Book Review: Essentialism by Greg McKeown

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Title: Essentialism. The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Author: Greg McKeown
Year: 2020

In 3 sentences

• Essentialism is 'less but better', it's focusing on getting the right things done

• Core mindset: ability to choose, discern the important or 80/20, trade-off

• Three steps:

  • Explore to identify the vital few

  • Eliminate the trivial many

  • Execute the vital few effortlessly

Summary

Essentialism is:

• Less but better

• Not getting more but the right things done

• “disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.” (7)

Why it’s difficult to focus:

• Success paradox: clarity, focus, purpose help us succeed, success opens up new possibilities and requests which make focus more difficult, we become distracted and lose focus

• Too many choices

• Too much social pressure (social media)

• Thought of ‘you can have it all’

“The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple "first" things.” (16)

Core mindset of essentialists

• Choose. Choices/options can be taken away from us or given. But the ability to choose (an action) is internal to us. We can only forget about it and succumb to default (which is the same as having others/our environment make a choice for us) aka learned helplessness

• Discern. More effort is not equal to more result. 80/20 and power law show that it’s only a certain few efforts that provide most of the result. “We live in a world where almost everything is worthless and a very few things are exceptionally valuable.” (45)

• Trade-off. From “I can do both” to “What is the trade-off I want to make?” And from “How can I do it all?” to “What can I go big on?” eg Jim Vollins was told by Peter Drucker that he could either build great ideas or a great company but not both.

Explore to discern the vital few from the trivial many

Escape. Be unavailable so that you can think.

• Physical space to think

• Time (blocked in calendar) to think or read

Look. See what really matters. Find the lead.

• Journal (and review)

• Go out in the field to truly understand the issue

• Look for the abnormal/unusual

• Role play to see from the eyes of others

• Clarify the question and keep it in mind

Play. Awaken your inner child.

• Play is essential to human evolution and development

• Open up the mind: play helps explore new ideas, reduce stress (which inhibits cognition) and improve executive function

• What did you love playing as a child? How can you recreate this now?

Sleep. Protect the asset

• Sleep is crucial to performance and to being able to focus (explore, connect, prioritise, select) on what really matters

• 24h without sleep or a few nights with only 5 hours of sleep has an equivalent negative effect on performance as 0.1% alcohol blood levels

Select

• Have minimum criteria as quick first screening of an opportunity

• Then use extreme criteria along the lines of: if it’s not a Hell Yes it’s a no.

Eliminate. Cutting out the trivial many

Clarify. One decision that makes a thousand

• Essential Intent. Inspiring and concrete

• Don’t wordsmith, decide, it’s about the substance

• Answer: How will we know we’re done?

Dare. The power of a graceful no.

• Be inspired by Rosa Park’s courageous ‘No’ to move to the back of the bus

• Overcome the awkwardness of No:

  • Saying no to a request is separate from / not the same as saying no to the relationship

  • Saying no does not mean using the word no, eg:

    • ‚I’m flattered don’t have the bandwidth/I’m overcommitted’

    • Awkward pause

    • No, but… (eg not right now)

    • “Let me check my calendar and get back to you”

    • Email bounceback ‘doing x, my full focus, I’m unable to respond in the manner I would like. For this, I apologise.“

    • “Yes, what should I deprioritise?”

    • ‘you are welcome to X, I’m willing to support Y but not in the way requested’

    • ‘I can’t but x might be interested, able to help’

  • Focus on the trade-off, the opportunity cost of what you can’t do because you said yes

  • Everyone is selling something (in exchange for your time)

  • It’s ok that saying no often comes at short-term cost to the relationship but typically respect long-term; the designer Paul Rand said no to Steve Jobs’ request for several design options which grew Jobs respect for Rand

  • A clear no is better than noncommittal yes

Uncommit. Cut your losses, overcome the sunk-cost fallacy and the endowment effect.

• Think: zero-based budgeting to free yourself from status quo bias

• What could I do with my resources if I pulled the plug now?

• Pretend you don’t own it yet: if I did not have/do this already, what would I pay/do to get it?

• Reverse pilot: stop doing something to see if it would be missed at all

Edit.

• Cut out options

• Condense. Am I doing/saying in the most concise way possible?

• Correct

• Edit less. Restraint

Limit. The freedom of setting boundaries

• Their problem is not your problem. Don’t rob people of dealing with their problem

• Boundaries are a source of liberation

• Define dealbreakers

• Set out a ‘social contract’ eg when working with someone new

Execute. How can make doing the vital few things almost effortless

Buffer.

• Extreme preparation

• Plan in 50% buffer time

• Scenario plan to handle risks: (but also take into account that the biggest risk is the one that you don’t know about)

  • What risks do you face on this project?

  • What is the worst-case scenario?

  • What would the social/financial effects be?

  • How can you invest to reduce these effects?

Subtract. Get more by reducing obstacles

• Be clear about the essential intent

• Identify the ‘slowest biker’, the 1 key obstacle

• Remove it

Progress. The power of small wins

• Create a system of small progress, especially on the things you do a lot of

• Minimal viable progress. The smallest progress that will be helpful

• Minimal viable preparation. Early and small

• Visually reward progress

Flow. The genius of routine

• Overhaul your cue/triggers

• Create new triggers

• Do the most difficult thing first

• Mix up your routines. Jack Dorsey reserves one day for one theme

• Tackle your routines one by one

Focus. Win. What’s important now?

• Execution is easy when you work hard at it. Execution is difficult when you work easy at it

• Be present. Figure out what’s most important right now. Forget about the future. Prioritise. Do.

• Switch from work to home by taking a pause / breath to leave everything behind and be present

Be.

• We all have essentialist and non-essentialist aspects in our lives. But: are you essentialist at the surface or at the core?

• At the end of your life, would you rather have a long list of accomplishments or a a few essential accomplishments that truly matter?