I was just looking back over my notes on Greg McKeown’s Essentialism particularly pages 20 to 25.
The three core facets of the Essentialist are something to keep in mind:
- Explore and Evaluate: Discerning the Vital Few from the Trivial Many
- McKeown’s sums it up by stating, “We aren’t looking for a plethora of good things to do. We are looking for our highest level of contribution: the right thing the right way at the right time.”
- Eliminate: Cutting Out the Trivial Many
- McKeown’s has a few lines worth taking to heart, “To eliminate nonessentials means saying no to someone. Often. it means pushing against social expectations. To do it well takes courage and compassion. So eliminating the nonessentials isn’t just about mental discipline. It’s about the emotional discipline necessary to say no to social pressure.”
- Execute: Removing Obstacles and Making Execution Effortless
- This one is counterintuitive. I best think of it as working smart not working hard. By taking away the hurdles you are able to be that much better positioned to accomplish your goal. I’ll throw out some examples in a later post.