Lots of social pressure. Too many choices

Published with permission from The Crown Publishing Group and Synopsis Literary Agency

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Chapter 1. Essentialist

Wisdom is to remove everything that is unimportant from your life.

Lin Yutan

1
From English. essence - essence. Here and below, notes are given by the editor.

Graphic designer Tricia Morse had a simple rule in her work: do what you're asked to do. When people came to her with requests, she agreed without hesitation. She was pleased to hear the gratitude of her clients: “Thank you so much! You helped me so much!”

The trouble is that Trisha agreed to so many things at once that she soon began to get tired. Everything was getting out of control. Trisha worked around the clock to please every client, but her work only got worse and more errors occurred. After some time, both the customers and herself stopped liking her drawings.

Desperate to defend herself, Tricia began to say no. At first she lacked determination. When she received another order, she asked herself: “Will I be able to complete it in the specified time and with the available resources?” And if the answer was “no,” the offer had to be rejected. Trisha's clients were not happy about this, but they respected her for her honesty.

Every small victory added to Trisha's confidence. Now she evaluated orders using a more rigorous criterion: “Can I spend my time and resources on something better?”

And if the answer was “yes,” Trisha refused the task. At first it seemed to her that she shouldn’t indulge like that own desires, but gradually she created a free space for herself in which she was engaged in creativity. She no longer scattered herself between dozens of projects, but carefully planned each one, taking into account potential obstacles. The quality of her work has returned to its previous level.

Trisha began to follow this principle in everyday life. Instead of immediately reacting to any request, she gave herself time to think and decide whether she should agree. Trisha began to reject almost all offers and requests, leaving only those that were really important. And then she properly planned the chosen tasks, prepared for them and eliminated all obstacles on the way to their implementation.

Surprisingly, after some time, clients began to trust Trisha even more.

She became calmer in communication, and people understood that her words could be trusted. If she took on something, she really brought it to the end and put all her strength into it. Eventually new approach Trishi benefited both parties. Her work became more enjoyable, and her clients received better quality results.

Now let's talk about you. How often have you answered “yes” to someone’s request, personal or work, without even thinking about what they actually asked you to do? How often have you hated what you do and thought, “Why did I even sign up for this?” How often have you agreed with someone just to please them or avoid problems? Or has “yes” become your universal answer to any question?

Think about it, have you ever suffered from overwork? Have you felt like you are working too much and not being effective enough at the same time? Why do you pay too much attention to the little things? Have you been constantly but fruitlessly busy? Did you feel like you were running as fast as you could, but weren’t moving?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then your only choice is to become an essentialist.

The Essentialist Path

Dieter Rams worked for many years as a senior designer at Braun. All his activities were based on the principle that there are only a few truly important things in the world, and everything else is noise. His task was to cut through this noise to the very essence of things. For example, at the age of 24 he was given the task of designing a gramophone. At that time, it was customary to cover gramophones with heavy wooden covers or even have them built into furniture. Instead, Dieter and his team created a turntable with a clear plastic cover, removing what they thought was noise from the design. This decision was so revolutionary that the company's managers began to fear bankruptcy. It seemed to them that such gramophones simply would not be bought. It takes a lot of courage to give up what you don't need. But in the 60s, the minimalist style began to gain popularity, and soon all turntable manufacturers were copying Braun's design.

Dieter's main design principle can be summed up in a short German phrase: weniger aber besser (“less but better”). And this is the most successful of all possible definitions of essentialism.

The Essentialist Path is a constant search for less but better. Discipline plays a decisive role. It is important not just to remember this principle sometimes, but to adhere to it in everything.

The Essentialist Path is not about promising yourself: “Starting January 1st, I will start saying “no” more often,” or about finally emptying out my inbox, or even about finding something for myself. new strategy time management. An essentialist constantly asks himself the question: “Is this what I’m doing?” There are so many opportunities and things to do in the world that we don’t have enough time or resources for everything. And although many of them seem interesting to us, only a few are truly necessary. The Essentialist Path teaches us to see what is really important, that is, to consider all existing options and choose only the most valuable ones.

