The book centers around Dieter Rams' essential quote, "Weniger, aber besser," which translates to "Less, but better." Essentialism focuses on prioritizing and accomplishing the most important tasks, rather than simply trying to do more tasks. As an NVH domain, I possess the expertise to effectively filter through noisy data and extract valuable insights from a given signal. Greg explains something similar regarding decision fatigue - the ability to filter what is important and what is not. Essentialism is like having a well-organized wardrobe for our lives. It's not just a one-time task, but a constant practice of making choices. It's a way to prioritize the truly valuable things over the many good ones. By doing less but better, we can maximize our outcomes and achieve the greatest rewards.
The model of non-essentialist vs essentialist is explained as :
All things to all people vs less but better
The undisciplined pursuit of more vs the disciplined pursuit of less
Lives a life that does not satisfy vs Lives a life that matters
The author included several powerful quotes; I've listed a few that resonated most with me. The book is divided into several sections, all of which I have detailed in my table.
1. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
2. If you don't prioritise your life, someone else will.
3. It is the ability to choose which makes us human.
4. The ability to choose cannot be taken away or given away - it can only be forgotten.
5. Most of what exists in the universe - our actions, and all other forces, resources, and ideas - has little value abd yields little result; on the other hand, a few things work fantastically well and have tremendous effect.
6. According to power law theory, certain efforts actually produce exponentially more results than others.
7. Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs. It's about deliberately choosing to be different.
8. Without great solitude no serious work is possible.
9. In order to have focus we need to escape to focus.
10. Where is the knowledge we have lost in information.
11. A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men.
12. Courage is grace under pressure.
13. Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.
14. No is a complete sentence.
15. Give me six hours to chop down a tree and i will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
16. Everyday do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow.
17. Routine, In an intelligent man is a sign of ambition.
Contents
Core Mind-set
Essence
Explore
Eliminate
Execute
Essentialist Mindset
The core mindset of an Essentialist is
1. Individual Choice - We can choose how to spend our energy and time.
2. The prevalence of noise - Almost it’s a noisy world, few things are valuable. The effort in finding those things is worth it.
3. The reality of trade-offs - We can’t have it all or do it all. The honest question to self is “Which problem do I want to solve”? Only a few things matter.
Essence
Choose: The invincible power of choice
We often encounter situations where we hold contradictory beliefs, such as thinking "I can't do this" while simultaneously feeling "I have to do this." Power to choose bit by bit until follow a path prescribed by another person?
Greg explains the psychology experiment devised by Martin and Maier called learned helplessness. It occurs when an individual continuously faces a negative, uncontrollable situation and stops trying to change their circumstances, even if they can do so. When we forget our ability to choose, we end up becoming a function of other people’s choices. The essentialist recognises the power of choice.
Discern: The unimportance of practically everything
Greg introduces the fictional character Boxer, the horse from the novel Animal Farm. Boxer is known for his hard work and his response to setbacks is always, "I will work harder." This raises the question: Are there limits to the value of hard work? Is there a point at which doing more no longer yields greater results? At a certain point, more effort causes progress to plateau and even stall. A smart person will adopt the idea of the “Pareto Principle”, that 20 % of our efforts should produce 80 % of results. With the essentialist approach, try to distinguish the vital few from the trivial many.
Trade-off: Which problem do I want?
Southwest Airlines in 1972 adopted a unique approach by offering point-to-point flights and allowing passengers to choose their seats in economy class. However, Continental Airlines attempted to replicate this strategy by lowering the fares, resulting in significant financial losses amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. This story serves as a reminder that disregarding the trade-offs involved can lead to disastrous consequences. An essentialist makes trade-offs deliberately. Ask yourself: What is the trade-off I want to make? What can I go big on? Trade-offs are not something to be ignored but something to be embraced and made strategically and thoughtfully.
Explore
Identifying the vital few ideas requires effort; narrowing down the many to the vital few is the path of an essentialist.
Escape: The perks of being unavailable
Essentialists choose to create the space to explore and ponder. At Stanford at the Institute of Design, there is a hiding place called “Booth Noir”, students can go there only to think. Greg mentions a few great works and how they were achieved. This section reminds me of the book "Deep Work," where Cal Newport describes scenarios in which people isolated themselves to accomplish significant tasks. Bill Gates follows a technique called "Think Week," where he sets aside a full week twice a year to read books on technology.
Look: See what really matters
Imagine the resourcefulness of journalists who methodically gather fragments of data, skillfully link them together, and unveil a panoramic view or a masterpiece. To grasp a narrative, one must delve into its core, comprehend the subject matter thoroughly, and make connections across various disciplines. Essentialist pays attention to signal in the noise and scan to find the essence of the information. Ask yourself what question are you trying to answer.
Play: Embrace the wisdom of your inner child
Imagine a newborn baby’s joy as a mother plays peekaboo. panksepp author of Affective Neuroscience writes “One thing is certain, during play, animals are prone to behave in flexible ways”. Newton was at play in his mind when he saw the apple tree and conceived of the force of gravity. Watson and Crick were playing with the shapes of the DNA molecule when they stumbled upon the double helix. Play doesn’t just help us to explore what is essential. It is essential in and of itself. Think of the event as a child what excited you? Can you recreate that today?
Sleep: Protect the Asset
Sleep is a driver of peak performance, breeds creativity and enables the highest levels of mental contribution. Our highest priority is to protect our ability to prioritise.
