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Essentialism

By Greg McKeown

  • How to do better by doing less
  • We should be focusing on what we should do, thinking instead about what is essential to our happiness and well-being
  • 4 main points
    • Do less, but do it better
    • Reject the notion that we should accomplish everything
    • Constantly question yourself and update plans accordingly
    • Changes are put in place
  • Learned helplessness, that is, becoming so used to the feeling of being overwhelmed that we approach our lives with passivity. (Dogs with electric shock and a lever with no effect choose to stay in shock zone, because they have learned helplessness)
  • Take a few hours of blank time for thinking about yourself and always see the bigger picture on why you are doing what you do
  • Sleep and play are as important as work
  • Be ruthless in cutting away things that aren't essential
  • Say "no" to nonessential tasks and plan the essential ones carefully (How will I know when I have reached my goal)
  • Stop doing unncessary things by withdrawing from failure and setting boundaries (Admit errors and mistakes and let go)
  • Keeping on top of what's important requires that you eliminate what slows you down and elminate it.
  • Always take 50% of buffer time that you have expected a work to take
  • Building upon previous progress with small, incremental steps. Small wins create momentum, which gives you the confidence to further succeed.
  • Routine is very important to achieve long term goals

Practical Habits​

From Essentialism by Greg McKeown (Productivity Game). McKeown's origin story: he went to a client meeting on the Friday his daughter was born, to please a colleague. Saying yes to please others means losing sight of what is essential.

  • Three rights: pick commitments by the right thing, the right reason and the right time
  • Weekly half-hour reset (Sunday afternoon, or the first 30 minutes on Monday before the inbox): list every commitment (calendar, unwritten promises, recurring duties) down the left of a page and cross them all out ("commitment bankruptcy"). Then imagine 1,000whereeachcommitmentcosts1,000 where each commitment costs 100 to buy back, write what you rebuy on the right, and circle the ones you bought back only because you "should"
  • Reverse pilot: for one week remove or shrink a reluctant commitment (skip a low-value meeting, shorten a report), then ask whether anyone noticed and whether your life got measurably worse; if neither, keep it cut
  • One essential priority a week (your highest point of contribution): the right thing is where Aptitude, what is Essential to others, and what you are Interested in overlap; the right reason is that it matters to you rather than pressure or pleasing; the right time is the tiebreaker
  • 90% rule: score the weekly priority as 100 and rate each new request against it; anything under 90 becomes 0, so options scoring 70-89 stop tugging at you. It is a numeric version of Derek Sivers' "if it's not a hell yeah, it's a no"
  • "No, but": default to no on big asks but offer a smaller valuable help (decline the committee seat, offer to draft its charter), trading short-term popularity for long-term respect