We moved into our house about four years ago. When we first unpacked, my bottle of nice brandy (fittingly) ended up on the top shelf in the kitchen pantry.

In our previous house it had been in the china cabinet in the dining room. And every couple of weeks I’d have a little nip.

But since we moved, it hasn’t been touched. Now to get to it I’d need to drag over a chair, step on the chair and reach up to bring it down.

It’s not that hard. We have chairs. They’re pretty close. And there are plenty of other things on the top shelf that I do use.

But it turns out that the 20 seconds it would take to get the chair and climb up is enough friction to never have the brandy. Turns out I’m not that into brandy (even good brandy).

In this case the friction was accidental. And I’m fine with it. If it was a problem, I’d put the brandy somewhere else.

But there are places where I add or remove friction much more consciously. I don’t have Facebook on my phone or my primary work computer. Just on my laptop. Again, it's not that hard. My laptop lives in my office. But it's enough friction that I rarely look at Facebook, and never as a distraction from something I’m working on.

On the other hand, I put the important projects I’m working on at any given time in my favourites folder. It means when I open Finder on my Mac, they’re all right there. I don’t have to navigate to them. It makes it just that little bit easier to get started.

Where could you add or remove friction?