Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less - The Two-Million-Copy Bestseller

Our world seems to be moving faster and faster. We are bombarded by endless information and rapidly multiplying demands on our time and attention. Many people struggle to cope with their bottomless to-do lists and their ever-expanding to-read piles. As a consequence, many people feel scattered or even burned out. In “Essentialism”, Grey McKeown provides an antidote by arguing that we should focus on the essential. Thereby, we can concentrate our efforts on the things that truly matter and ignore all of the noise. He goes into practical advice and illustrates the approach of the essentialist to many of life’s quandaries. The book is highly readable because of the many case examples that will resonate with many readers. The chapters are also kept short and to the point. That makes it easy to absorb the main message. However, I thought that book boiled down to a few central points that can be summarised in a page or two. However, this might be because I read quite a few books on similar topics and was, therefore, familiar with the content of some of the chapters. For instance, Deep Work by Cal Newport and Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky cover similar ground. Altogether, I think the book is an excellent choice for anyone who feels on the edge of burn-out and wants to take some time to reflect on a better approach to work and life.

Single most memorable passage: "Charlie O. Simms taught a Journalism 101 class at Beverly Hills High School. He started... by explaining the concept of a "lead". He explained that a lead contains the why, what , when, and who of the piece. It covers the ESSENTIAL(my emphasis) information. Then he gave them their first assignment: write a lead to a story. Simms began by presenting the facts of the story: "Kenneth L. Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills High School, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium in new teaching methods. Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, and California governor Edmund 'Pa' Brown" The students hammered away on their manual typewriters trying to keep up with the teacher's peace. Then they handed in their rapidly written leads. Each attempted to summarise the who, what where, and why as succinctly as possible: "Margaret Mead, Maynard Hutchins, and Governor Brown will address the faculty on ..."; "Next Thursday, the high school faculty will ..." Simms reviewed the students' leads and put them aside. He then informed them that they were all wrong. The lead to the story, he said, was "There will be no school on Thursday." "In that instant," Nora Ephron(of [Sleepless in Seattle] and [When Harry met Sally]) recalled, "I realised that journalism was not just about regurgitating the facts but about figuring out the POINT. It wasn't enough to know the who, what, when, and where; you had to understand what it MEANT. And why it MATTERED." Ephron added, "He taught me something that works just as well in life as it does in journalism." " p73-74 Disclaimer - I have not read a whole lot of management/self-improvement books, so I cannot say that I am a very good judge of the genre. There is a danger that this book is actually littered with tired old cliches that I hadn't noticed, in which case I shouldn't have bothered you with this. That said - Self-improvement books are a strange breed - myself included, you so often see people who read one and then complain that the book only wrote about the really obvious things. In the same sense, however, homo sapiens are a strange breed who never quite do what they know to be the obviously good things for themselves. grin emoticon Enter, then, the study of management - the study on "coordination of the efforts of people to accomplish goals and objectives by using available resources efficiently and effectively". Sounds like self-improvement on a larger scale, but with the added benefit of providing results from well-designed research. The author is a management consultant with an MBA degree from Stanford. Perhaps naturally, the book often reads like a business strategy book with plenty of case studies from the corporate world, but as Ephron says, those methods can easily be used for life in general. The book's message can be neatly summed up in one sentence - "Figure out what is really important and essential in your life, and eliminate everything else to focus your efforts and achieve maximum output/contribution to society". The rest of the book is just filled up by how to achieve that goal. While 'the rest of the book' is coherently structured with a logical, well-suited flow and sensible, well-researched suggestions backed up by sociology/psychology research findings(these days it seems impossible to read something that doesn't quote [Flow] by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and [Thinking Fast and Slow] by Daniel Kahneman, although probably due to my reading interests. Perhaps I should just give up and add them to the reading list), some solutions that the author suggests will just sound implausible. One example is the importance of being able to say no to your boss so that you can concentrate on something more essential. Obviously, I cannot imagine myself doing so to my bosses, consultant surgeons. For some other solutions, I thought they can only be done when one is reasonably financially secure, so that he/she can take the risk/hit by cutting out/declining all the non-essential activities that regularly plague our lives. However, (as my stock-phrase goes) if we are to look at the moon instead of the finger pointing at the moon... The part that really inspires me in this book is its single-minded pursuit and the determination for what constitutes the most important thing in our lives; what makes our lives meaningful for us(as illustrated in the above anecdote), and what will ultimately enable us to be useful to the rest of the humanity. Sure, it may not always be obvious to all of us, and the method of elimination the book suggests may not guarantee to lead us to an answer. In fact, our lives may quite possibly be meaningless! :-D Nevertheless, for me it is certainly worth a try. The other aspects that left a strong impression for me was the authors repeated emphasis on how pursuing Essentialism is a choice, and the importance of EMOTIONAL(not intellectual) acceptance of the book's ideas for them to work - which is to say, as discussed at the beginning, it is not because we don't know what to do why we don't do them. There is always a choice, and we simply choose not to.