Select: The power of extreme criteria
TED speaker Derek describes a simple technique for becoming more selective in the choices we make. Greg outlines the 90% rule when making decisions, stating that if a decision does not meet a 90% approval rating, it should be automatically rejected and rated as 0. If it’s not a clear yes, then it’s a clear no. Being an essentialist, say yes to the top 10% of opportunities. For tougher decision-making, ask 3 questions: What am I deeply passionate about, what taps my talent and what meets a significant need in the world? The author quotes Enric Sala who changed his profile from professor to global scale policy changer.
Eliminate
Clarify: One decision that makes a thousand
To move from "pretty clear" to "really clear," we must eliminate any activity that is misaligned with what we intend to achieve. In an organization, when working teams are clear about their purpose and roles, their momentum and team dynamics become cumulative, contributing to the team's overall success. First, establish what an essential intent (meaningful and memorable) is not.
Make a 2×2 matrix
Top left: vision and mission statements.
Bottom left: Commonly used values such as leadership, innovation, and teamwork often lack specificity and fail to ignite genuine enthusiasm
Bottom right: shorter-term quarterly objectives
Top right: An essential intent that one decision settles 1,000 later decisions.
Consider what we could excel at if we focused on just one thing. Developing a core purpose requires courage, vision, and anticipation to identify the actions that align with our greatest impact. This process involves challenging ourselves, prioritizing effectively, and maintaining focus by eliminating distractions that deviate from our main goal.
Dare: The power of a graceful no
Saying no is a leadership quality
Have you experienced a conflict between your personal beliefs and external influences pushing you in a different direction? This battle between inner values and outside pressures requires courage to navigate. The ability to prioritize what truly matters empowers us to reject distractions and stay true to ourselves. Here are the eight responses that make up the "no" repertoire: i) The awkward pause, ii) the soft no, iii) let me check my calendar and get back to you, iv) using email automatic replies, v) Say, “yes”, what should i deprioritise?, vi) Say it with humour, vii)Use the words “You are welcome to X, I am willing to Y, and viii) I can’t do it, bu X might be interested.
Uncommit: Win big by cutting your losses
Greg explains the psychological phenomenon called sunk-cost bias. The Sunk Cost Fallacy is our tendency to persist with something we've already invested heavily in (whether it be time, money, effort, emotional energy, etc.), even when it’s clear that giving up would be a better decision. To come out of that, I think about what else I could do with this time or money if I pulled the plug now. Greg has given a few tips to avoid commitment traps. e.g Beware of the endowment effect - a tendency to undervalue things that are not ours and to overvalue things because we already own them. To fight fear, run a reverse pilot - In a reverse pilot you test whether removing an initiative or activity will have any negative consequences. Uncommiting can indeed be harder, yet learning how to do so in a way that will garner you respect for your courage, focus, and discipline - is crucial to becoming an Essentialist.
Edit: The invisible art
Film editing is sometimes known as the “invisible art”. The essentialist way of thinking is to make things better by subtracting/condensing/shortening something.
Limit: The freedom of setting boundaries
In the working world, people try to use our sprinklers to water their grass all the time. This may come in the form of a boss who puts you on a committee for her pet project, a colleague who asks for your input etc. Boundaries are a source of liberation and it is important to convey that you have limits and need to set rules in advance that eliminate the need for the direct “no”.
Execute
How can we make doing the vital few things almost effortless? There are two ways of thinking about execution. While non-Essentialist tend to force execution, essentialists invest the time they have saved by eliminating the non-essentials.
Buffer: The unfair advantage
From chemistry we know that gases expand to fill the space they are in; similarly, we’ve all experienced how projects and commitments tend to expand-despite our best efforts-to fill the amount of time allotted to them. It is essential to put buffer for unexpected events. The phenomenon described below is planning fallacy that means tendency to underestimate how long a task will take, even when they have actually done the task before.
Essentialists accept the reality that we can never prepare for every scenario, the future is fully unpredictable. Insted. lets put buffer to reduce friction caused by the unexpected.
Subtract: Bring forth more by removing obstacles
Essentialist removes obstacle to progress by identifying the “Slowest hiker”.
Progress: The power of small wins
Celebrating small acts of progress can have a profound impact on achieving big results. This approach leverages the power of incremental improvement and positive reinforcement. Greg introduces a token system for kids: At the beginning of each week, children receive ten tokens. Each token can be traded for either 30 minutes of screen time or 50 cents at the end of the week, allowing them to earn up to $5 or 5 hours of screen time weekly. Additionally, if a child reads a book for 30 minutes, they earn an extra token, which can also be exchanged for screen time or money. This system resulted in a 90% reduction in screen time.
Flow: The Genius of Routine
Design a routine that enshrines what is essential, making execution almost effortless
Focus: What’s important now?
Greg often mentions the concepts of Chronos and Kairos, where Chronos represents the quantitative aspect and Kairos represents the qualitative aspect. Kairos is a state that can only be truly experienced when we are fully present in the moment, completely immersed in the flow of life. The essentialist's approach is to align their life with the essence of Kairos, embracing the richness and depth it offers.
Be: The Essentialist Life
Living a life that really matters
Unlock the potential of simplicity by questioning what is truly important and discarding all else. If you're prepared to delve into your inner self, you're ready to embark on the journey of the essentialist.