"Essentialism". Book in 15 minutes

The advent of the new year is a good reason to start a new life. Do more sports, read more, develop culturally, find a vocation, start a business. Often the main reason that stops us on the path of change is not laziness, not the lack of opportunities, but the choice of a single path from a huge variety of options. Unlimited possibilities have a downside: it is psychologically difficult for people to choose one thing, abandoning the rest. Many prefer to live, trying to sit on two chairs, but in the end do not succeed in anything.

It is about overcoming this problem that Greg McKeon’s book Essentialism. The path to simplicity ", a brief statement of ideas which we want to share with you.
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So ... What is “essentialism”?

“ Wisdom is to remove all that is unimportant from your life. ”
Lin Yutan

Less but better

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We live in an accelerating world. We are used to working in multitasking mode and we believe that we can cope with several things at the same time. It seems that the environment leaves no other choice.

Almost without interruption, we are attacked by advertising, we are accustomed to the incessant flow of dubious information and a constant sense of employment. Despite all the achievements of technology, which are designed to facilitate our lives, more and more people complain of constant stress, fatigue and health problems.

The cabinets are clogged with clothes, but we cannot choose what to wear. Bookshelves are full of books, but we don’t know which one to read. Thousands of opportunities open up before us, but we don’t know which one to choose.

In his book Essentialism, Greek McKeon analyzes many of the characteristic tendencies of our time — eternal haste, multitasking, excessive consumption, inability to concentrate. As a way out of this vicious circle, he proposes to abandon all redundant (and therefore unnecessary) and choose the path of the essentialist.

Essence of essentialism

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An essentialist is a person who, in all disciplined ways, adheres to the principle “less but better”. Essentialism teaches efficiency, but this is not time management, it does not help you do more things in less time. To become an essentialist is to learn to invest your energy only in the most correct and useful activities for yourself, abandoning the rest even in spite of the fact that they may seem interesting and promising.

“The Essentialist constantly asks himself the question:“ Is this what I'm doing? ”. There are so many opportunities and deeds in the world that we don’t have enough time or resources for everything. And may many of them seem interesting to us, only a few really needed. The path of the essentialist teaches us to see what is really important, that is, to consider all existing options and choose only the most valuable ones. ”

Usually, people want to use all available opportunities, for fear of missing some of them. But this approach leads to the fact that they disperse their efforts and do not succeed in anything.

Greg McKeon became an essentialist after he could not refuse to meet with a client, while his wife was waiting for him with a newborn daughter. He not only missed the precious moment of life, but the meeting with the client was useless.

Since then, Greg McKeon has devoted a lot of time to studying the question of why people can not give up senseless little things and do not pay attention and time to the really important things.

Why do we say yes when we should say no?

The explanation is a psychological trap - people do not like to refuse, it is unpleasant, we are afraid to appear unpleasant to others. In our society, improper behavior in the form of consensus is encouraged and correct in the form of dissent is condemned. When we need someone or something to refuse, we experience severe discomfort and try to avoid it by agreeing to do those things that we really don’t want.

Why do we prefer to have more and discard simplicity?

Our time is an era of great opportunities. On the one hand, it seems that it is good. On the other - people just get lost in them, being unable to choose their own path and separate the important from the minor.

The number of ways in which people express their opinions has simply become enormous (mainly due to the Internet). This increases the social pressure that makes people more dependent on other people's opinions.

Promoted in popular culture and advertising, the installation “you can get everything if you want,” because of which our expectations from life become inflated. We include in our and so crowded schedules additional classes and activities, and we bring up children in the same spirit.

An interesting fact: in the definition of "priority tasks" lies irony, which is incomprehensible to modern man. Previously, the English word “priority”, which meant the singular and most important thing, did not have a plural number. And only in the twentieth century this word began to be used in the plural (including in Russian), talking about "priorities."

However, all these endless possibilities have a downside. If we grab at each of them, we cannot determine what is important to us. As a result, we do not pay attention to the most important.

"When we try to do everything we can, we very often find ourselves where we would never have been of our own free will."

Essentialism offers an alternative path consisting of three steps:

1. Evaluate and investigate

Adherence to essentialism presupposes an amazing paradox - essentialists consider and analyze more choices than other people who tend to agree on everything. Here lies the systematic approach and the discipline of the essentialist - to study everything in such a way as to make a truly correct choice.
It is also important with what criteria we approach our choice. If we are simply looking for opportunities, we will be overwhelmed with them. And if we ask ourselves specifically about what we like best and what works best, we will reduce the number of options and be able to choose the best from them.

