Notes and Takeaways from Essentialism
Source: Amazon
When I read it: January 2021
Why I read it: When you start a company, there are more to-dos than there is time to do them. Worse, everything seems important. It can quickly become overwhelming. Essentialism provides a framework that helps you identify your true priorities and execute on them.
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My notes
Twitter thread
I recently read Essentialism by @GregoryMcKeown. As I put together my notes today, I thought I'd tweet a few of my favorite takeaways from the book.
— Rick Lindquist (@RickLindquist) January 22, 2021
About Greg McKeown
Greg McKeown is the author of Essentialism (April 2014). He also collaborated on the writing and research of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (2010). Originally from London, England, he now lives in Silicon Valley, California with his wife and their four children. Greg holds an MBA from Stanford University.
Greg’s vision: “I have a vision of people everywhere having the courage to live a life true to themselves instead of the life others expect of them. I have a vision of everyone—children, students, mothers, fathers, employees, managers, executives, world leaders—learning to better tap into more of their intelligence, capability, resourcefulness, and initiative to live more meaningful lives. I have a vision of all these people courageously doing what they came here on this earth to do. I have a vision of starting a conversation that becomes a movement.”
About Essentialism
There are four parts to the book. The first outlines the core mind-set of an Essentialist and the next three turn the mind-set into a systematic process for the disciplined pursuit of less.
What is Essentialism?
Essentialism = the relentless, disciplined, and systematic pursuit of less but better.
Do only the things that you deem essential—and ignore everything else.
Dieter Rams (Author of Weniger, aber besser, which is German for “Less but better”) ⇒ almost everything is noise and almost nothing is essential.
The basic value proposition of Essentialism = “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.”
There are far more opportunities available to us than we have resources (time, energy, money, etc.) to invest in.
Most opportunities are trivial; few are vital.
Essentialism = learning how to filter the trivial to find the vital.
Essentialism is not about doing more or less; it is about directing your effort (e.g. time and energy) in a way to maximize its return on investment.
We cannot fit it all in ⇒ We have to grapple with real-trade offs and make tough decisions ⇒ this requires living a life by design, not by default.
The key is to determine where our highest points of contribution lie, then making it easy to execute on those things.
When you say yes to please others, you risk sacrificing what matters most to you.
If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.
When everything is important, nothing is.
Being selective buys you space ⇒ and in that space, you can find creative freedom.
Instead of inches of progress in 10 directions, make a giant leap in one.
In the short term, we are punished for saying no (feels bad) and rewarded for saying yes (feels good).
Paradox of success
The paradox of success ⇒ our success leads to new opportunities that distract us from what is essential to our ongoing success ⇒ It has four predictable phases:
Phase 1 ⇒ We achieve clarity of purpose which enables us to succeed.
Phase 2 ⇒ When we achieve success, our improved reputation generates more opportunities.
Phase 3 ⇒ When we have more opportunities, we get distracted.
Phase 4 ⇒ When we get distracted, we lose the clarity that enabled us to succeed in the first place.
In How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins suggests that many successful companies fail due to the “undisciplined pursuit of more” ⇒ This concept applies to people too.
In Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself, Peter Drucker wrote:
“In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time -- literally -- substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”
Two trends making essentialism more important today:
Too much choice ⇒ Today, we have too many choices ⇒ we’ve experienced an exponential explosion of personal freedom/choice over the last decade ⇒ we aren’t prepared to manage this choice. (“Decision fatigue” = the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.)
Too much social pressure ⇒ Our increased “connectedness” has increased the influence of social pressure on our decision-making ⇒ it’s information and opinion overload. In Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bronnie Ware shares this top regret: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
Essentialism leads to a life without regret ⇒ If you have correctly identified what really matters, if you invest your time and energy in it, then it is difficult to regret the choices you will make.
“You can have it all” is a myth.
The more choices you have, the more you have to manage yourself.
The more socially connected you are, the more you have to manage yourself.
The word priority is singular ⇒ It means the very first or prior things (Pluralizing priority is an attempt to bend reality ⇒ you can’t have multiple “first” things)
When you have more than one priority, you have no priority.
The three myths
Myth 1: You have to
Myth 2: It’s all important
Myth 3: I can do it all
The three realities:
Reality 1: You can choose
Reality 2: There is noise
Reality 3: There are trade-offs
Reality 1: You can choose
A choice is an action, not a thing ⇒ Options are things we choose from; a choice/decision is something you do.
