“Essentialism isn’t about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It’s about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what it essential”
The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately separates the ‘important’ few from the ‘less important’ many. The Essentialist is an expert who has learned how to eliminate the non-essential weights in his/her life and ruthlessly focuses only on the things that count.
Many of the things you spend your energy doing in a day are not important or beneficial to any person. And then we wonder why we aren’t leading a life of impact. Impact is impossible without focused effort and focused effort is impossible when you give everything in your life equal importance.
Keep the main thing, the main thing and let every other thing take the backseat.
Assumptions Every Essentialist Must Overcome
“There are three deeply entrenched assumptions that we must conquer to live the way of the Essentialist: “I have to”, “It’s all important”, and “I can do both”
To become an Essentialist that lives a life of impact, you need to mentally take note of areas of your life where you’re allowing these assumptions to rob your life of impact.
Remember, everything is not important.
You don’t have to do everything. You still have the power to choose.
You don’t need to buy the lie that everything is important, because everything is not! When all is said and done, only a few things matter. Your job is to find what those things are and then ruthlessly devote your attention to them.
You might pride yourself as being a jack of all trades, or a polymath (I have an interdisciplinary bent too), but there’s joy and freedom in realizing that you can do anything, but not everything.
The moment you’re able to take note of the three faulty assumptions milking your energy from you, you’d be among an elite group of people who are headed closer to a life of impact.
You Always Have Choice
“The ability to choose can’t be taken away, or given away – can be forgotten“
If you want to be an Essentialist, you need to have a heightened consciousness of your ability to choose in any situation you find yourself.
This is what Viktor Frankl was one of the survivors of the cruelties of the Nazi concentration camps during World War 2. The Nazi Germans tortured and subjected him and other prisoners to innumerable indignities. Many people perished in the concentration camps and many of those that didn’t were scarred for life.
Frankl was one of the few that ended up thriving after being liberated from the camps at the end of the war. He was able to do this because of good understanding of one thing his tormentors couldn’t take away. Frankl later called this “The last of the human freedoms”. He realized that regardless of what he was going through at any given moment, he could choose how he was going to be affected by the situation. He realized that at any given time, the power to choose was always there. Frankl didn’t forget this and it affected the quality of his life, during and after the war.
If you forget your ability to choose, you’re going to end up relinquishing your power to your circumstances and environment. You’d eventually come to the point where you feel totally helpless to your situation and you’re merely going through life passively.
If you want to be an Essentialist, don’t you ever forget your power to choose in any given situation. The pressure of the moment might seem like you’re going to be choked if you don’t react immediately. But if you remind yourself again and again that you always have the power to choose, you’re going to improve your life exponentially.
“The ability to choose can’t be taken away, or given away – it can only be forgotten”
There’s Power in Discernment
Greg McKeown shared this quote by Ronald Koch:
“Most of what exists in the universe – our actions, and all other forces, resources and ideas- has little value and yields little results; on the other hand, a few things work fantastically well and have tremendous impact”
The Essentialist is one who has the spirit of discernment at work in his life.
The man who operates on partnership with the Spirit of discernment quickly realizes that everything is not equally important.
There are some opportunities God has not vetted with His presence.
There are some relationships that God hasn’t vetted with His Presence.
There are some places and gatherings that haven’t been vetted with His Presence.
Without the ability to discern, you’d jump headlong into anything and everything that gives the smallest indication of importance.
This is why it’s important to run every opportunity through the sieve of discernment within you.
When you invest time developing this ability, you’d find yourself freed from unnecessary commitments while spending that extra time on activities that matter.
“Less is better” is one of the biggest secrets that the gurus are keeping from you.
They bombard you with course after course after course. And while they spread you so thin with their often contradictory advice, you find them setting up systems that frees up more time for them to focus on what really matters to them.
You need to learn how to separate the “trivial many” from the “vital few”. Do this and your future ‘you’ will thank you for this
It’s All a Game of Trade-offs
“We can try to avoid the reality of trade-offs, but we cannot escape them”
One of the first things I learned in my Economics class at high school was the concept of Opportunity Costs.
Because your desires and wants will always exceed your available resources, you need to rank your desires in order of preference. And you do this because ultimately, you only expend your limited resources on wants and desires that you deem important, while forgoing the rest (i.e., the opportunity cost).
Therefore, your choice to buy the latest designer clothes and shoes may also be a choice not invest in books and renew your mind.
Your choice to mindlessly scroll through social media for hours on end may also be a choice not to spend bonding time with your significant other or children.
Your choice to snooze your alarm at 5:30 am, is also a choice not to get up earlier to complete your project (Yes, I’m talking about you!)
And sometimes too, the choice is not necessarily between an inherently good and bad option.
For instance, as an entrepreneur, do you sell plenty items for cheap, or do you sell few items for plenty? As a family man, do you spend more time with your spouse and kids, or do you bring work home and totally crush it at the office the next day?