Essentialism doesn't help you do more things, it teaches you how to choose the right activities. But at the same time, you don't do less just for the sake of doing less. Essentialism is the ability to wisely invest your time and energy in things that matter most to achieve maximum effectiveness.

The difference between an essentialist and a non-essentialist is shown in the table on the next page. Both people put in the same amount of effort. But on the left side of the table, these efforts are distributed among dozens of different tasks. This person is likely to progress very slowly in each of his endeavors and does not feel any satisfaction from his success. The person on the right side of the table spends energy on just a few tasks. As a result, he sees his progress in areas that are important to him, and this brings him joy. The Essentialist Path means giving up the belief that we can do everything. Instead, it requires us to look at things realistically and make tough decisions. But in many cases, one such decision will save you from thousands of choices in the future, which means you won’t have to ask yourself the same question over and over again.

An essentialist does not learn from his own mistakes, but carefully plans his life to avoid them. He does not make decisions instinctively, but consciously selects from dozens of tasks a few of the most important ones and strives to complete them. The Essentialist Path always straight and bright. In other words, essentialism is a disciplined and systematic approach to identifying the most effective points of effort. If you learn to do this correctly, then completing the tasks itself will be almost no difficulty.

Model

An essentialist who follows his own path is in control of his actions. Because this principle leads to new levels of success and significance. It allows us not only to enjoy the result obtained, but also to enjoy moving towards it. But there are a huge number of obstacles that push us off this path and prevent us from becoming true essentialists.

The Way of the Nonessentialist

One clear winter day I was visiting my wife Anna in a California hospital. Anna was literally beaming, but I knew that she was very tired. After all, yesterday she gave birth to our daughter - a nice, healthy girl weighing 3 kilograms 100 grams 2
A version of this story was published on June 28, 2012, in one of my blog posts for Harvard Business Review entitled “If You Don't Emphasize, Someone Will Do It for You,” http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/06 /how-to-say-no-to-a-controlling/

I wanted to fill this day with peace and happiness, but in fact I felt stressed to the limit. My newborn daughter lay in the arms of my tired wife while I was on the phone with my office, checking email and worrying that I was late for a meeting with a client. One of my colleagues wrote to me: “She better not give birth on Friday afternoon, I need you at a meeting with X.” As you understand, it was Friday. I knew (or at least hoped) that it was a joke, but I still felt like I needed to be present at work.

At the same time, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I wanted to spend these hours with my wife and child. So, when they asked me again whether I would appear at the meeting, I gathered all my will into a fist and confidently answered ... “yes.”

To my shame, while my wife and newborn daughter were in the hospital, I went to work. When the meeting ended, a colleague said to me: “Our client really appreciates that you were able to come.” But, to be honest, the expression on the client’s face did not look like respect at all. It was clear in his eyes: “What are you even doing here?!” I said “yes” just to please my colleagues, but in the end my family, my reputation, and even my relationship with the client suffered.

It later became clear that nothing important was decided at that meeting. But even if it did matter, I would still make a fool of myself. In trying to please everyone and everyone, I did not bring any benefit, and even sacrificed what was truly valuable.

I learned one useful lesson from this situation:

Learn to place accents in your life. Or someone else will do it for you.

After this story, I became newly interested (read: obsessed) with the question of how and why people make certain decisions in their personal and professional lives. Why don't we want to use all the opportunities available to us? And how can we learn to make decisions that would fully reveal the potential in ourselves and in the people around us?

These questions have already made me quit law, leave England, go to California and get a degree at Stanford. In an attempt to answer them, my colleagues and I spent two years writing the book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter 3
"Amplifiers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter" ( English.).

For the sake of answers, I opened my own training company in Silicon Valley. Now I work here with many talented and smart representatives of interesting global companies and try to guide them on the path of essentialism.

A variety of people come to my company. Some of them live under a constant burden of problems. Some are considered successful, but they are haunted by a desperate desire to do everything perfectly. Others have become so dominated by their managers that they no longer understand that they are not obligated to complete all the tasks offered. Working with them, I tried to understand why such brilliant, smart, talented people get trapped in meaningless minutiae.

