change to the external situation.
Origin
Joe Hudson, Art of Accomplishment. He uses the Ferrari analogy: nobody calls a Ferrari an efficient car, yet in our own lives we equate 'done quickly' with efficient.
Core principles
- 01Efficiency = least energy expended, not least time elapsed. If you finish exhausted, you were not efficient.
- 02Enjoyment correlates with quality, with how long you'll keep doing it, and with how much you'll do.
- 03Enjoyment is a choice available inside any activity, including taking out the trash — it does not require changing the activity.
- 04Order of operations: learn to enjoy what you're doing, and you'll naturally drift toward doing what you enjoy. Do only what you enjoy, and you never learn to enjoy.
- 05Phrase it 'how do I enjoy this 10% more?' not 'what can I change?' — the second phrasing invokes trying, and trying reduces enjoyment.
- 06It is not permission to suppress negative emotion in the name of positivity.
How to run it
- 1
Pick the activity you are in right now
Not a hypothetical future task — the boring meeting, the chore, the podcast you are currently listening to. The test is in-the-moment.
- 2
Ask: how do I enjoy this 10% more?
Use that exact phrasing. Not 'what can I change', not 'what should I do differently' — 'how do I enjoy this 10% more?'
Pro tip The 10% keeps it achievable. A demand to fully enjoy something you hate invites failure and stagnation.
Watch out 'What can I change?' introduces trying. Letting go of trying is usually what actually produces the enjoyment.
- 3
Let the body answer, not the plan
Typically the answer is somatic: a deeper breath, settling into the body, physically getting comfortable, relaxing. Nothing external changes.
- 4
Notice the efficiency and quality shift
In that same moment you are more efficient, the quality of what you produce is better, and you are hearing/experiencing the thing differently.
- 5
Repeat it as an experiment, never as a should
Frame it as something you get to try, not something you should do. A should produces a failure state, and a failure state produces stagnation.
Watch out Do not use enjoyment as a mandate to disregard negative emotions. Hudson calls that a recipe for disaster.
In the wild
Hudson coaches billionaires who have spent hundreds of millions arranging a life they enjoy — the jet, the island. They have maximum power to only do what they want. It doesn't work.
→ Proof of the order of operations: arranging externals cannot produce enjoyment, but learning to enjoy what's in front of you leads naturally to doing more of what you enjoy.
Hudson asks listeners to run it live: you're going to keep listening for the next minute — how do you enjoy it 10% more? Most people take a deeper breath, settle into their body, get physically more comfortable.
→ Same activity, more efficiency, better quality of attention, and a different experience of the content — with zero external change.
Common mistakes
Equating speed with efficiency
Getting something done quickly and being wrecked afterwards is a Ferrari, not efficiency. The energy cost is real and it shows up in what you can do tomorrow.
Trying to enjoy things by doing fewer bad things and more vacations
Hudson says this is not how enjoyment works. You can enjoy taking out the trash or hate it. The lever is internal, so rearranging the task list doesn't move it.
Weaponising enjoyment against your other emotions
'Now I have to enjoy life, so I'll disregard all these negative emotions' is precisely the suppression pattern that blocks joy in the first place.
Is it for you?
Best for
Operators, founders and knowledge workers who are productive but depleted, and who suspect grinding harder is no longer buying anything
Not ideal for
Anyone using it to bypass or paper over legitimate negative emotions or a genuinely broken situation that needs to be exited
From the transcript
“What's efficient is if at the end of whatever you did, you feel like you have more energy.”
“So, if you say oh, I'm going to figure out how to enjoy what I do 10% more than you are and you succeed, you…”
“Yeah, just or how I like to ask it as how do you enjoy it 10% more? Cuz if it's what can I change, then…”
“If you learn to enjoy the things that you're doing, you're going to naturally start doing the things you enjoy.”
From the episode
How embracing emotions will accelerate your career
Joe Hudson (executive coach, Art of Accomplishment)