We overemphasize our external options and underemphasize our internal ability to choose ⇒ We may not control our options, but we always control our choice between them.
The ability to choose cannot be taken away; it can only be forgotten ⇒ Options (things) can be taken away, but choice (free will) cannot.
There is evidence that we can develop “learned helplessness” ⇒ (See Martin Seligman and Steve Maier’s experiments on German shepherds) ⇒ When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless.
Choices are hard ⇒ they involve saying no (which can feel like a loss)
When you fail to make a choice, you give others the power to choose for you.
Reality 2: There is noise
Almost everything is noise, and a very few things are exceptionally valuable ⇒ as a result, you want to make sure you are avoiding noise / maximizing value.
Hard work is key to producing results, but there are diminishing returns to hard work ⇒ At a certain point, more effort causes our progress to plateau and even stall.
“Power law” theory ⇒ certain efforts produce exponentially more results than others.
Certain types of effort yield higher rewards than others ⇒ “Pareto Principle” (Vilfredo Pareto) says that 20 percent of our efforts produce 80 percent of results.
Joseph Moses Juran (author of the Quality-Control Handbook) ⇒ “the Law of the Vital Few” says you can massively improve the quality of a product by resolving a tiny fraction of the problems.
Distinguishing the “trivial many” from the “vital few” can be applied to every kind of human endeavor large or small
For example, Warren Buffett makes big bets on a few exceptional investment opportunities and says no to the many merely good ones. ⇒ In The Tao of Warren Buffett, Mary Buffett and David Clark explain:
“Warren decided early in his career it would be impossible for him to make hundreds of right investment decisions, so he decided that he would invest only in the businesses that he was absolutely sure of, and then bet heavily on them. He owes 90% of his wealth to just ten investments. Sometimes what you don’t do is just as important as what you do.”
The many good opportunities we pursue are often far less valuable than the few great ones.
Reality 3: There are trade-offs
Trade-offs are real in all aspects of life ⇒ we can try to avoid the reality of trade-offs, but we can’t escape them.
Trade-offs are hard to ignore because they involve two things we want.
Ignoring the reality of trade-offs is a terrible strategy ⇒ Michael Porter: “A strategic position is not sustainable unless there are trade-offs with other positions.” (Example: Southwest vs Continental).
As painful as they can sometimes be, trade-offs represent a significant opportunity ⇒ When we confront them, they force us to choose the best opportunity, which increases our chance of success.
The 3-step process for essentialism
Step 1: Explore
Step 2: Eliminate
Step 3: Execute
Step 1. Explore
The purpose of the exploration is to discern the vital few from the trivial many.
This requires a time investment in exploring, listening, debating, questioning, and thinking.
Systematically explore and evaluate a broad set of options before committing to any ⇒ Before you can confidently commit and “go big” on one or two ideas or activities, you must deliberately explore more options at first to ensure you pick the right one later.
By applying tougher criteria we can tap into our brain’s sophisticated search engine ⇒ use these three questions:
“What do I feel deeply inspired by?”
“What am I particularly talented at?”
“What meets a significant need in the world?”
In order to commit to less, you must consider more.
To fully explore your options and discern the vital few, you need the:
Space to think
Time to look and listen
Permission to play
Wisdom to sleep
Discipline to apply highly selective criteria to your choices.
Space to think
To find the vital few, you need to explore hundreds of questions and possibilities ⇒ this requires space for unencumbered thought.
Focus is not a thing; it is an action ⇒ To focus, you need to eliminate distraction.
This requires setting aside distraction-free time in a distraction-free space to do nothing other than think.
Examples:
Sir Isaac Newton ⇒ spent two years alone working on what became Principia Mathematica (his famous writings on universal gravitation and the three laws of motion) ⇒ Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation: “By thinking on it continually”
Greg McKeown ⇒ blocked off eight hours a day to write this book (5 am to 1 pm, five days a week. No email, no calls, no appointments, and no interruptions until after 1:00 P.M.)
Jeff Weiner ⇒ scheduled up to two hours of blank space on his calendar every day as the CEO of LinkedIn.
Bill Gates ⇒ takes a regular week off from his daily duties twice a year to think about the bigger picture and read.
The faster and busier things get, the more we need to build thinking time into our schedule.