And what I understood surprised me very much.

I once worked with a very dedicated manager. He fell in love with technology as a child, and very soon his knowledge and passion for technology began to pay off. He was ready to build on his success and continued his studies in this field with great enthusiasm. When we met, he literally radiated energy. He wanted to try and experience everything. New interests arose for him every day, if not every hour. But at the same time, he lost the ability to see among the many possibilities the truly important ones. Everything mattered to him. As a result, he only became more scattered and took a tiny step forward in dozens of chosen directions. He worked too hard and too inefficiently. This is what I depicted in the left column of the table above.

He looked at my sketch in silence for a long time, and then exclaimed: “This is the story of my whole life!” Then I drew the right side of the table and asked: “How can we choose one direction in which you can bring the most benefit?” He answered absolutely sincerely: “That’s the whole question!”

It turns out that many smart and ambitious people are unable to answer this question, and there are a number of reasons for this. For example, our society is structured in such a way that wrong behavior (agreement) is encouraged, and correct behavior (disagreement) is condemned. We are often embarrassed to say “no,” but we are usually praised for answering “yes.” As a result, the so-called success paradox4
The original article appeared on August 8, 2012 on my blog for the Harvard Business Review entitled “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,” http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/08/the-disciplined-pursuit-of-less/ . I've used ideas from other HBR blogs a number of times throughout this book.

Which consists of four phases:

PHASE 1. Having a precise goal helps you achieve success.

PHASE 2. Success makes you an expert in your field, “good old [name]” who you can always turn to. This gives you more tasks and opportunities.

PHASE 3. The more tasks and opportunities that require your attention, the more effort and time you have to distribute between them. You start to get scattered.

PHASE 4. You are distracted from what you should be giving your full attention to. As a result, you no longer have the clear goal that led you to success in the first place.

Surprisingly, exactly the desire for success can cause failure. In other words, your own successes distract your attention from the more important things that led you to them. The Paradox of Success can be seen everywhere. In his book How the Mighty Fall 5
Collins J. How the greats die and why some companies never give up. M.: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2013.

Jim Collins profiles companies that were once Wall Street favorites but failed. He concludes that the constant desire for more and lack of discipline pushed them to death 6
Jim Collins, How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In (New York, HarperCollins, 2009).

This happens to businesses and to those who work for them. But why?

Why people reject essentialism

There are several reasons for this.

Too many choices

Over the past ten years, the number of options available to us in various areas has increased several times. With too many choices, we can't decide what's really important.

Management theorist Peter Drucker said: “In a few centuries, when our time will already be history, scientists will most likely be interested not in new technologies, not in the Internet, not in e-commerce, but drastic changes in life. This is the first time that such huge amount people now have the opportunity to choose and self-govern. And our society was not ready for this.” 7
Peter Drucker, “Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself,” Leader to Leader Journal, no. 16 (Spring 2000), www.hesselbeininstitute.org/knowledgecenter/journal.aspx?ArticleID=26.

The reason for this unpreparedness is the fact that for the first time in human history, the number of choices available to us exceeded our ability to manage them. It has become difficult for us to separate the important and the unimportant. Psychologists call this “decision fatigue.” The more often we are forced to make choices, the worse the quality of our decisions becomes. 8
Shai Danziger, Jonathan Levav, and Liora Avnaim-Pessoa, “Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 17 (2011): 6889–6892.

Big social pressure

Not only has the number of choices available to us increased, but so has the force with which external circumstances and other people put pressure on us. It has been said more than once about how closely we are connected to each other in the modern world and what a gigantic amount of information we have to process. But such a connection also increases the power of social pressure. Thanks to modern technologies anyone can speak out about what seems important to them. We are overloaded not only with facts, but also with private opinions.

The “you can get anything you want” attitude

This idea in itself is not new. It has been present in the human consciousness for so long that I am sure almost everyone on Earth is infected with it. It is promoted in advertising, supported by large corporations, and included in job descriptions (in the form of long lists of knowledge and skills) and university admission requirements.

