Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

by Greg McKeown

For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”4

wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

“Do I love this?” and “Do I look great in it?” and “Do I wear this often?” If the answer is no, then you know it is a candidate for elimination.

The prevalence of noise: Almost everything is noise, and a very few things are exceptionally

execution, Essentialists invest the time they have saved into creating a system for removing obstacles and making execution as easy as possible.

reject what has been accurately described as doing things we detest, to buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like?11

being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our

certain types of effort

He owes 90% of his wealth to just ten investments. Sometimes what you don’t do is just as important as what you do.”

Many capable people are kept from getting to the next level of contribution because they can’t let go of the belief that everything is important. But

“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.

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.