Book Notes: Essentialism, Greg McKeown

• Choosing something is an emotional experience as opposed to a logical one.

— When we surrender our ability to choose, something or someone else will step in to choose for us.

— We might not always have control over the kind of options offered, but we do have a choice in terms of how we use them.

As a caveat, options can be taken away, but what we choose to do with them (should they exist) cannot be. We can forget, we have the choice but it can never be taken away.

Barriers to Essentialism:

• Learned helplessness

Fix: Prioritize the work you do and can help you say no to things that don’t matter.

• Working longer and harder << Working lesser but better

Fix: Invest in the most important & bet heavily on those.

• Straddling two strategies.

Fix: Have a set-in-stone value system of what is acceptable & not acceptable for you at a personal level.

• Available ALL the time

Fix: Take time to read, to design, and to concentrate.

• Hyperfocussing or zooming out, neglecting the essentials

Fix: Connect the dots and look at the bigger picture.

• Listening to respond, not understand

Fix: Pay attention to the signal in the noise, listen to what is not being said, & find the essence of the information being conveyed

• All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
• Skimping on sleep

Fix: Treat sleep as a restorative essential instead of time spent on wasteful inaction

• Selection paralysis

Fix:

— No More Yes. It’s Either HELL YEAH! Or No

— If you do not have a particular thing/opportunity, how much would you give to acquire/get it?

• Lack of clarity

Fix: Deciding on an intent & crafting a vision statement that is inspiring and concrete

• Saying yes to avoid conflict, friction, and awkwardness

Fix:

— Learn the art of gracefully saying no

— Say yes ONLY to things that REALLY matter.

• Continue commitment to a losing/non-fruitful proposition

Fix:

Avoid sunk cost fallacy & endowment effect!

— Pretend you don’t own it

— Get over the fear of waste

— Apply zero based budgeting (time/money/energy)

• Inability to eliminate the trivial

Fix: Eliminate options, condense to the minimum required, and correct.

• Lack of boundaries

Fix:

— Don’t rob people of their problems A.K.A. Don’t make their problem yours.

— Identify dealbreakers when agreeing to something.

— Craft Social Contracts

• Uncertainty not accounted for

Fix:

— Use extreme preparation i.e. prepare to the best of your abilities till D-Day.

— Do not fall victim to the “Planning Fallacy” i.e. underestimating the time/efforts required for accomplishment.

• Execution friction

Fix:

— Clarity of intent/purpose

— Identify the slowest hiker, i.e. your slowest performing asset & make systematic improvements to improve its performance

— Remove the obstacle

• Going all or nothing

Fix:

— Incentivize progress in a proactive way instead of reacting only to negative.

— Deliver progress in steps of MVP instead of a big change

• Monotony of forceful routines

Fix:

— Make essential the default position

— Design a routine to achieve the above default

• Living in the past & future

Fix:

— Tune in to what is important in the here and now.

— Focussing on ONE thing, instead of multiple possibilities.