ESSENTIALISM | Greg McKeown | 2014

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

When faced with a mind full of clutter, competing to do lists, and too many priorities, we’re often hard pressed to decide what to do first, what really matters and what’s important now. On the face of it essentialism sounds really easy: decide what is absolutely necessary in our life or work and do those things; the rest is non-essential so don’t do those things or put them at the end of our list. But like many things that at first appear obvious, when you dig a little deeper Essentialism is a concept with many layers.

I came to read this book via The Minimalists video on YouTube where they interviewed Greg McKeown. His message was succinct and compelling, and he made it seem so very doable.

In the four parts of the book: Essence, Explore, Eliminate and Execute Greg gives us the background to the theory, explores the core mindset, and then offers a road map for putting into place the tools to identify what is truly essential in our own lives. Such ideas as developing routines, the importance of sleep, dealing with trade-offs of problems, setting boundaries, and finally what can make the Essentialist life effortless.

He frequently illustrates the behaviours of those caught up in non-essentialism and uses real-life examples and personal anecdotes of what has worked for him, and a few failures. An aspect that I found fascinating is in the sub-title, the disciplined pursuit of less, such as doing less through making better, intentional choices and editing the trivial stuff. Allowing us, I suspect, to devote time to more rewarding endeavours.

A simple tool to decide what is important is the phrase Hell Yeah! promoted by Derek Sivers in his TED talk.  If it’s not a definite, no holds barred hell yeah then it’s a no. Whether it’s clearing out the wardrobe or deciding which movie to see, so if it’s not hell yeah I still love that dress, then it’s a no and out it goes. Or do I really want to see that latest zombie thriller, yeah I think so, well that’s actually a no! Which, I guess for some decisions could be quite confronting. But, as Greg points out, our highest priority is to protect our ability to prioritize. He goes on to explain how to achieve a graceful no.

I figure by concentrating on what is truly essential in my life, I will as Greg says: make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter, get only the right things done, live more fully in the moment and, be able to discern the unimportance of practically everything!

Did I enjoy this book? Hell Yeah!