Fantastic book. Full of good post reading references. I originally bought the kindle version but I decided to buy a paper copy too to keep it in front of me for constant reference.

A good quality and interesting book

Let's face it, they know how to produce this kind of books (HowToMakeFriendsMarsVenusFixYourLifeEtc), but I'd say this one is above this standard. I was a bit put off with the end of intro finishing in nearly glorious-revolutionary tone, but I went on and it was good. Book builds up on many references like Jim Collins and Peter Drucker and puts them into focused perspective. Many of the advices are well known, the question is how much we hold on to them, how much we put them forward (like enough of sleep, anyone?). Saying NO reminded me Rework book, but I'm sure this advice is much older. Book might have been shorter, but I don't mind the bit of repetitions. I read it shortly after Drucker's "Managing Oneself" which can be read in an hour and is definitely more essentialistic, but it doesn't talk about Essentialism that much like this one. For me this was suitable next read and I wasn't disappointed. But - you still have to work it out yourself considering your circumstances. It takes time to do even first couple of changes (changing ourselves is always hard) and you'll meet mostly non-essentialists in your life. While this may give you some advantage (if that's what you're after), but also misunderstanding from them. That's what a book can't help you with. :-)

Just to be clear, I read a lot of this kind of book and I'm a tough audience, so three stars means it's pretty good. Only the very best (eg, David Allen) get 5 stars. I enjoyed this book. While it lacked the truly profound, game-changing ideas of, say, Deep Work (Cal Newport) or Peak (Ericsson) (and was way below the GTD benchmark), the basic message of the book is condensed well, clearly articulated and practically applicable, which I find three important tests for this kind of book. McKeown uses good examples, without them being clichéd (no tedious stuff about Abraham Lincoln, unlike a lot of this sort of book). He uses personal experience without being a droney, self-promoting charlatan (again, common in the genre). He writes clearly and effectively, so you can dip in and out and don't drift off while reading. And the basic message is essentially a good one: be selective about what you do and do it better. That said, while I enjoyed it, I wouldn't call it essential reading. (Perhaps the author would approve that I've just written that!) It does identify a definite problem - the target audience for this kind of book is a bit frazzled with trying to do too much - but it falls short of a real game-changing way of looking at the world. Which is a high bar to set, admittedly. You could do better than read this book (I've mentioned ones I found better) but you could do a LOT worse.

This was a relatively useful read, but basically confirming things that any sensible person knows already. That is that simplicity, clarity of focus and effort, is much more effective at bringing about successful results, whether that be in business or life in general. I don't think this is a book that will linger long in my memory or be used as any particular reference in the future, but the advice is good advice, and so four stars is reasonable in my view.

Great and easy reading. I found it very easy to relate and apply a few concepts of the book on my daily life. Also, the way it’s written makes it easy to understand how to take a few steps to focus on what’s essential (and I’m not a native English speaker). It’s worth the reading for sure.

Nice quality. Really excited to read this book. Thanks to Amazon for quick delivery.

