Essentialism - the disciplined pursuit of less

27 Jun 2025 || book report

Song-I mentioned reading this book by Greg McKeown, and I was drawn to it. It’s a quick read and I enjoyed some of the anecdotes and analogies. There are some useful prompts for eliminating less effective detritus that accumulates in life. While not exclusively about work, a lot of this is aimed at making a more palatable work life and it was interesting to reflect on that. First, how I am so (gleefully) detached from any work environment; and second, none of this made me think “if i’d just read this sooner…”. Regardless, there’s probably value in defining a mission statement for myself. Can I outline a concrete and inspirational essential intent? Worth noodling on…

Nutshell

Discerning vital few from trivial many brings balance and mastery to your life. Center on what’s important to you, build routines to enforce this, and establish boundaries to protect it. It’s not a fixed set of goals - more a continual paying attention to what’s going on, taking time to regularly rest, reflect, and adjust accordingly.

Part 1: Essence

The essentialist

“The pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure. Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place” Reminds me of David Whyte’s Ambition essay in Consolations, we succeed because we were pursuing something “true”, then that success can get confused as the point of our doing and we forget the “true” thing that originally inspired us.

Priority came into the English language in 1400 and was singular for 500-years. It started getting pluralized in the 1900’s.

Reject “…doing things we detest, to buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like.”

Tell me what you plan to do
With you one wild and precious life
Mary Oliver

Choose

“…while I wasn’t entirely failing in any pursuit, I was not entirely succeeding at any either”

“…we have overemphasized the external aspect of choices (our options) and underemphasized our internal ability to choose (our actions… Options (things) can be taken away, while our core ability to choose (free will) cannot.”

Choice is an action

“When we forget our ability to choose… we end up becoming a function of other people’s choices.” Ah, the familiar sense of failing on somebody else’s terms.

Discern

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything
John Maxwell

Without discernment, you ricochet between 100’s of ideas - motion sickness

Trade-Off

“Instead of asking ‘What do I have to give up?’ ask, ‘what do I want to go big on?’”

Part 2: Explore

Escape

Without great solitude no serious work is possible
Pablo Picasso

“We need space to escape in order to discern…” Non-essentialists are too busy DOING to reflect and see the bigger picture.

Focus as eyes focus, “not by fixating on something buy by constantly adjusting and adapting to the field of vision”. Like balancing (bike, ice-skates, roller blades), easier to do with momentum

Look

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T.S. Elliot

“In every set of facts, something essential is hidden.”

Nora Ephron as a journalist learns the lead isn’t “Teachers attending course on new methods”, it’s “No school next Thursday”. “…not just regurgitating the facts but about figuring out the point”

Advice: Journal every day, then once a quarter review the journals and find the headline. What broader patterns are giving you the lead?

Play

Defined as “…anything we do simply for the joy of doing rather than a means to an end.”

“…during play, animals are especially prone to behave in flexible and creative ways” There is less judgement and more curiosity.

Play stimulates both careful, logical reasoning and carefree, unbound exploration. It expands our minds…

Broadens range of options available to us
Antidote to stress
Has a positive effect on executive function

Sleep

PROTECT THE ASSET Without sleep the brain can’t function. The best asset we have for contributing to the world is ourselves.

In “10,000 hour rule” research, the second most important factor after hours of practicing was sleep. Sleep is primarily about the brain, and more sleep means higher quality practice during the time of practicing.

Select

If it’s not “Hell, yes!” then it’s a “No”, as this “…forces you to make decisions by design, rather than default”.

Less but better
Dieter Rams

Part 3: Eliminate

Clarify

Like a pair of glasses, there’s a big difference between “Pretty Clear” and “Really Clear”. You want to be Really Clear.

Define an Essential Intent - answer 1 question now that then answers 1,000’s of Qs later. It tells you who you’ll know if you’ve succeeded.

Dare

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing
Stephen R. Covey

“We need to learn the slow ‘Yes’ and the quick ‘No’”

No repertoire

Pause - as long as you can.
No, but… counter with something that you can do
“Let me check my calendar and get back to you”
Email bounce backs… “I’m not responding to email at the moment”
“Yes, what shall I deprioritize?”
Use humor
“If you can do X, then I can do Y”

Uncommit

Overcome sunk cost fallacy… “If I didn’t already own this, how much would I spend to buy it?” “If I didn’t already have the opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to get it?”

Edit

Editing is an invisible art that is empowered by understanding the overarching intent… So, clarify intent before starting.

Limit

Boundaries are liberating, so set them - upfront where possible.

Know your deal breakers

Part 4: Execute

Buffer

Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the axe
Abraham Lincoln (attributed)

Know your risks, worst case scenario, impact on others… how to reduce risk or increase resilience

Subtract

If you can only go as fast as the slowest hiker, what can you do to help the slowest hiker

Progress

Beware the allure of a big win, aim to make progress - small and steady steps - regularly.

Flow

Routine can be used synonymously with root and mundane. It can also be used to enshrine the essential and reduce effort in execution.

40% of choices are deeply subconscious. Power of Habit, all habits have Cue, Routine, Reward… identify the cue/trigger and you can start to reprogram it. Don’t take on too many at once.

Focus

“There is a difference between losing and being beaten. Being beaten means they are better than you… Losing means you lost focus”

Ancient Greeks had 2 words for time: Chronos: quantitative - measurable and set Kairos: qualitative - time that is opportune, ripe, different

Be

Beware the barrenness of a busy life
Socretes

21-day challenge

Find an accountability buddy
Choose: If you find yourself saying “I have to…”, and rephrase to an“I choose to…” statement you find accepetable
Discern: “What is the most important thing I can do today”
Trade-off: If you find yourself thinking “I will do both…”, stop, pause, pick one of the choices
Escape: Schedule a Personal Quarterly Off-Site to explore what’s essential to you now
Look: Start journaling - write a sentence a day responding to “What’s the most important thing that happened today?”
Play: Spend 10-mins playing with a child - lose yourself in magical exploration
Sleep: Take a 20-minute nap
Select: When something isn’t a clear “yes”, make it a clear “no”
Clarify: Before activity, pause and ask “What’s one thing I really want to achieve in this activity?”
Dare: Write, wordsmith, and practice a graceful “no”
Uncommit: Look at your week ahead and ask “If this wasn’t on the schedule, how hard would I work to get it on?”
Edit: If you add a new activity, remove an existing activity to make sense for it
Limit: When asked to do something, pause and say “Let me check my calendar”
Buffer: Add 4, 30-min appointments to your calendar every day to set aside time to handle the unexpected
Subtract: When you face an obstacle, instead of pushing ask “How can I remove this obstacle”
Progress: Start a meeting with “What has gone right since we last met?”
Flow: Starting with blank 1-week calendar, design dream routine (can vary with day specific activities)
Focus: Pause at least once today and ask “What’s important now?”
Be: Schedule a Personal Quarterly Off-Site to explore, talk, reflect, dream, plan
Leadership: invite your team to read and have a bookclub around Essentialism… create a shared language around it.