The noisier things get, the more we need to build quiet reflection spaces in which we can truly focus.
Time to look and listen
In every set of facts, something essential is hidden ⇒ finding it involves exploring the facts and figuring out the relationships between them.
We cannot explore every single piece of information we encounter in our lives ⇒ Filter what to explore by:
Paying attention to the signal in the noise
Hearing what is not being said
Scanning to find the essence
Permission to Play
Play is anything we do simply for the joy of doing it rather than as a means to an end.
The majority of us were not formally taught how to play when we were children; we picked it up naturally and instinctively.
In school and work, we are taught that play is trivial ⇒ this is wrong. Play is essential.
When we play, we are engaged in the purest expression of our humanity, the truest expression of our individuality ⇒ we should celebrate play as a vital driver of creativity and exploration.
Some of our best memories are moments of play.
Play fuels exploration in at least three specific ways:
It broadens the range of options available to us through imagination.
It is an antidote to stress and helps us think more clearly.
It has a positive effect on the executive function of our brains by stimulating the parts of the brain involved in both logical reasoning and carefree exploration.
To play more, mine your past for play memories ⇒ What did you do as a child that excited you? How can you re-create that today?
Wisdom to Sleep
Sleep is a driver of peak performance ⇒ A good night’s sleep actually makes us more productive, not less.
One of the most common ways people damage themselves is through a lack of sleep.
When you are sleep deprived:
It is harder to think, plan, prioritize, or see the bigger picture
It is hard to make decisions or choices
It is nearly impossible to discern the essential from the trivial.
You should build sleep into your schedule ⇒ If we underinvest in ourselves (mind and body), we damage the primary tool we need to make our highest contribution.
Sleep protects your ability to prioritize.
Discipline to apply highly selective criteria to your choices.
Part of essentialism is saying no to good options so you can say yes to great options ⇒ this is hard.
To be selective, you must set narrow decision-making criteria ⇒ if it’s too broad, you will commit (i.e. say “yes”) to too many options.
Framework 1: Follow Derek Sivers HELL YEAH! Or No advice ⇒ if the answer isn’t a definite yes, it should be a no.
Framework 2: The 90 Percent Rule ⇒ Think about the most important criteria for a choice, then give each option a score from 0 to 100. Anything less than 90 is an automatic no.
If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.
It’s especially hard to say no to inbound opportunities ⇒ FOMO (the fear of missing out) takes over ⇒ for inbound opportunities, lean on your criteria.
A framework for deciding on inbound opportunities:
Write down the opportunity.
Write down the three minimum criteria the opportunity must pass in order to be considered ⇒ must pass all.
Write down a list of the three ideal or extreme criteria the opportunity must pass to be considered ⇒ must pass 2/3.
Step 2. Eliminate
The purpose of elimination is to cut out the trivial many.
It takes mental and emotional discipline to eliminate the nonessential ⇒ this means saying no to someone ⇒ which means pushing against social expectations/pressure.
You have to actively eliminate the nonessentials so you can make a higher level of contributions toward the things that matter ⇒ eliminate distractions?
Finding the discipline to say no to opportunities (especially the good ones) is really hard.
When you don’t say no, you are really saying yes by default.
Once you’ve explored your options, you should ask: “What activities will I say no to?” ⇒ this will uncover your true priorities.
Elimination of the nonessential requires you to:
Clarify your “essential intent”
Dare to say “no”
Uncommit from the nonessential
Edit to remove distractions
Limit distractions by setting boundaries
Clarify your “essential intent”
First, eliminate any activity that is not aligned with what you are intending to achieve.
This requires you to clarify your purpose.
When you lack clarity of purpose:
You get confused about what matters
You waste time and energy on the wrong things
You lose motivation
(In a team setting, lack of clarity of purpose leads to politicking and self-interest)
Essential intent = a concrete (measurable) and inspirational (meaningful) statement of purpose.
If you have a clear essential intent, it makes it easy to identify and eliminate nonessential options.
To create an essential intent answer two questions:
“If we could be truly excellent at one thing, what would it be?”
“How will we know when we’ve succeeded?”
Dare to say “no”
Have you ever felt the conflict between your internal conviction and an external action?
The right “no” at the right time can change the course of history / your life ⇒ Think Rosa Parks.
To eliminate, we must say no ⇒ this requires courage.
