My Thoughts On Essentialism
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less by Greg McKeown is a novel which provides valuable lessons about how we make decisions in our lives. This post will identify some of the key lessons McKeown highlights. For more in-depth analysis I would recommend that you read Essentialism.
Saying Yes
The key issue that McKeown identifies is that we are spreading ourselves too thin over many activities and that results in our commitment to those activities being shallow, rather than just focusing on less activities/projects and achieving more in those areas. I think that this happens because we are presented with so many exciting opportunities and we perceive it as foolish to say no because of the potential benefits. It’s also harder to say no than yes, we don’t want to disappoint others so we will usually take the path of least resistance. In doing so will come at a cost, likely your own time that you would rather spend with loved ones, and the outcome of your projects will be worse as you don’t have as much time to invest in them. As McKeown states “If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will.”
This is why saying no is important, even if the opportunity is exciting! You have to leave enough time to ensure that you can function well enough with your existing workload. A useful framework for weighing up decisions is what I like to call the “Hell Yeah!” metric. If your response isn’t Hell Yeah or equivalent for taking on a project then don’t do it. Feeling 60–70% sure about something isn’t enough, you need to be at least 90% sure that you would love to be involved in this project.
It’s crucial that you’re careful about choosing which projects you say yes to so you can live a meaningful and balanced life. In life there are no solutions, only trade offs. Think about what trade offs you’re prepared to make when saying yes. For instance if your New Years resolution is to hit the gym 5 times a week, ask yourself, what are you going to forgo in order to feasibly achieve your goal?
Efficiency, Minimum Viable Effort, and Buffers
McKeown makes astute observations about what we can do to improve the way we work. The one I found the most compelling was the idea of identifying the “slowest walker” and then doing everything possible to speed up that walker. In a workflow context this means identifying the bottleneck operation that’s slowing everything else and taking executable steps to drastically reduce that bottleneck, thus resulting in huge productivity gains.
Another observation is called Minimal Viable Effort. This boils down to asking yourself, “what is the absolute bare minimum feasible useful thing I can do right now to achieve my goals?” This is a useful tool to have in mind when we are being pulled in many directions and we are unsure of what we should do. This encourages us to effectively priortise our obligations and be realistic about what we can achieve.
Buffers are also incredibly useful when you’re trying to meet deadlines. Often we are overly optimistic about when we can have tasks finished by, we don’t account for unforeseen circumstances which defenestrates your ability to work. A buffer gives you more time to achieve your tasks and accounts for the chaotic world we live in, it also allows us not to stress as much about being late, because we have allowed ourselves a buffer which is our friend in these situations.
Sleep, Reverse Pilots, and The Power Of Routine
You are your most valuable asset, and in order for you to perform at your best you need to protect your sleep as much as possible. In the digital age it’s so easy to endlessly scroll on social media, binge Wikipedia, or code until the early hours of the morning. When you don’t get enough sleep, you’re in a sub-optimal state where your decision making will be impaired and your output will be of lower quality. On the surface being awake for more raw hours seems superior for productivity as you have more time to do more stuff! In reality though that extra time comes at the cost of poor decision making and reduced satisfaction. Most of us don’t get enough sleep and usually there are simple steps we can take to help us improve our sleep. For myself, I turn off my phone near bedtime and put it on the the other side of my room to reduce the temptation of bright lights. If you need an alarm either use your smartwatch if you have one or just buy a separate alarm, it’s worth it for your sleep.
An idea which I loved from this book is the idea of a “Reverse Pilot.” Basically this means if there is some activity taking places which requires resources but the benefits of this activity are ambiguous and uncertain, then simply try scrapping that activity and see what happens. If there appears to be no difference from your Reverse Pilot consider it a success! You can confidently stop doing that process and focus your resources elsewhere.
Routine is incredibly important for productivity. The fantastic thing about doing something over and over again is eventually your brain adapts and you don’t have to think about performing that task anymore. Examples include driving cars, typing, cooking and many more. What this means if you can incorporate a positive activity in your routine and you’re consistent with it eventually you won’t even have to think about doing it as it’s second nature. I run almost everyday if I can and this is simply down to repeating this activity many times. (Admittedly on cold days I do find it a tad difficult.)
Final Thoughts
This book is jam-packed full of lessons and I have benefited greatly from absorbing McKeown’s thoughts and applying them to my decisions. In an non-essentialist world I think there are a lot of people who could profit greatly from this novel. I am now by no means an Essentialist, but I am leading a more Essentialist life than I was before. Hopefully you find Essentialism as useful as I do.
