Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

by Greg McKeown

The disappearance of boundaries is typical of our Nonessentialist era. For one thing, of course, technology has completely blurred the lines between work and family. These days there don’t seem to be any boundaries at all regarding when people expect us to be available to work.

Because when we first got together I made it a point to lay out my priorities and what extra work I would and wouldn’t be willing to take on over the life span of the project. “Let’s just agree on what we want to achieve,” I began. “Here are a couple of things that really matter to me …” And I asked him to do the same. Thus we worked through a “social contract,” not unlike the one Jin-Yung and her boss worked out in the opening story. Simply having an understanding up front about what we were really trying to achieve and what our boundaries were kept us from wasting each other’s time, saddling each other with burdensome requests, and distracting each other from the things that were essential to us.

The value of extreme preparation on a grander scale can be seen in the story of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott in their race to be the first people in modern history to reach the South Pole. Both men had exactly the same objective. But their approaches differed.4 Amundsen prepared for anything and everything that could possibly go wrong; Scott hoped for the best-case scenario. He brought just one thermometer for the trip and was furious when it broke. Amundsen brought four thermometers. Scott stored one ton of food for his seventeen men. Amundsen stored three tons. Scott stashed supplies for the return journey in one spot marked with a single flag, meaning that if he went even a fraction off course his team could miss it. Amundsen, by contrast, planted twenty markers, miles apart, to ensure that his team would see them. Roald Amundsen prepared diligently and read obsessively for his journey, whereas Robert Falcon Scott did the bare minimum. While Amundsen deliberately built slack and buffers into his plan, Scott hoped for the ideal circumstances. While Scott’s men suffered from fatigue, hunger, and frostbite, Amundsen’s team’s journey was relatively (under the circumstances) frictionless. Amundsen successfully made the journey. Scott and his team tragically died.

Curiously, people will admit to having a tendency to underestimate while simultaneously believing their current estimates are accurate.

Of the variety of explanations for why we underestimate the amount of time something will take, I believe social pressure is the most interesting. One study found that if people estimated anonymously how long it would take to complete a task they were no longer guilty of the planning fallacy.9 This implies that often we actually know we can’t do things in a given time frame, but we don’t want to admit it to someone.

One way to protect against this is simply to add a 50 percent buffer to the amount of time we estimate it will take to complete a task or project (if 50 percent seems overly generous, consider how frequently things actually do take us 50 percent longer than expected).

Erwann Michel-Kerjan, the managing director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at Wharton, recommends that everyone, starting with heads of state, develop a risk management strategy.

When Erwann works with national governments to create their risk management strategies, he suggests they start by asking five questions: (1) What risks do we face and where? (2) What assets and populations are exposed and to what degree? (3) How vulnerable are they? (4) What financial burden do these risks place on individuals, businesses, and the government budget? and (5) How best can we invest to reduce risks and strengthen economic and social resilience?11

We can apply these five questions to our own attempts at building buffers. Think of the most important project you are trying to get done at work or at home. Then ask the following five questions: (1) What risks do you face on this project? (2) What is the worst-case scenario? (3) What would the social effects of this be? (4) What would the financial impact of this be? and (5) How can you invest to reduce risks or strengthen financial or social resilience? Your answer to that fifth and crucial question will point you to buffers—perhaps adding another 20 percent to the project’s budget, or getting a PR person on board to handle any potential negative press, or calling a board meeting to manage shareholder expectations—that you can create to safeguard you against unknowable events.

Essentialists accept the reality that we can never fully anticipate or prepare for every scenario or eventuality; the future is simply too unpredictable. Instead, they build in buffer...

An Essentialist produces more—brings forth more—by removing more instead of doing more.

Instead of focusing on the efforts and resources we need to add, the Essentialist focuses on the constraints or obstacles we need to remove. But how?

1. BE CLEAR ABOUT THE ESSENTIAL INTENT

2. IDENTIFY THE “SLOWEST HIKER”

Instead of just jumping into the project, take a few minutes to think. Ask yourself, “What are all the obstacles standing between me and getting this done?” and “What is keeping me from completing this?”

Prioritize the list using the question, “What is the obstacle that, if removed, would make the majority of other obstacles disappear?”

3. REMOVE THE OBSTACLE

Removing obstacles does not have to be hard or take a superhuman effort. Instead, we can start small. It’s kind of like dislodging a boulder at the top of a hill. All it takes is a small shove, then momentum will naturally build.

EVERY DAY DO SOMETHING THAT WILL INCH YOU CLOSER TO A BETTER TOMORROW. —Doug Firebaugh

Instead of going for the big, flashy wins that don’t really matter, the Essentialist pursues small and simple wins in areas that are essential.

