Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

by Greg McKeown

“Stay, but do what you would as a consultant and nothing else. And don’t tell anyone.” In other words, his mentor was advising him to do only those things that he deemed essential—and ignore everything else that was asked of him.

get the right things done.

Less but better. A more fitting definition of Essentialism would be hard to come by.

living by design, not by default.

vital few from the trivial many,

I have seen people trapped by controlling managers and unaware that they do not “have to” do all the thankless busywork they are asked to do.

distracted from what would otherwise be our highest level of contribution.

“Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution toward my goal?”

you need a system to make executing your intentions as effortless as possible.

the tough trade-off between lots of good things and a few really great things.

“What do I feel deeply inspired by?” and “What am I particularly talented at?” and “What meets a significant need in the world?”

“If you could do only one thing with your life right now, what would you do?”

saying yes to any opportunity by definition requires saying no to several others.

Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?”

To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make.

it’s critical to set aside time to take a breath, look around, and think.

Zen, the Reason of Unreason; The Wisdom of Confucius; the Torah; the Holy Bible; Tao, to Know and Not Be Knowing; The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation; As a Man Thinketh; The Essential Gandhi; Walden, or, Life in the Woods; the Book of Mormon; The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius; and the Upanishads.

I also suggest that once every ninety days or so you take an hour to read your journal entries from that period.

The real challenge for the person who thrives on challenges is not to work hard.

there is a tendency to start obsessing about trivial stylistic details, like “Should we use this word or that word?”

“How will we know when we have succeeded?”

“If I did not own this item, how much would I pay to obtain it?”

You can apply zero-based budgeting to your own endeavors. Instead of trying to budget your time on the basis of existing commitments, assume that all bets are off. All previous commitments are gone. Then begin from scratch, asking which you would add today.

Every use of time, energy, or resources has to justify itself anew. If it no longer fits, eliminate it altogether.

Thus to apply the principle of condensing to our lives we need to shift the ratio of activity to meaning. We need to eliminate multiple meaningless activities and replace them with one very meaningful activity.

Becoming an Essentialist means making cutting, condensing, and correcting a natural part of our daily routine—making editing a natural cadence in our lives.

“What is getting in the way of achieving what is essential?”

Research has shown that of all forms of human motivation the most effective one is progress. Why? Because a small, concrete win creates momentum and affirms our faith in our further success.

the best place to look is for small changes we could make in the things we do often. There is power in steadiness and repetition.”

There is something powerful about visibly seeing progress toward a goal.

The actual race is just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and has been nothing but victories. Winning is a natural extension.”

achieving what you have identified as essential the default position.

“What’s important now?”

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.

Choosing to exchange time on Facebook for a regular call with my ninety-three-year-old grandfather