Last updated April 10, 2022

Status:: #literature/books/finished Author:: Medium:: { Books MOC Tags:: Links: { Essentialism Application

{ Essentialism

Outline

Essence is the core mindset

• Individual choice and how we spend our energy/time
• Prevalence of noise/non-valuable things
• Evaluating trade-offs Steps
• Explore and evaluate
  • Ask questions to filter importance and find potential elements of elimination
    • Tougher criteria means tougher evaluation and searching for the best focus
    • ex) Is this most important to my goal?
• Eliminate
  • need to continue narrowing it down
  • saying no to social pressures
• Execute
  • After knowing your categories and focus, find a system to keep maintenance and future prioritization effortless
  • More about removing to reduce friction rather than adding

Part I: Essence: What is the core mind-set of an Essentialist?

Terms

• Decision fatigue
  • More decisions we’re forced to make, worse the quality becomes

1

Essentialist Mindset

“I choose to,” “Only a few things really matter,” and “I can do anything but not everything.”

• Really probe things and see if they’re essential

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

• Almost everything is noise, and few things are essential

Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.

• Instead of having multiple responsibilities, you only focus on one

  Essentialists spend as much time as possible exploring, listening, debating, questioning, and thinking

• Helps enjoy the journey as well as we are happy with what our path is

If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.

• We need to put ourselves as our number one priority, or else we’ll be sucked in by the temptations and trivial obligations of the world
• Boss, parents, social expectations will tell us

Essential vs Non

• Thinks
  • Choice vs responsibility
  • Less vs more
  • Priorities vs all equally important
• Does
  • Consciously chosen vs impulsive
• Gets
  • Carefully chosen commitments and great work vs too much half-assed work
  • In control vs not
  • Knows whats important vs unsure of progress

Paradox of success

Success results in praise and valid skill, which may influence us to branch out more and take on more responsibilities. Unfortunately, that means our energy begins to be spread out, and we lose the focus that helped us make such progress.

2. CHOOSE: The Invincible Power of Choice

The ability to choose cannot be taken away or even given away—it can only be forgotten.

• Don’t control our options but we control our choice

3. DISCERN: The Unimportance of Practically Everything

• 80/20 rule
• All decent things currently are not as important as focusing on the one that truly is

4. TRADE-OFF: Which Problem Do I Want?

Example

• Southwest airlines was willing to remove priority seating, meals, etc to solely focus on being the cheapest airline

Trade-offs are not something to be ignored or decried. They are something to be embraced and made deliberately, strategically, and thoughtfully.

• Always be firm of what trade-offs you are willing to make
• Instead of having to ask how we can achieve both, accept the trade-offs and choose the best option
  • Gives us time to see which outcome is more important

Part II: Explore: How can we discern the trivial many from the vital few?

5. ESCAPE: The Perks of Being Unavailable

• Essentialism grants us time and space to escape and explore life when others may be too busy to think things through from a higher perspective

An Essentialist focuses the way our eyes focus; not by fixating on something but by constantly adjusting and adapting to the field of vision.

the faster and busier things get, the more we need to build thinking time into our schedule. And the noisier things get, the more we need to build quiet reflection spaces in which we can truly focus.

Blank space helps us

• Concentrate
  • CEO of linkedin puts 4 30-min blocks of blank time every day

    He sees it as the primary way he can ensure he is in charge of his own day, instead of being at the mercy of it.

    • Uses the time to think of essential questions
      • vision, improvements, changes
      • emotionally recharge
• Read

  In other words, twice a year, during the busiest and most frenetic time in the company’s history, he still created time and space to seclude himself for a week and do nothing but read articles (his record is 112) and books, study technology, and think about the bigger picture. Today he still takes the time away from the daily distractions of running his foundation to simply think.

  • That’s what im doing right now lmao, at least it’s not deemed as a “waste of time”, doesn’t this somewhat go against essentialism though?

  It broadens my perspective and reminds me of themes and ideas that are essential enough to have withstood the test of time.

6. LOOK: See What Really Matters

• Much like how good journalists play around to find what truly matter
• Important if clarity and overwhelm is an issue
• Hear what is not being said
• Write a journal but with less than you intend to write
  • once every ninety days or so you take an hour to read your journal entries from that period
    • focus on trends, changes

7. PLAY: Embrace the Wisdom of Your Inner Child

• Playing is important for an essentialist as it leads to brain plasticity, adaptability, and creativity
  • Schools no longer enforce it :(
  • Animals are more flexible and creative during play

Play and exploration

• Helps broaden range of options and ideas
• Antidote to stress, which kills creativity

Play is inherently essential

• Think of what you’d do before

8. SLEEP: Protect the Asset

• Sleep is the most common way for people to harm their most valuable asset which is themselves
• Essentialist knows the importance of sleep in productivity

pulling an all-nighter (i.e., going twenty-four hours without sleep) or having a week of sleeping just four or five hours a night actually “induces an impairment equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.1%. Think about this: we would never say, ‘This person is a great worker! He’s drunk all the time!’ yet we continue to celebrate people who sacrifice sleep for work.”