Similarly, we can adopt a method of “minimal viable progress.” We can ask ourselves, “What is the smallest amount of progress that will be useful and valuable to the essential task we are trying to get done?”

Often just ten minutes invested in a project or assignment two weeks before it is due can save you much frantic and stressed-out scrambling at the eleventh hour. Take a goal or deadline you have coming up and ask yourself, “What is the minimal amount I could do right now to prepare?”

There is something powerful about visibly seeing progress toward a goal. Don’t be above applying the same technique to your own essential goals, at home or at work.

ROUTINE, IN AN INTELLIGENT MAN, IS A SIGN OF AMBITION. —W. H. Auden

The way of the Essentialist is different. The Essentialist designs a routine that makes achieving what you have identified as essential the default position. Yes, in some instances an Essentialist still has to work hard, but with the right routine in place each effort yields exponentially greater results.

Routine is one of the most powerful tools for removing obstacles.

With repetition the routine is mastered and the activity becomes second nature.

Instead of spending our limited supply of discipline on making the same decisions again and again, embedding our decisions into our routine allows us to channel that discipline toward some other essential activity.

The work Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has done on creativity demonstrates how highly creative people use strict routines to free up their minds. “Most creative individuals find out early what their best rhythms are for sleeping, eating, and working, and abide by them even when it is tempting to do otherwise,” Mihaly says. “They wear clothes that are comfortable, they interact only with people they find congenial, they do only things they think are important. Of course, such idiosyncrasies are not endearing to those they have to deal with.… But personalizing patterns of action helps to free the mind from the expectations that make demands on attention and allows intense concentration on matters that count.”

In an interview about his book The Power of Habit Charles Duhigg said “in the last 15 years, as we’ve learned how habits work and how they can be changed, scientists have explained that every habit is made up of a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue is a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine—the behavior itself—which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular habit is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this loop—cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward—becomes more automatic as the cue and reward become neurologically intertwined.”

What this means is that if we want to change our routine, we don’t really need to change the behavior. Rather, we need to find the cue that is triggering the nonessential activity or behavior and find a way to associate that same cue with something that is essential. So, for example, if the bakery you pass on the way home from work triggers you to pick up a doughnut, next time you pass by that bakery, use that cue to remind you to pick up a salad from the deli across the street. Or if your alarm clock going off in the morning triggers you to check your e-mail, use it as a cue to get up and read instead. At first, overcoming the temptation to stop at the bakery or check the e-mail will be difficult. But each time you execute the new behavior—each time you pick up the salad—strengthens the link in your brain between the cue and the new behavior, and soon, you’ll be subconsciously and automatically performing the new routine.

Ray to operate at his highest level of contribution is that throughout the day, his routine is governed by a single rule: “Focus on the hardest thing first.” After all, as Ray said to me: “We already have too much to think about. Why not eliminate some of them by establishing a routine?”

So start with one change in your daily or weekly routine and then build on your progress from there.

LIFE IS AVAILABLE ONLY IN THE PRESENT MOMENT. IF YOU ABANDON THE PRESENT MOMENT YOU CANNOT LIVE THE MOMENTS OF YOUR DAILY LIFE DEEPLY. —Thich Nhat Hanh

He describes his success this way: “We always win.” With a record like Highland’s he has the right to make the statement. But he is actually referring to something more than his winning record. When he says, “win,” he’s also referring to a single question, with its apt acronym, that guides what he expects from his players: “What’s important now?”

Yet every second spent worrying about a past or future moment distracts us from what is important in the here and now.

The ancient Greeks had two words for time. The first was chronos. The second was kairos. The Greek god Chronos was imagined as an elderly, gray-haired man, and his name connotes the literal ticking clock, the chronological time, the kind we measure (and race about trying to use efficiently). Kairos is different. While it is difficult to translate precisely, it refers to time that is opportune, right, different. Chronos is quantitative; kairos is qualitative. The latter is experienced only when we are fully in the moment—when we exist in the now.

Kairos as a tattoo or art idea?

What we can’t do is concentrate on two things at the same time. When I talk about being present, I’m not talking about doing only one thing at a time. I’m talking about being focused on one thing at a time. Multitasking itself is not the enemy of Essentialism; pretending we can “multifocus” is.

When faced with so many tasks and obligations that you can’t figure out which to tackle first, stop. Take a deep breath. Get present in the moment and ask yourself what is most important this very second—not what’s most important tomorrow or even an hour from now. If you’re not sure, make a list of everything vying for your attention and cross off anything that is not important right now.