2. Refuse unnecessary

Consent often expresses our desire to please people and benefit. But we must admit that this approach too often hinders our effectiveness. To become an essentialist, one must find the strength to cope with the pressure of public opinion and learn to say no to people.

3. Act

For a non-essentialist, the task process seems difficult, tedious and stressful. The essentialist sees it in a completely different way. Instead of forcing himself to do something every time, he invests his free time in creating a system that allows him to overcome obstacles and carry out things with less effort.

Greg McKeon identifies three distinguishing characteristics of an essentialist:

1. Personal choice.
Essentialist consciously decides on what matters to spend their time and energy.

2. Understanding that almost everything is noise.
For the essentialist, only a little is really important, and all the rest is noise.

3. Understanding the value of compromise.
Essentialist realizes that no one can do everything and get an excellent result.

How do these characteristics appear?

Personal choice

An Essentialist understands that he cannot control existing alternatives, but he has the freedom to control his choice between alternatives.

Why do we forget about choosing? Greg McKeon believes that the reason is the effect of learned helplessness.
Learned helplessness can manifest itself in two ways: either we stop trying to do something, or, conversely, grab everything.

The effect of this effect was demonstrated by a well-known scientific experiment in which dogs in closed enclosures were electrocuted. As a result, the dogs stopped trying to avoid electric shocks even when the cages were opened.
Of course, making a choice is difficult and inconvenient. But this is the essence of the essentialist.

If we do not make a choice, then we learn our own powerlessness. If we do not choose, then someone chooses for us.
Understanding that almost everything is noise.

Sometimes people work so much that they have no time to even think. An essentialist, not excluding the importance of labor and effort, will always try to work less, but more effectively. The essentialist knows that the relationship between effort and result is not linear.
In harmony with this idea is the famous Pareto Act (principle 80/20). It means that 20 percent of the effort gives 80 percent of the result and vice versa.

Understanding that almost everything is noise

“The Essentialist thinks that almost everything is not important. The non-essentialist thinks that almost everything is important. ”

The Essentialist knows that only a few efforts bring much better results than others. Therefore, he devotes a lot of time to a comprehensive analysis of available alternatives and thinks more to achieve results with less effort.

Understanding the value of tradeoffs and concessions

For most people, the desire to sit on two chairs at once is typical. But in life it is impossible to watch the program at the same time and have time for a meeting, you need to make a choice.

Of course, the choice may be much more difficult, but this does not change the essence: the choice must be made. By concession or compromise, Greg McKeon understands what confronts our two desires: “Do you want more money or free time? Do you want to add a letter or have a meeting? Do you want to do it faster or better? ”. You can not say yes to both alternatives.

The non-essentialist approaches this from the position: “How can I get everything?”. The essentialist treats concessions as an integral part of life. He chooses consciously, deciding what is more important to achieve his goals.

The main question of the essentialist:

“What do I want to achieve?”

Let us consider in more detail the three steps listed above on the path to essentialism (explore, eliminate / get rid of unnecessary, act):

Explore

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How to select the grains important from the mass unnecessary?

As noted above, there is a paradox of essentialism - its adherents consider more options and alternatives and take a more serious approach to their choice compared to other people who are willing to accept all the possibilities that appear.

What helps essentialists to highlight the most significant?

1. Space for thought and time for observation.
It means learning how to include time in your schedule and create conditions for concentration and deep reflection on things. The larger your project, the more time to think about it should be provided.

2. Permission to play.
Many consider the game a waste of time. However, scientific studies prove that the game is a necessary part of human nature. The game is an indispensable tool for an essentialist, as it stimulates research and reflection, reduces stress, promotes a new look at alternatives and improves the performance of the executive and analytical functions of the brain.

3. Full sleep.
Our main asset is ourselves, but usually we forget about it. One of the common ways to endanger this asset is lack of sleep, which is usually what busy and active people do. Such inattention to the main asset can result in serious problems.

Researches prove that high-grade sleep increases work efficiency, therefore, it is extremely silly to regard sleep as an obstacle hindering round-the-clock work.