But today, when expectations are high and choices are endless, this attitude does more harm than good. People are trying to fit extra activities into their already overcrowded schedules. Companies talk in words about the balance of work and rest, but in reality they require employees to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and so on all year round. At work meetings, 10 priority tasks are discussed, and not a single person sees the irony in these words.

The word priority 9
A priority ( English.).

Established in English language in the 15th century, and at that time it did not have a plural. It meant the single most important or first thing. For another five hundred years it was used only in the singular, and only in the 20th century did people start talking about “priorities” 10
In Russian, the word “priority” began to be used in plural also only at the end of the 20th century.

For some reason, it seems to us that by changing one word, we can change reality. Today, people and companies are trying to do just that. My clients have told me that their companies sometimes prioritize priorities one, two, three, four, and five. In theory, this should illustrate that the company has many important goals. In practice, this shows that the company simply cannot figure out which task is the most important.

But when we try to do everything we can and get everything we want, we end up very often finding ourselves in places we would never have ended up on our own free will. If we ourselves cannot choose where to focus our time and energy, others do it for us: bosses, colleagues, clients, or even family members. After some time, we will no longer understand what really makes sense to us. So, we either make our own decisions or we allow other people to control our lives.

Australian nurse Bronnie Ware cared for terminally ill people during their final twelve weeks and listened to their regrets about their lives. Almost every patient told her: “It’s a pity that I never found the strength to live life in my own way, and not the way others expected me to.” 11
www.huffingtonpost.com/bronnie-ware/top-5-regrets-of-the-dyin_b_1220965.html . I first mentioned this on June 28, 2012, in a blog post on Harvard Business Review entitled “If You Don't Emphasize, Someone Will Do It for You,” http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/06/ how-to-say-no-to-a-controlling/

I'm not suggesting that you constantly refuse any offers. It's about about being strategic and rejecting what you don't need. These can be not only things that you waste time on, but also quite promising proposals 12
Bronnie Ware, “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying,” Huffington Post, January 21, 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/bronnie-ware/top-5-regrets-of-the-dyin_b_1220965.html, “The Orderly Pursuit of Less "

You will stop reacting blindly to the social pressure that pushes you to work in dozens of different directions at the same time, and learn to choose from them only what you really need.

This book will do for your life and career what an experienced cleaner will do for your closet. Imagine what a closet would look like if it was never cleaned. Do you think it would be clean there and there would be a place for every suit on the hanger? No matter how it is. If you don't make a conscious effort to organize your closet space, it won't take long for your closet to become cluttered with old and unwanted clothes. Of course, every now and then, when the clutter gets out of control, you try to do some spring cleaning. But if you don't have a strict system, you end up with as many things left as there were because you can't decide which ones to throw away. Or you get upset because you accidentally threw away the clothes you were going to wear. Or you have a pile of clothes that you don't plan to wear, but are afraid to throw away.

Just like our closets get clogged unnecessary things, our lives become overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities that we agree to take on. Most of these things have no expiration date, and if you don't learn how to get rid of them, they can stay with you for life.

This is how a true essentialist would clean out a closet.

The first rule is to evaluate and explore.

Instead of asking yourself, “Is it likely that I will wear this in the future?” – show discipline and ask yourself: “Does this suit me?” or “Do I wear this often?” If you answer no, then you have a candidate for outlier.

When making decisions in your personal or professional life, you can change this question to: “Will what I am doing help me achieve my goals?” In the first part of this book we will talk about these types of activities.

The second rule is to refuse unnecessary things.

Let's say you put all the clothes in your closet into two piles: “definitely keep” and “maybe throw away.” But are you really ready to put the clothes from the second pile into a bag and throw them away? After all, you spent money on it! Research shows that we value the things we own more than they are actually worth, which is why we have such a hard time getting rid of them. If you are not completely sure, ask yourself a security question: “If I saw this item in a store, how much would I be willing to spend on it?” This usually works.

In other words, it is important not only to determine which activities do not benefit you, but also to be able to refuse them. In the second part of this book, I'll talk about how to get rid of unnecessary things in a way that will win the respect of colleagues, bosses, clients and friends.

