More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
IT IS THE ABILITY TO CHOOSE WHICH MAKES US HUMAN. —Madeleine L’Engle
We often think of choice as a thing. But a choice is not a thing. Our options may be things, but a choice – a choice is an action. It is not just something we have but something we do.
while we may not always have control over our options, we always have control over how we choose among them.
The Invincible Power of Choosing to Choose For too long, we have overemphasised the external aspect of choices (our options) and underemphasised our internal ability to choose (our actions).
Options (things) can be taken away, while our core ability to choose (free will) cannot be. The ability to choose cannot be taken away or even given away – it can only be forgotten.
To become an Essentialist requires a heightened awareness of our ability to choose. We need to recognise it as an invincible power within us, existing separate and distinct from any other thing, person, or force. William James once wrote, “My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.”
When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless. Drip by drip we allow our power to be taken away until we end up becoming a function of other people’s choices – or even a function of our own past choices. In turn, we surrender our power to choose.
The Essentialist knows that when we surrender our right to choose, we give others not just the power but also the explicit permission to choose for us.
MOST OF WHAT EXISTS IN THE UNIVERSE – OUR ACTIONS, AND ALL OTHER FORCES, RESOURCES, AND IDEAS – HAS LITTLE VALUE AND YIELDS LITTLE RESULT; ON THE OTHER HAND, A FEW THINGS WORK FANTASTICALLY WELL AND HAVE TREMENDOUS IMPACT. —Richard Koch
“Pareto Principle,” the idea, introduced as far back as the 1790s by Vilfredo Pareto, that 20 per cent of our efforts produce 80 per cent of results.
Quality-Control Handbook, Joseph Moses Juran, one of the fathers of the quality movement,
“the Law of the Vital Few.”2 His observation was that you could massively improve the quality of a product by resolvin...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
By adopting a process in which a high percentage of effort and attention was channelled towards improving just those few things that were truly vital, he made the phrase “made in Japan” take on a totally new meaning. And gradually, the quality revolution led to Japan’s rise as a global economic power.
“power law.” According to the power law theory, certain efforts actually produce exponentially more results than others.
Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer for Microsoft,
“The top software developers are more productive than average software developers not by a factor of 10X or 100X...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
The overwhelming reality is: we live in a world where almost everything is worthless and a very few things are exceptionally valuable.
even the many good opportunities we pursue are often far less valuable than the few truly great ones. Once we understand this, we start scanning our environment for those vital few and eagerly eliminate the trivial many. Only then can we say no to good opportunities and say yes to truly great ones. This is why an Essentialist takes the time to explore all his options. The extra investment is justified because some things are so much more important that they repay the effort invested in finding those things tenfold. An Essentialist, in other words, discerns more so he can do less.
TRADE-OFF Which Problem Do I Want?
STRATEGY IS ABOUT MAKING CHOICES, TRADE-OFFS. IT’S ABOUT DELIBERATELY CHOOSING TO BE DIFFERENT. —Michael Porter
ignoring the reality of trade-offs is a terrible strategy for organisations.
A non-Essentialist approaches every trade-off by asking, “How can I do both?” Essentialists ask the tougher but ultimately more liberating question, “Which problem do I want?” An Essentialist makes trade-offs deliberately. She acts for herself rather than waiting to be acted upon. As economist Thomas Sowell wrote: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”7
As painful as they can sometimes be, trade-offs represent a significant opportunity. By forcing us to weigh both options and strategically select the best one for us, we significantly increase our chance of achieving the outcome we want.
Essentialists see trade-offs as an inherent part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?” The cumulative impact of this small change in thinking can be profound.
explore HOW CAN WE DISCERN THE TRIVIAL MANY FROM THE VITAL FEW?
One paradox of Essentialism is that Essentialists actually explore more options than their non-Essentialist counterparts. Non-Essentialists get excited by virtually everything and thus react to everything. But because they are so busy pursuing every opportunity and idea they actually explore less. The way of the Essentialist, on the other hand, is to explore and evaluate a broad set of options before committing to any. Because Essentialists will commit and “go big” on only the vital few ideas or activities, they explore more options at first to ensure they pick the right one later.
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. Ironically, in a non-Essentialist culture these things – space, listening, playing, sleeping, and selecting – can be seen as trivial distractions. At best they are considered nice to have. At worst they are derided as evidence of weakness and wastefulness.
Rather than trivial diversions, they are critical to distinguishing what is actually a trivial diversion from what is truly essential. Essentialists spend as much time as possible exploring, listening, debating, questioning, and thinking. But their exploration is not an end in itself. The purpose of the exploration is to discern the vital few from the trivial many.
ESCAPE The Perks of Being Unavailable
WITHOUT GREAT SOLITUDE NO SERIOUS WORK IS POSSIBLE. —Pablo Picasso
We need space to escape in order to discern the essential few from the trivial many. Unfortunately, in our time-starved era we don’t get that space by default – only by design.
For some reason there is a false association with the word focus. As with choice, people tend to think of focus as a thing. Yes, focus is something we have. But focus is also something we do.
In order to have focus we need to escape to focus.
creating the space to explore one hundred questions and possibilities. An Essentialist focuses the way our eyes focus; not by fixating on something but by constantly adjusting and adapting to the field of vision.
the faster and busier things get, the more we need to build thinking time into our schedule. And the noisier things get, the more we need to build quiet reflection spaces in which we can truly focus.
a lead contains the why, what, when, and who of the piece. It covers the essential information.
journalism was not just about regurgitating the facts but about figuring out the point. It wasn’t enough to know the who, what, when, and where; you had to understand what it meant. And why it mattered.”
In every set of facts, something essential is hidden. And a good journalist knows that finding it involves exploring those pieces of information and figuring out the relationships between them (and
making those relationships and connections explicit. It means constructing the whole from the sum of its parts and understanding how these different pieces come together to matter to anyone. The best journalists do not simply relay information. Their value is in discovering what really matters to people.
Filter for the Fascinating
Discerning what is essential to explore requires us to be disciplined in how we scan and filter all the competing and conflicting facts, options, and opinions constantly vying for our attention.
The best journalists, as Friedman shared later with me, listen for what others do not hear. At the lunch, he had been listening for what was being said only at the periphery. He was listening more for what was not being said.
Essentialists are powerful observers and listeners. Knowing that the reality of trade-offs means they can’t possibly pay attention to everything, they listen deliberately for what is not being explicitly stated. They read between the lines.
Non-Essentialists listen too. But they listen while preparing to say something. They get distracted by extraneous noise. They hyperfocus on inconsequential details. They hear the loudest voice but they get the wrong message. In their eagerness to react they miss the point.
Keep a Journal
Get Out into the Field
Keep your eyes peeled for abnormal or unusual details
capturing the real story amid all of the surface noise. Her reaction was encouraging: she said finding the lead and spotting the essential information are skills that can be acquired. She said, you need knowledge. Getting to the essence of a story takes a deep understanding of the topic, its context, its fit into the bigger picture, and its relationship to different fields. So she would read all the related news and try to spot the one piece of information that all others had missed or hadn’t focused enough on. “My goal,” she said, “was to understand the ‘spiderweb’ of the story because that
...more
One trick she uses is role play: she puts herself in the shoes of all the main players in a story in order to better understand their motives, reasoning, and points of view.
Clarify the Question