Essentialists systematically and consciously embed sleep in their schedule in order to be able to achieve more.
Anders Erikson’s famous violinist study, in which it became known that the best violinists are different from the mediocre ones, that they exercise more and work out more than 10,000 hours of practice, also mention the fact that the best violinists sleep more (8, 6 hours a day).

Choice - the ability to apply strict criteria of essentialism in all situations of choice.

Essentialists approach the analysis of alternatives and opportunities, having strict criteria. Often they use the principle “If it is not obvious that this is yes, then it’s absolutely true that this is no.”

In situations of dilemma and choice, Greg McKeon proposes using the 90% rule:

“When you evaluate an option, think about the most important criterion and rate it on a scale from 0 to 100. If an event gets a rating below 90, drop it.
This will help you to avoid indecision when choosing alternatives with ratings from 60 to 70 ".

This rule teaches to make a choice consciously and rationally, and not impulsively and emotionally. It also brings toughness and courage to give up good, but not the best alternatives.

Applying strict selection criteria, we improve the work of the search mechanism of our brain, focusing only on the best options.

Game, sleep, space, and time to think - all this seems unclear to most people, because they usually see these things as a waste of time or a nice addition to their main activity.

However, as Greg McKeon notes:

“If it seems to you that permanent employment and fatigue are indicators of productivity, then surely you set aside a minimum of time for yourself to think or explore something new. Nevertheless, it is reasoning and reflection that are the means against excessive stress, to which many are exposed. These are not at all distractions. On the contrary, only with their help one can understand what really distracts us from the goal. ”

Eliminate

How do we get rid of the trivial majority?

For an essentialist, it is not enough just to decide which matters are appropriate. Need to get rid of unnecessary cases.
How to get rid of the insignificant in order to direct energy to important matters?

1. From approximate clarity to absolute

“The goal is clear enough” is an inappropriate formulation for an essentialist and, in general, for any effective person. The goal must be very clear. This is a pledge of how people will do their work. Motivation and cooperation fade into the background if the goal is unclear.

When companies lack clarity in setting goals, people act by two patterns of behavior:

A. The game of politics. Employees direct all forces to look better in the eyes of managers than their colleagues. This happens in personal life: when goals and values ​​are missing, we try to impress others through social networks, status items, etc.

B. “Everything is good (and really bad)”. In this case, the employee directs forces to achieve short-term goals, without thinking about the long-term consequences. “Similarly, when a particular person is engaged in many disparate cases — even if they are good — he may fail in an attempt to achieve the main goal.”

How to achieve clarity at work and in personal life?

The author proposes a method for identifying a fundamental intention - a large-scale and inspiring goal, but formulated extremely concretely and measurable. Example: “in 2 years to build and equip 100 houses for refugees”. In addition, from the formulation of the fundamental intention you will understand that you have reached the goal.

2. The power of an elegant “no”

A simple “no” can change the course of history. “No,” said Rosa Parks to the bus driver, was the beginning of the black fight for their rights in the United States.

We are afraid to refuse, because we are afraid to disappoint others. It is inherent in nature: compliance with what people expect from us has helped our ancestors survive. But practice shows that we are only more respected, if we are not afraid to assert our rights. If we agree with everything to please others, we risk losing out on something more important and upsetting ourselves.

Greg McKeon, in difficult cases, proposes to adopt the following methods to facilitate the refusal:

• to separate the decision from the relationship;
• refuse without saying no. For example, “flattered for the offer, but I already have an appointment”;
• to think about trade-offs: what we will be forced to refuse by saying “yes”;
• remind yourself that everyone sells something. For example, an idea or opinion in exchange for your time.
• own a pause: before answering, count silently to three. This will save you from hasty consent.

3. How to get more by giving up less?

When we invest in some kind of undertaking, we often cannot refuse it, even if it lays a dead weight on our shoulders and does not bring any benefit.

We fall from a well-known psychological trap, and this applies to both people and entire states. Thus, the United Kingdom and France could not refuse in time to continue the development of Concord, despite the obvious unprofitability of this project.

This effect is called “sunk costs”, and it can be manifested in the fact that we are not leaving a bad movie, we finish reading an uninteresting book, we eat bad food, we lose money in slot machines, etc.

Another remarkable psychological feature is the effect of ownership: our tendency to evaluate things that belong to us is higher than they actually are. This effect leads to the fact that we can not sell unnecessary property or throw an old thing out of the closet.