We fear saying no because we’re humans ⇒ as Human’s, we’re programmed to:
Worry we’ll miss out (“fear of missing out”)
Try not to disappoint people we care about and avoid social awkwardness (“normative conformity”)
(We often say “yes” without thinking due to how we are wired.)
When you are clear about what is essential, it makes it much easier for you to say no to nonessentials.
When you say “no”, say it firmly, resolutely, and gracefully ⇒ when we do this, people actually respect us more.
Peter Drucker’s famous no to Mihay Csikszentmihalyi is one great example of a graceful no. When Mihay requested an interview, Peter replied:
“I am greatly honored and flattered by your kind letter of February 14th—for I have admired you and your work for many years, and I have learned much from it. But, my dear Professor Csikszentmihalyi, I am afraid I have to disappoint you. I could not possibly answer your questions. I am told I am creative—I don’t know what that means…I just keep on plodding…I hope that you will not think me presumptuous or rude if I say that one of the secrets of productivity (in which I believe whereas I do not believe in creativity) is to have a VERY BIG waste paper basket to take care of ALL invitations such as yours—productivity in my experience consists of NOT doing anything that helps the work of other people but to spend all one’s time on the work that Good Lord has fitted one to do, and to do well.”
Here are some guidelines for saying no:
Separate the decision from the relationship ⇒ denying the request is not the same as denying the person (make this clear in your “no”).
You don’t have to say “no” to say no ⇒ There are many ways to decline without saying the word no (e.g. “I would like to, but I’m overcommitted at the moment”).
Focus on the trade-off ⇒ When you’re having trouble saying no, remind yourself what you would have to give up if you say yes.
Remind yourself that everyone is selling something ⇒ Everyone is selling something in exchange for your time; being aware of this helps you feel less guilty about saying no.
Be ok trading popularity for respect ⇒ When you say no, you trade short-term popularity for long-term respect (respect is more valuable than popularity in the long run).
Remember that a clear “no” is better than a vague “yes” ⇒ It’s much worse to string people along than being honest with them.
Here are eight ways to say “no”:
The awkward pause ⇒ helps you avoid an automatic yes; it may also cause the other person to modify the request.
The soft “no” (or the “no but”) ⇒ say no to the request, but not the person. “I can’t today, but I’d love to next month”
“Let me check my calendar and get back to you” ⇒ this helps you avoid an automatic yes.
Use email autoresponders ⇒ This can buy automatic nos for a period of time.
Yes, but what should I deprioritize? ⇒ This works especially well for a superior by forcing them to face the reality of your tradeoffs.
Say it with humor ⇒ This helps clarify the no is to the request and not the person.
“You are welcome to X. I am willing to Y.” ⇒ This is a way of negotiating the request to something you can say yes to.
“I can’t do it, but X might be interested.” ⇒ This is a no to the request, but a yes to the person.
Saying no is a leadership capability ⇒ learn the slow yes and the quick no.
Uncommit from the nonessential
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 (“sunk”) a cost that we cannot recoup ⇒ this makes it hard to get rid of them ⇒ and the more we invest; the harder it is to let go.
Sunk-cost bias can lead to a vicious cycle of distractions.
When an existing activity or effort is no longer essential, you must uncommit from it (no matter the sunk costs) ⇒ you must cut your losses.
To uncommit, ask yourself:
“If I weren’t already invested in this project, how much would I invest in it now?”
“What else could I do with this time or money if I pulled the plug now?”
Commitment guidelines and tips:
Beware the endowment effect ⇒ This is the tendency to undervalue things that aren’t ours and to overvalue things we already own.
Pretend you don’t own it yet ⇒ Ask “If I did not own this time, how much would I pay to obtain it?” Or ask “If I wasn’t already working on this, would I start it now?”
Get over the fear of waste ⇒ We are taught a “don’t waste” rule from childhood ⇒ this needs to be unlearned.
Admit failure ⇒ Admit you’ve made a mistake / avoid denial; this will allow you to move on.
Stop trying to force a fit ⇒ When things are consistently not going as you expect, it’s a sign you’re forcing it.
Get a neutral second opinion ⇒ When you’re emotionally invested, a third party can help you gain perspective.
Be aware of the status quo bias ⇒ This is the tendency to keep doing something simply because we have always done it.
Apply zero-based budgeting ⇒ This is the idea to start from zero and rebuild your priorities from scratch without inheriting pre-existing priorities.