I have re read this book already twice and it’s so direct and well written it’s one on my favourites on the subject

Essentialism by Greg McKeown Book Summary : Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless. 1. Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.” Essentialism is about pausing constantly to ask, “Am I investing in the right activities? 2. Essentialism is not 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 is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at your highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential. 3. The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the non-essentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. The way of the Essentialist is the path to being in control of our own choices. It is a path to new levels of success and meaning. It is the path on which we enjoy the journey, not just the destination. 4. If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will. "When we don’t purposefully and deliberately choose where to focus our energies and time, other people – our bosses, our colleagues, our clients, and even our families – will choose for us, and before long we’ll have lost sight of everything that is meaningful and important. 5. Before saying yes to anything, ask yourself, “Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution towards my goal?” 6. Essentialists ask, “What do I feel deeply inspired by?” and “What am I particularly talented at?” and “What meets a significant need in the world? 7. Essentialists invest the time they have saved into creating a system for removing obstacles and making execution as easy as possible. 8. Essentialism is not a way to do one more thing; it is a different way of doing everything. It is a way of thinking. 9. There are three deeply entrenched assumptions we must conquer to live the way of the Essentialist: ‘I have to,’ ‘It’s all important,’ and ‘I can do both.’ To embrace the essence of Essentialism requires we replace these false assumptions with three core truths: “I choose to,” “Only a few things really matter,” and “I can do anything but not everything. Ask yourself, “If you could do only one thing with your life right now, what would you do?” 10. To become an Essentialist requires a heightened awareness of our ability to choose. When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless. Drip by drip we allow our power to be taken away until we end up becoming a function of other people’s choices—or even a function of our own past choices.” 11. A non-Essentialist thinks almost everything is essential. An Essentialist thinks almost everything is non-essential. We live in a world where almost everything is worthless and a very few things are exceptionally valuable. Many capable people are kept from getting to the next level of contribution because they can’t let go of the belief that everything is important. 12. Trade-Off—Which Problem Do I Want? : A non-Essentialist approaches every trade-off by asking, ‘How can I do both?’ Essentialists ask the tougher but ultimately more liberating question, ‘Which problem do I want? Instead of asking, ‘What do I have to give up?’ Essentialists ask, ‘What do I want to go big on?’” 13. To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make.” 14. Look—See What Really Matters : “Being a journalist of your own life will force you to stop hyper-focusing on all the minor details and see the bigger picture. One of the most obvious and yet powerful ways to become a journalist of our own lives is simply to keep a journal.” 15. Our highest priority is to protect our ability to prioritise. Select -The Power of Extreme Criteria : The 90 Percent Rule: “As you evaluate an option, think about the single most important criterion for that decision, and then simply give the option a score between 0 and 100. If you rate it any lower than 90 percent, then automatically change the rating to 0 and simply reject it. If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no. 16. The killer question when deciding what activities to eliminate is: “If I didn’t have this opportunity, what would I be willing to do to acquire it? 17. Dare—The Power of a Graceful “No” : “Only once we separate the decision from the relationship can we make a clear decision and then separately find the courage and compassion to communicate it.” Essentialists accept they cannot be popular with everyone all of the time. 18. Uncommit—Win Big by Cutting Your Losses : Sunk-cost bias is the tendency to continue to invest time, money, or energy into something we know is a losing proposition simply because we have already incurred, or sunk, a cost that cannot be recouped. An Essentialist has the courage and confidence to admit his or her mistakes and uncommit, no matter the sunk costs. 19. Don’t ask, “How will I feel if I miss out on this opportunity?” but rather, “If I did not have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it?” Similarly, we can ask, “If I wasn’t already involved in this project, how hard would I work to get on it? Essentialists accept the reality that we can never fully anticipate or prepare for every scenario or eventuality; the future is simply too unpredictable. 20. Progress—The Power of Small Wins : “Instead of trying to accomplish it all—and all at once—and flaring out, the Essentialist starts small and celebrates progress. Instead of going for the big, flashy wins that don’t really matter, the Essentialist pursues small and simple wins in areas that are essential.” Whatever decision or challenge or crossroads you face in your life, simply ask yourself, “What is essential?” Eliminate everything else.

Really loved this book. Got lots of insights! I can keep rereading it.

This book is about learning to do less, but better. Greg McKeown explains how we often try to take on too much and end up stretched thin, instead of focusing on what’s truly essential. He uses simple principles and real-world examples to show how saying “no” to the non-essential allows you to give your best to the things that matter most. I liked this book because it’s practical, not just theory. It made me stop and think about where I spend my time and energy, and it gave me permission to cut out the distractions. Since reading it, I’ve found it easier to prioritize, make decisions, and feel less overwhelmed. It’s not just about minimalism, it’s about living more deliberately. If you’re feeling pulled in too many directions, this book really helps reset your mindset.