• Sleep’s essential effects stem from the brain, not body
• Google sleep pods are 20 minutes

9. SELECT: The Power of Extreme Criteria

• If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no
  • Have high, harsh criteria
    • When finding a new employee, ask if they have the qualities to be one of the original founders, or if you’d want to work with them every day
• Question criteria based on yourself, not other people

90% Rule

• Make a scale from 1-10, and only accept things that are 9+

Part III: Eliminate: How can we cut out the trivial many?

10. CLARIFY: One Decision That Makes a Thousand

What happens when there is a lack of clarity?

• Different parties make their own personal views and rules which lead to conflict
• There is no main direction, so everything seems decent

Essential Intent

Essential intents are one decision we make that help decide future ones

• Bland vs inspirational
  • Teamwork vs wanting to change the world
• General vs concrete
  • improve vs 5% increase in 6 days

!Pasted image 20220310150836.png

!00022.jpeg

11. DARE: The Power of a Graceful “No”

• Rosa parks
• Stephen Covey staying true to his daughter’s wishes for a nice night in San Francisco
• Main obstacle for saying no is social awkwardness
  • Just say no firmly but gracefully, people respect us more because of it
    • People respect the courage to say no
    • Say no indirectly by stating your reason

Ways to say no

• Pause then say no
• No but we can do x instead
• Delay it by asking to check calendar, then give a response
• Email auto-response
• “Yes, what should I deprioritize?”
• Say it with humour
• Say what you’re willing to offer instead
• I can’t do it, but x might
• Refer to sunk cost fallacy
  • Essentialists has courage to admit mistakes and uncommit, no matter the sunk costs
• Endowment effect
  • We don’t value things that aren’t ours, and we overvalue things that we own
    • To counteract, pretend we didn’t own our items/opportunities
      • “If I didn’t already own/start this, how much would I be willing to pay?”
• Admitting mistakes is a form of uncommitment
• Zero-based budgetting
  • Start fresh with no responsibilities, then add on
    • Can apply to time or budgetting
• Stop making casual commitments, keep decisions intentional
• Pause before you speak to prevent impulsivity
• Countering FOMO
  • What things can you cut out that don’t have a big effect in the long term?

13. EDIT: The Invisible Art

• Being a CEO is like being the chief editor of a company

  “By editorial I mean there are a thousand things we could be doing. But there [are] only one or two that are important. And all of these ideas … and inputs from engineers, support people, designers are going to constantly flood what we should be doing.… As an editor I am constantly taking these inputs and deciding the one, or intersection of a few, that make sense for what we are doing.”

  • Don’t just say no, but subtracts to emphasize what’s already there
• Condense, cut out things that aren’t super impactful
• Observe before taking action and editing

14. LIMIT: The Freedom of Setting Boundaries

• As soon as we let one boundary fall, the rest follow
• Essentialists view boundaries as empowering to help retain focus and direct our no’s
• Don’t rob people of their problems, especially if you need it yourself

Part IV: Execute: How can we make doing the vital few things almost effortless?

15. BUFFER: The Unfair Advantage

A “buffer” can be defined literally as something that prevents two things from coming into contact and harming each other. — location: 1951 ^ref-53892

The Essentialist looks ahead. She plans. She prepares for different contingencies. — location: 1988 ^ref-40131

Builds in a buffer for unexpected events — location: 1992 ^ref-4373

In filtering out 7 companies from 20,400, the authors found that the ones that executed most successfully did not have any better ability to predict the future than their less successful counterparts. Instead, they were the ones who acknowledged they could not predict the unexpected and therefore prepared better. — location: 2023 ^ref-3113

This implies that often we actually know we can’t do things in a given time frame, but we don’t want to admit it to someone. — location: 2045 ^ref-14109

So if you have an hour set aside for a conference call, block off an additional thirty minutes. If you’ve estimated it will take ten minutes to get your son to soccer practice, leave the house fifteen minutes before practice begins. — location: 2050 ^ref-12947

16. SUBTRACT: Bring Forth More by Removing Obstacles

The question is this: What is the “slowest hiker” in your job or your life? What is the obstacle that is keeping you back from achieving what really matters to you? By systematically identifying and removing this “constraint” you’ll be able to significantly reduce the friction keeping you from executing what is essential. — location: 2098 ^ref-19651