Stop making casual commitments ⇒ We often make unnecessary/distracting commitments in offhand / in casual conversation.
Pausing before your commit ⇒ Pausing for 5 seconds can greatly reduce the risk of making commitments you’ll later regret
Get over the fear of missing out ⇒ One way to do this is to execute a “reverse pilot” ⇒ this is where you test whether removing an initiative or activity will have any negative consequences (i.e. quietly stop doing something and see what the impact is… you can always bring it back.)
Edit to remove distractions
Editing involves the strict elimination of the trivial, unimportant, or irrelevant.
A good editor makes it hard not to see what’s important because she eliminates everything but the elements that absolutely need to be there.
Jack Dorsey (who founded Twitter and Square) thinks of the CEO role as the chief editor of the company ⇒ “there are a thousand things we could be doing. But there are only one or two that are important”
A good editor uses “deliberate subtraction” to improve by removing anything distracting or unnecessary.
Four principles for editing:
Cut out options ⇒ cutting out options is the essence of decision-making (the Latin root of the word decision, “cis”, literally means “to cut” or “to kill”)
Condense ⇒ remove waste and noise.
Correct ⇒ compare activities to essential intent and fix them if they are misaligned
Edit less ⇒ know when to leave it be and not change it
Editing should be part of our daily routine.
Limit distractions by setting boundaries
Without limits, you become spread thinner and thinner ⇒ To maximize your productivity and focus, you must set boundaries.
Boundaries are a little like the walls of a sandcastle. The second we let one fall over, the rest of them come crashing down.
Boundaries are:
empowering/liberating
create rules in advance that eliminate the need for the direct “no”
Guidelines for setting boundaries:
Don’t rob people of their problems ⇒ Some people make their problems our problems ⇒ this can distract us from our purpose. When people try to use your time and energy for their own purpose, you need boundaries to protect yourself. Forcing people to solve their own problems is equally beneficial for you and for them (For more on this, see Henry Cloud’s book Boundaries)
Identify people who limit you ⇒ when we don’t set clear boundaries, we can end up imprisoned by the limits others have set for us. Can you think of someone who frequently pulls you off your most essential path?
Identify your deal breakers ⇒ Write down any time you resentful of someone’s request; these are clues that can help you discover your hidden boundaries.
Craft social contracts ⇒ When working with someone, get clear on what you are really trying to achieve along with what each of your boundaries are (i.e. what you each are willing / not willing to do)
Step 3. Execute
In this step, you want to remove the obstacles and make execution effortless ⇒ to do this, you need a system.
We have a choice: A) create a system to make execution easy, or B) allow execution to be hard.
Execution is easy if you work hard at it and hard if you work easy at it.
To make execution effortless, do the following:
Build in buffers for the unexpected
Identify and remove constraints
Start with small progress and celebrate it
Use the power of routines
Focus on the present
Don’t do essentialism; be an essentialist
Build in buffers for the unexpected
Buffer is an unfair advantage.
Buffer = something that prevents two things from coming into contact and harming each other ⇒ it reduces friction.
The “planning fallacy” is real ⇒ Daniel Kahneman coined this term to refer to people’s tendency to underestimate how long a task will take, even when they have actually done the task before. (Social pressure is one explanation for this ⇒ we don’t want to admit to others that we can’t do it in the allotted time.)
On average, things take longer to complete than the best-case scenario ⇒ something unexpected comes up, the task is bigger than anticipated, or you were too optimistic.
Without buffer:
Priorities bump up against each other and create friction ⇒ this leads to reactive work which is lower quality.
There is no room for error ⇒ this makes execution stressful, frustrating, and forced (i.e. not hard work; not easy work).
(E.g. When you are regularly late, you operate in a constant state of stress because of guilt.)
Solution = Accept the reality we can never fully anticipate or prepare for every scenario ⇒ the future is too unpredictable, so build in buffers to reduce the friction caused by the unexpected.
Tips for building in buffer:
Acknowledge the unexpected ⇒ What risks do we face on this project?
Practice extreme and early preparation ⇒ what is the worst-case scenario?