When all is said and done, life is full of trade-offs. As Thomas Sowell said, “There are no solutions… Only trade-offs”
But the good news is that you will always get to choose what you’re going to go big on, and what you’ve got to give up. Choose wisely.
The Power of Focus
Greg McKeown also shared a quote from famous artist Pablo Picasso:
“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible”
In order to be an outstanding Essentialist, you need to learn how to discern the essential few from the trivial many.
Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where countless competing forces are vying for our attention.
As a result, unless we take deliberate effort to create the time and space to focus on what matters, it becomes impossible to become an Essentialist.
That’s why Greg McKeown goes on to say,
“In order to have focus we need to escape to focus”
The ability to focus is getting rarer by the day. And as with everything that’s rare, its value has also increased so much that Focus is regarded as the new IQ.
That’s why you need to create space for yourself to engage in high-level thinking.
You need space to deliberately and prayerfully design your life.
You need space to concentrate on actualizing the difficult steps you need to take before getting to your promised Land.
You need space to continually engage in the process of renewing your mind such that limits of what you consider possible are stretched by the day.
Sometime ago, I was listening to David Oyedepo and he said something to this effect:
“I’m not afraid of tomorrow because we’re not where we are today by chance”
And you know why he can make such a seemingly bold claim?
It’s simple. Among other things, David Oyedepo is an Essentialist!
Ask people who are in his close circle and listen to his anecdotes, you’d find that he doesn’t joke with his time or attention. He keeps the main thing, the main thing.
The same thing is possible for you.
Something More than Deliberate Practice
Greg McKeown also talked about Anders Ericsson’s famous experiment where he tried to find out the most important factor that determined expert-level mastery.
One of the findings from that study is what inspired the 10000-hour rule which Malcolm Gladwell popularized in his bestselling book “Outliers”
However, that was just one side of the story.
It turned out that the findings from Ericsson’s experiment showed another factor that contributed to expert-level mastery.
That factor was sleep!
Not only did the experts practice more than the merely good students, the Masters also slept about 2 hours more than the ordinary students.
While Non-Essentialists see sleep as another burden on their already over-extended to-do list, the Essentialist has a totally different approach.
He sees sleep as an ingredient necessary for functioning optimally during the day. As a result, Essentialists deliberately and systematically incorporates sleep into their schedules.
Greg McKeown said, “Our highest priority is to protect our ability to prioritize”
It might seem ridiculously simple, but quality sleep protects you in the long run.
From studies, as well as personal experience, I’ve noticed that when you’re sleep deprived, your decision-making capabilities are severely compromised. And when you’re in this state, one of the first things to jump out of the window is your ability to separate the vital few from the trivial many.
Ecclesiastes 10:10 says,
“If the iron be blunt, and he doth not whet the edge, then must he use more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct”
Stop plowing through life without strategy. Sharpen your ax with quality sleep
What’s Your Why?
Greg McKeown shared this quote by Russian ballet dancer, Anna Pavlova,
“To follow, without halt, one aim: There is the secret to success”
In other words, ruthless focus on one goal will lead you to your desired Haven.
This is one thing that Essentialists are good at.
They learn how to ruthlessly eliminate every activity that is not in alignment with what they intend to achieve.
The truth is that in the absence of such clarity, confusion, stress and frustration is inevitable.
Do you find yourself constantly confused?
Do you see yourself always battling with stress at the end each working day?
Do you find yourself over your head with frustration?
If you find yourself in any of the aforementioned circumstances, there’s a good chance that you lack clarity about what you should really be doing.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s an element of difficulty in every assignment that is worthwhile. However, without clarity on why you are engaged in a task, you will not thrive.
And this why Essentialists continue to thrive in whatever field of endeavor they find themselves in. They don’t jump on the latest fad because that’s what’s trending. Rather, every action they take is powered by a strong why.
The Essentialist Intent
The Essentialist’s clarity is guided by what Greg McKeown calls the Essentialist intent – one inspirational, concrete, meaningful and measurable decision that becomes the yardstick determining other decisions.
In her role as Digital Champion for the UK in 2009, Martha Lane Fox‘s essential intent was to: Get everyone in the UK online by the end of 2012.
Because of this essential intent was simple, concrete, inspiring and measurable, it provided clarity for Martha Lane Fox and her team. With this clarity, they were able to focus on the essential few and eliminate the trivial many. And to a large extent, they attained their goal.
This is the kind of clarity that you see powering the lives of all the people you look up to. If you really want to thrive, you need to learn to focus all your energies on only activities that matter.
Yes, the journey will be hard. You will need to engage in tough conversations with yourself. There will be trade-offs. You will need to be disciplined to cut off competing priorities that try to distract you from your true intentions. But once you’re able to find that clarity, it’s inevitable that your path will lead to excellence