The third rule is to act.

If you want to keep your closet in order at all times, you need to clean it regularly. At the same time, you will have to throw away a lot and leave very little. You will have to find out the hours of the local thrift store or charity center and set yourself an exact time to go there with your items. Once you decide which activities to keep in your life (that is, which ones are most effective), you will need to develop a system for implementing them. In this book you will learn how to complete the most important tasks with minimal effort.

Of course, life is not such a static thing as a closet. Your clothes always stay where you put them (unless, of course, you have children growing up in the house). But in life, new clothes (that is, demands and offers) appear constantly. Imagine how you would feel if every time you opened your closet you saw a mountain of someone's things there. In the morning it was still in order, but by lunchtime it was already littered with junk! Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens in the lives of most of us. How often have you started your day on schedule, and by ten in the morning you have completely lost it? Or how many times have you written yourself a to-do list for the day in the morning, only to discover in the evening that it has become even longer? How many times have you dreamed of a quiet weekend at home with your family, but ended up jumping up early on Saturday to solve another problem or go on a sudden business trip? Well, I have good news for you. There is an exit!

Illustration from the book

Have you ever suffered from overwork? Did you realize that you were working too hard, but not efficiently enough? Do you find yourself busy all the time and to no avail? You run as fast as you can, but don’t budge - do you know this feeling? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then your only choice is to become an essentialist.

Essentialism doesn't help you do more things, it teaches you how to choose the right activities, that is, prioritize your life. The author of the book, founder of a training company in Silicon Valley, Greg McKeon, works with representatives of global corporations and guides them on the path of essentialism.

The book consists of four sections. The first describes the main features of an essentialist. In the next three they develop into a systematic process that can be used in any situation at any time.

Key Characteristics of an Essentialist

Research, or "Having Choices"

When we forget about the ability to choose, we learn powerlessness and gradually become instruments of other people's choices. By giving up the right to choose, we give others not just power, but also permission to make choices for us.

The author admits that making a choice is difficult. Choice involves giving up something that we perceive as a loss. However, this ability lies at the very core of what it means to be an essentialist. By focusing on what is essential, you are always making a choice. That in itself is liberating.

Refusal of unnecessary things, or “Presence of noise”

We live in a world where almost all the things around us are just noise, and only a few have real meaning.

Dieter Rams, who worked for many years as a senior designer at Braun, was convinced that there were only a few truly important things in the world, and everything else was noise. He based his work precisely on this principle. One day he was given the task of developing a gramophone design. In the 60s, it was common to cover turntables with heavy wooden covers or even build them into furniture.

Dieter and his team made a truly revolutionary decision: they decided to clean up the design noise and created a gramophone with a transparent plastic cover. The company's managers feared that gramophones with such an unconventional design simply would not be bought. They were wrong: the minimalistic style soon became popular, with all turntable manufacturers imitating Braun's design. The ability to do away with unnecessary things is the main design principle of Braun. He largely explains the company's success.

An essentialist thinks that almost nothing is important. The non-essentialist is the opposite.

Many good opportunities are often worth far less than a few truly great ones.

You can spend a lot of time and effort to find these meaningful things.

Action, or "Possibility of Compromise"

The author was once working with a management team that needed help setting priorities. One manager insisted that there were 18 “highest priority” projects. The author suggested choosing five of them. She worked through the list with her team for a week and ended up cutting it down by just one item. By refusing to make concessions, she distributed enough time and resources to complete five projects over seventeen. “We can do it all” was her position. It is not surprising that she did not achieve the desired result.

Concession is what brings our two desires into conflict. More money or free time? Finish a letter or catch a meeting? Do something faster or better? We want to say yes to both things, but we can't, no matter how much we want to. Evaluating the available options and discarding some of them is a natural necessity, because no one is given the opportunity to achieve everything he strives for and get everything he wants.

One of the most important concessions is sleep. When the author was 21 years old, he thought of sleep as a necessary necessity. I always wanted to spend this time more productively. You may also be thinking like this:

I don't need eight hours of sleep. I can sleep four or five hours peacefully.

