"Just Try Harder” and Why This Advice Rarely Works!

In this episode of The Efficiency Advantage, Coach Juli Shulem challenges one of the most common and damaging pieces of productivity advice people hear: “Just try harder.” Drawing from her work in productivity coaching and organizational psychology, Juli explains why more effort is rarely the real solution when people are overwhelmed, burned out, disorganized, or struggling to follow through.This episode dives deep into the difference between effort and effectiveness, uncovering how cognitive overload, perfectionism, task switching, decision fatigue, stress, unclear expectations, and poor systems quietly sabotage productivity even for highly intelligent and motivated people. Juli shares practical strategies for improving focus, reducing overwhelm, designing better workflows, managing energy more effectively, and creating systems that actually support success instead of draining it.If you’ve ever felt frustrated because you’re working incredibly hard but still not getting the results you want, this conversation will help you rethink productivity, eliminate unnecessary pressure, and discover smarter ways to work with your brain instead of against it.