To get rid of the effect of this effect, the author suggests asking himself the question: “If a thing did not belong to me, how much would I be willing to pay for it?”.

This technique can be applied not only in relation to physical objects, but also to opportunities or responsibilities. Do not ask yourself what will happen if you miss this alternative.

Formulate it like this: “If I did not have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to receive it?”

4. Borders. How to install and feel free?

A distinctive feature of an essentialist is that he has the courage to stop unpromising undertakings and not fall into the trap of sunk costs.

In our time, the boundaries between work and family are blurred. Many consider it the norm, but not the author of the book. “I can not imagine a company in which employees would be allowed to bring their children to work on Monday morning. On the other hand, it is expected that the same employees will come to the office on Saturday or Sunday to work on an urgent project. ” Often, people think that setting boundaries is the lot of the weak, and the strong do not need limits and restrictions.

However, for essentialists, borders contribute to increased freedom, as they help get rid of the demands and obstacles that prevent you from achieving truly important goals.

Take action. How to spend a minimum of effort

You can act in two ways: either like most people, forcing yourself to perform tasks, or create a system to perform actions that allows you to make a minimum of effort.

Buffer. Unfair advantage

Usually people always hope for the best. They do not know how to count time and often make the most favorable forecasts.

As you know, this leads to a breakdown of the deadlines, the failure to fulfill the obligations undertaken and the lack of readiness to act in case of force majeure. For an essentialist, such an approach is unacceptable. “He looks ahead. He is planning. He is preparing for unusual situations and surprises. He creates a buffer between himself and force majeure circumstances, so that when (and not if) they come, to be able to deal with them. "

A buffer is a reserve (time, money) in case of adverse events. A buffer can (and should) be created in both professional and personal life. Its essence is to reduce the impact of adverse accidents on their lives.

Uninstall. How to remove obstacles and get the best result

“ To gain knowledge, add a little daily. To understand the wisdom, daily diminish a little. ”
Lao Tzu

Hope for the best leads to unpreparedness for a crisis and, accordingly, to inefficient ways to solve it. Essentialist looking for the cause of the crisis, then not to deal with its consequences.

Is he:

1. Focuses on the main goal
It is impossible to determine exactly what obstacles stand in your way to the goal if you do not know the goal itself.

2. Identifies the weakest link
Before starting work, an essentialist makes a list of everything that can prevent him from doing it, on the basis of which he determines the main thing.

3. Get rid of obstacles.
If the obstacle is a person, then it is certainly not about its physical elimination. The essence is in the elimination of friction and conflict, and here the author recommends guided by the principle: “more flies fly to honey than vinegar”. You should demonstrate your position and try to establish a good relationship.

Progress. The power of small victories

The principle of achieving success for an essentialist is moving forward in small steps, through small victories, but in the most important areas. Moreover, the author recommends to celebrate their progress and reward themselves for each victory, since such visualization of their progress and progress is the best form of motivation.

Flow. Brilliant in everyday

Many believe that the key to a good task is the amount of effort. However, essentialists take a different approach. They develop their own systems and regime to help achieve more with less effort. They have a clear schedule of actions that helps to work, without being distracted by stimuli, and develop a good habit of action.

The complex of these actions allows you to perform work on autopilot over time.

Thus organizing the implementation of routine tasks, the essentialist spends less energy on them, releasing energy for the most important.

Good habits

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Greg McKeon points out the fact that we make 40% of decisions unconsciously.

This can contribute to rooting both good and bad habits.

Is it possible to replace bad habits with useful ones?

As the author proves, it is possible. Any habit can be decomposed into three components: stimulus (switch) - action - reward.

“A stimulus is a switch that puts our brain into automatic mode and selects a certain habit in it. The action may be physical, mental or emotional. Finally, reward helps the brain to remember one or another habit for the future. Over time, the “stimulus-action-reward” vicious circle becomes fully automated, as there is a neurological connection between the stimulus and the reward . ”

Thus, you can change your habits without changing your behavior. The bottom line is to associate the switch with the desired activity. « , , „“ . , ».

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Finally

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“The life of an essentialist is a life lived without regrets. If you correctly assessed what really matters, put all your time and energy into it, then it’s hard to regret the choice you made. You are proud of your chosen life. ”

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