An Essentialist produces more—brings forth more—by removing more instead of doing more. — location: 2120 ^ref-44654

When identifying your “slowest hiker,” one important thing to keep in mind is that even activities that are “productive”—like doing research, or e-mailing people for information, or rewriting the report in order to get it perfect the first time around—can be obstacles. Remember, the desired goal is to get a draft of the report finished. Anything slowing down the execution of that goal should be questioned. — location: 2134 ^ref-18441

17. PROGRESS: The Power of Small Wins

Research has shown that of all forms of human motivation the most effective one is progress. Why? Because a small, concrete win creates momentum and affirms our faith in our further success. — location: 2202 ^ref-22098

of all time, Frederick Herzberg reveals research showing that the two primary internal motivators for people are achievement and recognition for achievement. — location: 2205 ^ref-878

We can ask ourselves, “What is the smallest amount of progress that will be useful and valuable to the essential task we are trying to get done?” — location: 2250 ^ref-60293

share a short idea (my minimal viable product) on Twitter. If it seemed to resonate with people there, I would write a blog piece on Harvard Business Review. Through this iterative process, which required very little effort, I was able to find where there seemed to be a connection between what I was thinking and what seemed to have the highest relevancy in other people’s lives. — location: 2252 ^ref-27856

DO THE MINIMAL VIABLE PREPARATION — location: 2260 ^ref-61599

18. FLOW: The Genius of Routine

• Essentialists use routines to make the essential steps to success effortless and frictionless
• Makes it the default in their lives

as we repeatedly do a certain task the neurons, or nerve cells, make new connections through communication gateways called “synapses.” With repetition, the connections strengthen and it becomes easier for the brain to activate them. For example, when you learn a new word it takes several repetitions at various intervals for the word to be mastered. To recall the word later you will need to activate the same synapses until eventually you know the word without consciously thinking about it.

• Should probably start reviewing for school then lmao
• Although routines may seem repetitive and boring, they allow for more energy by spending less energy on repeated decisions
  • Do what you’re comfortable with before starting something creative so you can solely focus on the task at hand
• Consider having a theme for each week that you focus on
  • Not really applicable yet as school should be main focus but w/e
• flow is being mindful bruh

19. FOCUS: What’s Important Now?

“What’s important now?”

• Prevents from dwelling on the past
• Stay self-aware
• chronos in greek was time, quantitative
• kairos is time, qualitative, and is only experienced when we exist in the now
• Multitasking is okay, but multifocusing isn’t

Being mindful and in the now

• Figure out what’s most important
• Don’t let past/future occupy your mind
  • Acknowledge, then go back
  • Write down future possibilities, free up mental space
• Prioritize

“Suppose you are drinking a cup of tea. When you hold your cup, you may like to breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, and you become fully present. And when you are truly there, something else is also there—life, represented by the cup of tea. In that moment you are real, and the cup of tea is real. You are not lost in the past, in the future, in your projects, in your worries. You are free from all of these afflictions. And in that state of being free, you enjoy your tea. That is the moment of happiness, and of peace.”

• Keep track of kairos moments and use them as transitions between environments or check ups

20. BE: The Essentialist Life

• Don’t just practice essentialism, be an essentialist
  • Complete identity change that acts as more than just a mere characteristic/extra commitment

When we look back on our careers and our lives, would we rather see a long laundry list of “accomplishments” that don’t really matter or just a few major accomplishments that have real meaning and significance?

The life of an Essentialist is a life of meaning. It is a life that really matters. When I need a reminder of this I think of a story. It is about a man whose three-year-old daughter died. In his grief he put together a video of her short little life. But as he went through all of his home videos he realized something was missing. He had taken video of every outing they had gone on and every trip they had taken. He had lots of footage—that wasn’t the problem. But then he realized that while he had plenty of footage of the places they had gone—the sights they had seen, the views they had enjoyed, the meals they had eaten, and the landmarks they had visited—he had almost no close-up footage of his daughter herself. He had been so busy recording the surroundings he had failed to record what was essential.

• Takeaways: family is most important

The life of an Essentialist is a life lived 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 make. You become proud of the life you have chosen to live. Will you choose to live a life of purpose and meaning, or will you look back on your one single life with twinges of regret? If you take one thing away from this book, I hope you will remember this: whatever decision or challenge or crossroads you face in your life, simply ask yourself, “What is essential?” Eliminate everything else.

Backlinks

1

list from { Essentialism AND !outgoing({ Essentialism)

References:

Created:: 2022-03-09 14:03