The briefest of summaries:
…almost everything is noise.
Less but better.
Notes
Chapter 1
by being selective he bought himself space, and in that space he found creative freedom.
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.
Less but better The disciplined pursuit of less but better
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.
one big decision to prevent a thousand tiny decisions
learn to make one-time decisions that make a thousand future decisions
Living by design, not by default The path of being in control of our own choices
If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will
choice is overwhelming
the preponderance of choice has overwhelmed our ability to manage it.
+opinion overload
we find ourselves making trade-offs at the margins that we would never take on as our intentional strategy.
ways to get essential
- explore and evaluate
- eliminate
- execute
Instead of forcing execution… invest the time they have saved into creating a system for removing obstacles and making execution as easy as possible.
Chapter 2
3 core truths
- I choose to (NOT I have to)
- Only a few things really matter (NOT It’s all important)
- I can do anything but not everything (NOT I can do it all)
A choice is an action. An option is a thing - external. Choice - action - internal. You often can’t control your options but you can always control your choices. Unless you forget…
My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will. —William James
Learned helplessness ⮕ giving away our power to choose
becoming a function of other people’s choices.
Chapter 3
Discern the unimportance of practically everything
certain types of effort yield higher rewards than others
80/20 pareto principle and the law of the vital few (joseph moses juran) #p
You could massively improve the quality of a product by resolving a tiny fraction of the problems.” 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.
Chapter 4
Trade offs You can’t escape them so make them deliberate.
Chapter 5
Escape You can’t figure out what is essential if you’re constantly on call “Thinking on it continually” - Newton
deliberately setting aside distraction-free time in a distraction-free space to do nothing other than think.
and time to read
Chapter 6
Look figure out the point. What does it mean? Why does it matter? Quarterly - read journal and focus on the broader patterns / trends
Chapter 7
Play Sparks ideas, curiosity, imagination development of cognitive skills
- helps us see more options
- antidote to stress
- positive effect on executive function of brain
Chapter 8
Sleep
the best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves.
Do NOT let your type A instincts take over. Boundaries protect us from our own extremes
the real challenge for the person who thrives on challenges is NOT to work hard
Sleep is really important.
Chapter 9
Select The power of extreme criteria Hell yes or Fuck No ⮕ back to Sivers, Derek - Anything You Want the 90% rule - determine the single most important criterion for the decision, give it a 0-100 scale, and drop everything below 90% 89% = 0 Selective and Explicit Numerical values to our options > vague, subjective scoring - not helpful Lack of criteria undermines PURPOSE.
Highlights: 📖 McKeown - Essentialism