Use the good times to create buffer for the bad ⇒ don’t get too greedy when times are good
Add 50% to your time estimate ⇒ extra time left over will feel like a bonus
Identify and remove constraints
Use the “theory of constraints” ⇒ Every process has a constraint (bottleneck) and focusing on removing that constraint is the fastest and most effective path to improvement. (For more on this, see The Goal by Eli Goldratt)
Improvement by subtraction ⇒ Instead of focusing on the efforts and resources you need to add, focus on the constraints or obstacles you need to remove (This is hard… it is much easier/more natural to think of execution in terms of addition rather than subtraction.)
By systematically identifying and removing constraints, you can make execution easier by reducing friction.
Process for identifying and removing constraints:
Identify constraints to your essential intent ⇒ To do this, you need to be clear on your “essential intent”. Ask: “What are all the obstacles standing between me and getting this done?”
Identify the biggest constraint ⇒ Ask: “What is the obstacle that, if removed, would make the majority of other obstacles disappear?
Remove the biggest constraint ⇒ Focus on removing the biggest constraint; then repeat the process.
Removing obstacles does not have to be hard or be a superhuman effort ⇒ start small, and let the momentum build.
Start with small progress and celebrate it
Start small wins and build momentum; don’t start big and flame out.
Nonessentials go big on everything; trying to do it all, have it all, fit it all in ⇒ But, the more we reach for the stars, the harder it is to get off the ground ⇒ Instead, start small and celebrate small acts of progress ⇒ there is power in small wins.
Research (see The Power of Small Wins and One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?) has shown that of all forms of human motivation, the most effective one is progress ⇒ This is because small, concrete wins create momentum and affirm our faith in further success ⇒ This is counterintuitive (when we want to make a big change, we incorrectly default to thinking we need to do something big right away.)
There is power in steadiness and repetition ⇒ look for small changes you can make in the things you do often ⇒ Use the momentum from a small win to build a bigger win, and so on and so forth ⇒ Eventually a huge win seems like an overnight success.
Reverse the Stanford prison experiment (Dr. Phil Zimbardo) ⇒ when people were treated like prisoners and guards, they eventually started to act like prisoners and guards ⇒ when people are treated like winners, they eventually start to act like winners (apply this to yourself)
Create a small progress/reward system ⇒ the key is to start small, encourage progress, and celebrate small wins.
Repurpose the concept of a “minimum viable product” (What is the simplest possible product that will be useful and valuable to the intended customer?):
Adopt a method of “minimal viable progress” (What is the smallest amount of progress that will be useful and valuable to the essential task we are trying to get done?)
Do the minimal viable preparation (What is the minimal amount I could do right now to prepare?)
There are two opposing ways to approach an important goal or deadline:
Start early and small ⇒ start at the earliest possible moment with the minimal possible time investment. (e.g. taking 6 months to prep a speech)
State late and big ⇒ doing it all at the last minute: pulling an all-nighter and forcing it. (e.g. waiting until 1 week before the speech to start)
Visually reward progress ⇒ there is something powerful about seeing progress toward a goal ⇒ celebrating progress, no matter how small, reinforces progress ⇒ this makes execution more fun and satisfying.
Use the power of routines
Routines make execution easier.
An intentionally designed routine can make execution effortless; routines make doing the default priority.
Routines lead to execution on autopilot ⇒ we do without thinking about it ⇒ If you take the time to create a routine, all you have to do is follow it.
There is tons of research on the science of routines ⇒ With repetition, our brain master routines so the activity becomes second nature ⇒ this takes time and is awkward at first, but eventually, the brain takes over (see Plasticity in Neural Networks for more)
Charles Duhigg writes in The Power of Habit:
“The brain can almost completely shut down… And this is a real advantage, because it means you have all this mental activity you can devote to something else.”
“In the last 15 years, as we’ve learned how habits work and how they can be changed, scientists have explained that every habit is made up of a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue is the trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine—the behavior itself—which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular habit is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this loop—cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward—becomes more automatic as the cue and the reward become neurologically intertwined.”
According to researchers at Duke University, nearly 40% of our choices are deeply unconscious (see Habits—A Repeat Performance).
The wrong routines are an exercise in boredom. The right routines are an exercise in creativity.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (see Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention) ⇒ creative people use strict routines to free up their minds to concentrate on what matters most:
“Personalizing patterns of action helps to free the mind from expectations that make demands on attention and allows intense concentration on matters that count.”
Beware of bad routines ⇒ some routines may counterproductive and lead to nonessential habits.