But sleeping less and doing more is the wrong logic. Essentialists systematically and consciously incorporate sleep into their schedule so they can achieve more. Sleep is necessary for the essentialist to increase the effectiveness of his actions: to do less today in order to accomplish much more tomorrow. It has been scientifically proven that during sleep, the brain diligently sorts and organizes information, after which new neural connections are formed in it. This feature allows a person to think “with a fresh mind,” achieving more in less time.

Why people reject essentialism

Great social pressure

External circumstances and other people put pressure on us no less than a wide range of choices. The need to process large amounts of information has closely connected us with each other and increased the power of social pressure. This applies not only to professional, but also to personal life. Trying to please everyone, a person is not able to bring any benefit.

The author recalls the day when his daughter was born: he wanted to fill this significant moment in his life with peace and happiness, but in the end he devoted it to talking on the phone with the office, communicating e-mail and constantly worrying about being late for a meeting with a client. When the author was asked whether he would appear at the meeting, he confidently answered “yes” and went to work, while his wife and newborn daughter were in the hospital.

The expression on the client's face did not look like respect at all. It was clear in his gaze: what are you even doing here?!

It later turned out that nothing important was decided during that meeting. But even if it were significant, the author believes, he would still make a fool of himself. In trying to please everyone, he did not bring any benefit, but only harmed his own family, reputation and relationship with the client.

Striving for more success and lack of self-discipline can lead to professional death. We are often embarrassed to say “no” because only the answer “yes” is accepted as praise in society. But for what reason?

The “you can get anything you want” attitude

This idea is not new, but in our time it brings harm, not benefit. People are looking to fit extra activities into their already overcrowded schedules. Employees are forced to be on call 24 hours a day, while their bosses continue to talk about the balance of work and rest.

Managers suffer from this attitude no less than their subordinates. At round tables and meetings, they discuss many priority tasks, and in the end they cannot decide which of them is the main one.

Too many choices

For the first time in human history, the number of choices available to us exceeded our ability to control them. It has become difficult for us to separate the important from the unimportant. “Decision fatigue” is what psychologists call this phenomenon.

The more often we have to make choices, the worse the quality of our decisions becomes. However, the ability to make choices should never be forgotten.

How to focus on what's important

There are several methods for identifying what is truly important and increasing your own productivity.

Alternate your habits

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey devotes every day to a specific topic. On Mondays he holds meetings, Tuesdays are devoted to product development, Wednesdays are devoted to marketing, development and communications, on Thursdays he communicates with partners and developers, and on Fridays he devotes himself to corporate culture.

This operating principle helps Dorsey remain calm amid the chaos that is inevitable in any fast-growing startup, and makes it easy for his colleagues and partners to adapt to it. Developing your own routine is not easy, but if you succeed, you, like Dorsey, will realize that it is an inexhaustible source of benefit and will be able to avoid being torn between several tasks.

Organize your free space

Free space is not given by default, it needs to be planned. Thus, Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, leaves two empty hours in his schedule every day. He divides them into 30-minute chunks, but doesn't plan anything during that time.

Jeff kept this habit from the days when he had so many meetings a day that he didn’t even have time to think about their results. At first, he perceived these two hours as an unnecessary luxury, but then he realized that they increased his productivity. These free two hours are an opportunity for Jeff to be in his personal space and reflect on important topics. How can you improve products and meet customer needs? How to reduce the gap from competitors? What will the company be like in three years?

Jeff, like a true essentialist, has created space for reflection and analysis, and this helps him avoid turning his work into a disorganized pursuit of the big score. In the same way, each of us can learn to adjust the surrounding space to suit ourselves.

Another role model is Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft. Since the 1980s, he has held a “week of reflection” once a year - devoting this time to solitude, reading articles and books, reflection and studying technology.

If you feel like a whole week of free time is too much, you can have a “mini week of reflection” every day.

Even if your day is scheduled minute by minute, learn to find time for yourself. It doesn’t matter if it’s two hours a day, two weeks a year, or five minutes in the morning.

