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Jim Collins’s Good to Great, in which he contends if there’s one thing you are passionate about—and that you can be best at—you should do just that one thing.
Here’s a simple, systematic process you can use to apply selective criteria to opportunities that come your way. First, write down the opportunity. Second, write down a list of three “minimum criteria” the options would need to “pass” in order to be considered. Third, write down a list of three ideal or “extreme criteria” the options would need to “pass” in order to be considered. By definition, if the opportunity doesn’t pass the first set of criteria, the answer is obviously no. But if it also doesn’t pass two of your three extreme criteria, the answer is still no.
“What am I deeply passionate about?” and “What taps my talent?” and “What meets a significant need in the world?”
“What, of my list of competing priorities, should I say yes to?” Instead, ask the essential question: “What will I say no to?”
The first type of nonessential you’re going to learn how to eliminate is simply any activity that is misaligned with what you are intending to achieve.
clarity of purpose so consistently predicts how people do their jobs.
You can train leaders on communication and teamwork and conduct 360 feedback reports until you are blue in the face, but if a team does not have clarity of goals and roles, problems will fester and multiply.
The problem is, when people don’t know what the end game is, they are unclear about how to win, and as a result they make up their own game and their own rules as they vie for the manager’s favor.
When we are unclear about our real purpose in life—in other words, when we don’t have a clear sense of our goals, our aspirations, and our values—we make up our own social games. We waste time and energies on trying to look good in comparison to other people. We overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house, or even intangibles like the number of our followers on Twitter or the way we look in our Facebook photos.
Have you ever felt a tension between what you felt was right and what someone was pressuring you to do? Have you ever felt the conflict between your internal conviction and an external action? Have you ever said yes when you meant no simply to avoid conflict or friction? Have you ever felt too scared or timid to turn down an invitation or request from a boss, colleague, friend, neighbor, or family member for fear of disappointing them?
Without courage, the disciplined pursuit of less is just lip service.
In virtually every instance, clarity about what is essential fuels us with the strength to say no to the nonessentials.
The point is to say no to the nonessentials so we can say yes to the things that really matter.
HALF OF THE TROUBLES OF THIS LIFE CAN BE TRACED TO SAYING YES TOO QUICKLY AND NOT SAYING NO SOON ENOUGH. —Josh Billings
An essential truth.
Sunk-cost bias is the tendency to continue to invest time, money, or energy into something we know is a losing proposition simply because we have already incurred, or sunk, a cost that cannot be recouped.
“the endowment effect,” our tendency to undervalue things that aren’t ours and to overvalue things because we already own them.
It’s natural not to want to let go of what we wasted on a bad choice, but when we don’t, we doom ourselves to keep wasting even more.
the “planning fallacy.”6 This term, coined by Daniel Kahneman in 1979, refers to people’s tendency to underestimate how long a task will take, even when they have actually done the task before.
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
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?
TO ATTAIN KNOWLEDGE ADD THINGS EVERY DAY. TO ATTAIN WISDOM SUBTRACT THINGS EVERY DAY. —Lao-tzu
Being good with a hammer, the Nonessentialist thinks everything is a nail.
Aristotle talked about three kinds of work, whereas in our modern world we tend to emphasize only two. The first is theoretical work, for which the end goal is truth. The second is practical work, where the objective is action. But there is a third: it is poietical work.2 The philosopher Martin Heidegger described poiesis as a “bringing-forth.”
An Essentialist produces more—brings forth more—by removing more instead of doing more.
When we don’t know what we’re really trying to achieve, all change is arbitrary.
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?” Make a list of these obstacles.
The way of the Nonessentialist is to go big on everything: to try to do it all, have it all, fit it all in. The Nonessentialist operates under the false logic that the more he strives, the more he will achieve,
every habit is made up of a cue, a routine, and a reward.
What we can’t do is concentrate on two things at the same time.
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.
“Mahatma Gandhi had become the spokesman for the conscience of mankind, a man who made humility and simple truth more powerful than empires.”
General George C. Marshall
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.
Life will become less about efficiently crossing off what was on your to-do list or rushing through everything on your schedule and more about changing what you put on there in the first place.
I smile more. I value simplicity. I am more joyful.
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.”
An Essentialist understands that clarity is the key to empowerment.
Essentialist leaders, on the other hand, communicate the right things to the right people at the right time. Essentialist leaders speak succinctly, opting for restraint in their communication to keep the team focused.
the more items one pursues, the harder it is to follow up on all of them.
Emile Gauvreau is just one example: “I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like”
“Herb Kelleher: Managing in Good Times and Bad,” interview, View from the Top, April 15, 2006, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxyC3Ywb9yc.
Erin Callan, “Is There Life After Work?” New York Times, March 9, 2013.
Jeff Weiner, “The Importance of Scheduling Nothing,” LinkedIn, April 3, 2013, https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130403215758-22330283-the-importance-of-scheduling-nothing.
Derek Sivers, “No More Yes. It’s Either HELL YEAH! or No,” August 26, 2009, http://sivers.org/hellyeah