Getting the future out of your head enables you to more fully focus on “what is important now.” In this case, my next step was to sit down and list those things that might have been essential—just not right now. So I opened to another page in my journal. This time, I asked myself, “What might you want to do someday as a result of today?” This was not a list of firm commitments, just a way to get all of the ideas out of my head and on paper. This had two purposes. First, it ensured I wouldn’t forget about those ideas, which might prove useful later. Second, it alleviated that stressful and distracting feeling that I needed to act upon them right this second.

So now, as he gets to the door of his house, he applies what he calls “the pause that refreshes.” This technique is easy. He stops for just a moment. He closes his eyes. He breathes in and out once: deeply and slowly. As he exhales, he lets the work issues fall away. This allows him to walk through the front door to his family with more singleness of purpose. It supports the sentiment attributed to Lao Tzu: “In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk who has been called the “world’s calmest man,” has spent a lifetime exploring how to live in kairos, albeit by a different name. He has taught it as mindfulness or maintaining “beginner’s mind.” He has written: “Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.”2 This focus on being in the moment affects the way he does everything. He takes a full hour to drink a cup of tea with the other monks every day. He explains: “Suppose you are drinking a cup of tea. When you hold your cup, you may like to breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, and you become fully present. And when you are truly there, something else is also there—life, represented by the cup of tea. In that moment you are real, and the cup of tea is real. You are not lost in the past, in the future, in your projects, in your worries. You are free from all of these afflictions. And in that state of being free, you enjoy your tea. That is the moment of happiness, and of peace.” Pay attention through the day for your own kairos moments. Write them down in your journal. Think about what triggered that moment and what brought you out of it. Now that you know what triggers the moment, try to re-create it. Training yourself to tune into kairos will not only enable you to achieve a higher level of contribution but also make you happier.

BEWARE THE BARRENNESS OF A BUSY LIFE. —Socrates

There are two ways of thinking about Essentialism. The first is to think of it as something you do occasionally. The second is to think of it as something you are. In the former, Essentialism is one more thing to add to your already overstuffed life. In the latter, it is a different way—a simpler way—of doing everything. It becomes a lifestyle. It becomes an all-encompassing approach to living and leading. It becomes the essence of who we are.

Remember that if you don’t prioritize your life someone else will. But if you are determined to prioritize your own life you can. The power is yours. It is within you.

As the Dalai Lama, another true Essentialist, has said: “If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness.”

This story captures the two most personal learnings that have come to me on the long journey of writing this book. The first is the exquisitely important role of my family in my life. At the very, very end, everything else will fade into insignificance by comparison. The second is the pathetically tiny amount of time we have left of our lives. For me this is not a depressing thought but a thrilling one. It removes fear of choosing the wrong thing. It infuses courage into my bones. It challenges me to be even more unreasonably selective about how to use this precious—and precious is perhaps too insipid of a word—time. I know of someone who visits cemeteries around the world when he travels. I thought this was odd at first, but now I realize that this habit keeps his own mortality front and center.

The results of this research were startling: when there was a high level of clarity of purpose, the teams and the people on it overwhelmingly thrived. When there was a serious lack of clarity about what the team stood for and what their goals and roles were, people experienced confusion, stress, frustration, and ultimately failure. As one senior vice president succinctly summarized it when she looked at the results gathered from her extended team: “Clarity equals success.”

The unintended consequence is that Nonessentialist managers try to have their teams pursue too many things—and try to do too many things themselves as well—and the team plateaus in its progress. An Essentialist leader makes a different choice. With clarity of purpose, she is able to apply “less but better” to everything from talent selection, to direction, to roles, to communication, to accountability. As a result her team becomes unified and breaks through to the next level.

if you are willing to take it, is to apply these same skills and mind-sets to your leadership. MIND-SET Nonessentialist Everything to everyone Essentialist Less but better TALENT Nonessentialist Hires people frantically and creates a “Bozo explosion.” Essentialist Ridiculously selective on talent and removes people who hold the team back. STRATEGY Nonessentialist Pursues a straddled strategy where everything is a priority. Essentialist Defines an essential intent by answering the question, “If we could only do one thing, what would it be?” Eliminates the nonessential distractions. EMPOWERMENT Nonessentialist Allows ambiguity over who is doing what. Decisions are capricious. Essentialist Focuses on each team member’s highest role and goal of contribution. COMMUNICATION Nonessentialist Talks in code. Essentialist Listens to get to what is essential. ACCOUNTABILITY Nonessentialist Checks in too much or is so busy he or she checks out altogether. Sometimes does both: disrupting the focus of the group and then being absent to the group. Essentialist Checks in with people in a gentle way to see how he or she can remove obstacles and enable small wins. RESULT Nonessentialist A fractured team that makes a millimeter of progress in a million directions Essentialist A unified team that breaks through to the next level of contribution