Tips on routines:
Overhaul your cues ⇒ Identify cues that are triggering nonessential routines and find a way to associate each of those cues with something that is essential. This takes time and repetition to take effect.
Create new cues ⇒ Create new cues to trigger the execution of a desired routine.
Do the difficult thing first ⇒ Create a routine to complete your hardest task in the day first thing in the morning.
Mix up your routines ⇒ To avoid routine fatigue, mix it up. Create different routines for different days of the week. (Example: see Jack Dorsey’s 80-hour workweek.)
Tackle your routines one-by-one ⇒ Don’t try to overhaul or create more than one routine at a time.
Focus on the present
We often obsess over the past or stress about the future ⇒ but the key to effortless execution is to focus on the present ⇒ the past and the future distract from execution and reduce focus.
Execution is easy when you focus on the present ⇒ This requires tuning in to what is most important right now.
The ancient Greeks had two words for time:
“Chronos” ⇒ chronological or sequential time.
“Kairos” ⇒ a proper or opportune time for action.
Apply your full energy to the job at hand. Don’t diffuse efforts with distractions.
You can multitask, but you can’t multi-focus:
Multitasking = doing two things at the same time
Mult-focusing = concentrating on two things at the time
Tips for focusing on the present
Figure out what is most important ⇒ when you feel the stress of many competing tasks, take a step back and prioritize them by asking “what do you need to do to be able to sleep peacefully?”
Get competing tasks out of your head and off your to-do list ⇒ List those things that might be essential in the future but not right now and put them somewhere else and forget about them for now.
Pause to refresh ⇒ stop for a moment; close your eyes; breath in and out once: deeply and slowly. Then, refocus on the most important task.
Don’t do essentialism; be an essentialist
There are two ways of thinking about Essentialism:
Doing ⇒ thinking of it as something you do occasionally (another thing to do).
Being ⇒ thinking of it as something you are (the essence of who you are).
Choose to be an essentialist at your core ⇒ this helps you avoid the paradox of success.
Being an essentialist might be small at first ⇒ but your core will expand outwards and become more of you over time (with small wins and progress) ⇒ this is a personal journey.
Once you become an Essentialist, you will find that you aren’t like everybody else:
When other people are saying yes, you will find yourself saying no.
When other people are doing, you will find yourself thinking.
When other people are speaking, you will find yourself listening.
When other people are in the spotlight, vying for attention, you will find yourself waiting on the sidelines until it is your time to shine.
Essentialist principles for team leaders:
Be ridiculously selective on talent ⇒ One wrong hire often leads to multiple wrong hires because the wrong person will tend to attract more wrong people (Guy Kawasaki’s “Bozo explosion”); you need the discipline to hold out for the perfect hire.
Remove people who hold the team back ⇒ Don’t hesitate to remove people who hold the team back.
Define an essential intent ⇒ Debate until you have established an essential intent; this drives alignment and empowerment.
Communicate the right things to the right people at the right time ⇒ speak succinctly, opting for restraint to avoid distraction
Remove obstacles and enable wins for team members ⇒ this is much more of a gentle check-in process than an accountability meeting.
Jeff Weiner’s (former LinkedIn CEO) acronym FCS:
Fewer things done better
Communicating the right information to the right people
Speed and quality decision making
Random quotes referenced in the book
“The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” —Lin Yutang
“People are effective because they say ‘no,’ because they say, ‘this isn’t for me.’” —Peter Drucker
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” —Victor Hugo
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver
“It is the ability to choose which makes us human.” —Madeleine L’Engle
“My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.” —William James
“Most of what exists in the universe—our actions, and all other forces, resources, and ideas—has little value and yields little result; on the other hand, a few things work fantastically well and have tremendous impact” —Richard Koch
“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs. It’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” —Michael Porter
“You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.” —John Maxwell
“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” —Thomas Sowell
“Without great solitude no serious work is possible.” —Pablo Picasso
“Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” —T. S. Eliot
“A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” —Roald Dahl
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough” —Josh Billings
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free” —Michelangelo
“No is a complete sentence” —Anne Lamott
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe” —Attributed to Abraham Lincoln
“To attain knowledge add things every day. To attain wisdom subtract things every day.“ —Lao tzu
“Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow.” —Doug Firebaugh
“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.” —W. H. Auden
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” —Socrates
“In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.” —Lao Tzu
“It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day” —Henry David Thoreau