Stefan Shirley’s Reviews > Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less > Status Update

Leadership Essentials — FCS (Fewer things done better; Communicating the right information to the right people at the right time; Speed and quality of decision making). In work, have one priority as the most valuable contribution you can make to the company.

Be — “Once the essence of Essentialism enters our hearts, the way of the Essentialist becomes who we are. ... you will find that you aren’t like everybody else. When other people are saying yes, you will find yourself saying no.” Essentialism helps a person to enjoy clarity, control, and allows them to enjoy the journey.

Focus — Figure out what’s important right now; not tomorrow, not next week. What will help you sleep tonight? Be present in the moment and find peace in accomplishing everything you want to get done.

Flow — Create productive routines that get at doing the hard things first. Switch them up as needed but stay focused on the end state.

Create small wins. Start early and small or start late and big. It’s better to take the time early than to spend much more time later.

Subtract by removing the “slowest hikers,” those who are holding you back from accomplishing the mission. Stop thinking about adding in order to produce more/better results when subtracting can be a better option.

The planning fallacy tells us that we’re not good at allocating enough time to accomplish our tasks. Add 50% to the time to ensure you have a buffer.

Setting boundaries before someone sets them for you.

Editing means to have a clear course of action in our lives thus allowing us to focus on the things that matter.

Uncommit by eliminating or at least scaling back an activity for a few days to see if it’s really making a difference. You may find out the activity will not be missed and can be eliminated.