Set boundaries and feel free

Your boss includes you on a committee to work on his favorite project, a colleague asks you to help prepare a report at a time when, for example, you are in a hurry to a meeting or waiting for an important call.

In the business world, people are constantly trying to use your water for their lawns. If someone is trying to water their lawn at your expense, the only way out is to build a fence.

You need to set boundaries not at the moment when you are asked for something, but much earlier. Remember, if people solve their own problems, it will benefit both you and them.

The author talks about a case when he and a colleague did not see eye to eye on any project, but in practice they business relationship turned out to be very harmonious. Why? At the first meeting, the author described his priorities to his colleague and explained which jobs he was willing to accept and which ones he would refuse. The colleague also expressed his wishes - thus, they both set their boundaries. Thanks to this, they did not waste time turning to each other with intrusive requests.

The most important

So, to live like an essentialist, you need to replace three deep-rooted falsehoods with three truths.

Instead of “I must”, “all this is important”, “I can do both”, you need to tell yourself “I choose”, “only a few things matter”, “I can do anything, but not everything”. This way you get rid of the nonsense of non-essentialism and replace it with the essence of essentialism.

Becoming an essentialist is a long process, but the benefits are endless.

Greg McKeon

Essentialism. The path to simplicity

Published with permission from The Crown Publishing Group and Synopsis Literary Agency

Legal support for the publishing house is provided by law firm"Vegas-Lex".

Wisdom is to remove everything that is unimportant from your life.

Lin Yutan

Every small victory added to Trisha's confidence. Now she evaluated orders using a more rigorous criterion: “Can I spend my time and resources on something better?”

And if the answer was “yes,” Trisha refused the task. At first it seemed to her that she couldn’t indulge her own desires like that, but gradually she created a free space for herself in which she was engaged in creativity. She no longer scattered herself between dozens of projects, but carefully planned each one, taking into account potential obstacles. The quality of her work has returned to its previous level.

Surprisingly, after some time, clients began to trust Trisha even more. She became calmer in communication, and people understood that her words could be trusted. If she took on something, she really brought it to the end and put all her strength into it. In the end, Tricia's new approach benefited both parties. Her work became more enjoyable, and her clients received better quality results.

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then your only choice is to become an essentialist.

The Essentialist Path

Published with permission from The Crown Publishing Group and Synopsis Literary Agency

Legal support for the publishing house is provided by the Vegas-Lex law firm.

Wisdom is to remove everything that is unimportant from your life.

Lin Yutan

Every small victory added to Trisha's confidence. Now she evaluated orders using a more rigorous criterion: “Can I spend my time and resources on something better?”

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then your only choice is to become an essentialist.

The Essentialist Path

Dieter's main design principle can be summed up in a short German phrase: weniger aber besser (“less but better”). And this is the most successful of all possible definitions of essentialism.

The Essentialist Path is a constant search for less but better. Discipline plays a decisive role. It is important not just to remember this principle sometimes, but to adhere to it in everything.

The Essentialist Path It’s not about promising yourself, “Starting January 1st, I’ll start saying “no” more often,” and it’s not about finally emptying out your inbox, or even about finding a new one for yourself. time management strategy. An essentialist constantly asks himself the question: “Is this what I’m doing?” There are so many opportunities and things to do in the world that we don’t have enough time or resources for everything. And although many of them seem interesting to us, only a few are truly necessary. The Essentialist Path teaches us to see what is really important, that is, to consider all existing options and choose only the most valuable ones.

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Chapter 1
Essentialist

Wisdom is to remove everything that is unimportant from your life.

Every small victory added to Trisha's confidence. Now she evaluated orders using a more rigorous criterion: “Can I spend my time and resources on something better?”

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then your only choice is to become an essentialist.

The Essentialist Path

Dieter's main design principle can be summed up in a short German phrase: weniger aber besser (“less but better”). And this is the most successful of all possible definitions of essentialism.

The Essentialist Path is a constant search for less but better. Discipline plays a decisive role. It is important not just to remember this principle sometimes, but to adhere to it in everything.