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Great social pressure. Key Characteristics of an Essentialist

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Published with permission from The Crown Publishing Group and Synopsis Literary Agency

Legal support for the publishing house is provided by Vegas Lex law firm.

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Chapter 1
Essentialist

Wisdom is to remove everything unimportant from your life.

Graphic designer Trisha Morse had a simple rule in her work: do what you were asked to do. When people came to her with requests, she agreed without hesitation. She was pleased to listen to the gratitude of customers: “Thank you so much! You helped me so much!”

The trouble is that Trisha agreed to so many things at once that she soon began to get tired. Everything was getting out of control. Trisha worked around the clock to please every client, but her work only got worse and more errors arose. After some time, her drawings ceased to please both the customers and herself.

Desperate to protect herself, Trisha began to say no. At first she lacked determination. When she received the next order, she asked herself: “Will I be able to complete it in the specified time and with the available resources?” And if the answer was "no", the offer had to be rejected. Trisha's clients were not happy about this, but respected her for her honesty.

Each small victory added confidence to Trisha. Now she judged orders by a more rigorous criterion: “Can I spend my time and resources on something better?”

And if the answer was "yes", Trisha refused the task. At first it seemed to her that it was impossible to indulge like that own desires, but gradually she created for herself a free space in which she was engaged in creativity. She was no longer scattered between dozens of projects, but carefully planned each one, taking into account potential obstacles. The quality of her work has returned to its previous level.

Trisha began to follow this principle in everyday life. Instead of immediately responding to any request, she gave herself time to reflect and decide whether she should agree. Trisha began to reject almost all offers and requests, leaving only those that were really important. And then she properly planned the chosen cases, prepared for them and removed all obstacles on the way to their implementation.

Surprisingly, after some time, clients began to believe Trisha even more. She became calmer in communication, and people understood that her words could be trusted. If she took on something, she really brought it to the end and put all her strength into it. In the end, Trisha's new approach benefited both parties. Work became more pleasant for her, and clients received better quality results.

Now let's talk about you. How often have you answered "yes" to someone's request, personal or work, without even thinking about what you were actually asked for? How often have you hated what you are doing and thought: “Why did I just sign up for this?” How often have you agreed with someone just to please them or avoid problems? Or “yes” has become for you a universal answer to any question?

Think about it, have you ever suffered from overwork? Did you feel like you were working too much and not being efficient enough at the same time? What do you pay too much attention to the little things? Have you been constantly, but to no avail, busy? Did you feel like you were running as fast as you could, but you weren't moving?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then your only option is to become an Essentialist.

The path of the essentialist

Dieter Rams worked for many years as a senior designer at Braun. All his activities were based on the principle that there are only a few truly important things in the world, and everything else is noise. His task was to cut through this noise to the very essence of things. For example, at the age of 24 he was given the task of designing a gramophone. It was customary at the time to cover gramophones with heavy wooden lids or even build them into furniture. Instead, Dieter and his team created a turntable with a transparent plastic cover, meaning they removed everything they thought was noise from the design. This decision was so revolutionary that the company's managers began to fear bankruptcy. It seemed to them that they simply would not buy such gramophones. It takes a lot of courage to let go of the unnecessary. But in the 60s, the minimalist style began to gain popularity, and soon all the turntable manufacturers were copying Braun's design.

Dieter's main design principle can be summed up in a short German phrase: weniger aber besser ("less but better"). And this is the most successful of all possible definitions of essentialism.

The path of the essentialist is a constant search for less but better. Discipline plays a decisive role. It is important not only to remember this principle sometimes, but to adhere to it in everything.

The path of the essentialist is not to promise myself: “From the first of January I will say “no” more often”, and not to finally clean out the inbox in the mail, and not even to find for myself new strategy time management. The Essentialist constantly asks himself the question: “Is this what I do?” There are so many opportunities and things to do in the world that we don’t have enough time or resources to do everything. And although many of them seem interesting to us, only a few are really necessary. 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.

Essentialism doesn't help you do more things, it teaches you how to choose the right activities. But at the same time, you don't do less just for the sake of doing less. Essentialism is the ability to wisely invest your time and energy in exceptionally important things in order to achieve maximum efficiency.

The difference between an Essentialist and a Non-Essentialist is shown in the table on the next page. Both people put in the same amount of effort. But on the left side of the table, these efforts are distributed among dozens of different tasks. This person is likely to progress very slowly in each of his affairs and does not feel any satisfaction from success. The person on the right side of the table spends energy on just a few tasks. As a result, he sees his progress in areas that are important to him, and this brings him joy. The path of the essentialist means giving up the belief that we can do everything. Instead, it requires us to be realistic and make tough decisions. But in many cases, one such decision will save you from a thousand choices in the future, which means that you will not have to ask yourself the same question again and again.

In his book Essentialism. The path to simplicity ”psychologist and writer Greg McKeon will teach everyone how to streamline their lives.

Daily tasks and problems take up a lot of precious time. And then he is not enough to be with his family or alone with himself, he is not even enough to stop at least for a couple of minutes while walking past the park, breathe deeply and enjoy the fresh air and the beauty of nature. People drive themselves into this trap, they understand that they are fully loaded. At the same time, many do nothing to get rid of this burden of affairs. After all, all this seems necessary, sometimes even necessary. Sometimes we do something because it is customary, although for us it does not matter at all.

The author of this book says that you need to learn to separate the important and the secondary. It is better to do less, but better, than a lot, but anyhow. Better pay attention important matters and make them quickly, rather than spending hours on nonsense. The writer does not just reflect on life and its values. He tells how to change your life, how to make your path brighter and full of positive events, and not a gray routine and fatigue. He explains that it is not at all necessary to take on any obligations if you do not want to. You need to be able to say no.

When you read, you think about the fact that maybe it’s really not worth wasting time on those people with whom you don’t want to communicate. Or, for example, to do what you do not like. What's the point of messing around with tedious work longer than it should be if it doesn't change anything? After all, we live once, and it depends only on our choice how this life will pass: joyfully or sadly.

On our website you can download the book "Essentialism. The Path to Simplicity" by Greg McKeon for free and without registration in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format, read the book online or buy the book in the online store.

Published with permission from The Crown Publishing Group and Synopsis Literary Agency

Legal support for the publishing house is provided by Vegas Lex law firm.

Wisdom is to remove everything unimportant from your life.

Ling Yutan

Each small victory added confidence to Trisha. Now she judged orders by a more rigorous criterion: “Can I spend my time and resources on something better?”

And if the answer was "yes", Trisha refused the task. At first it seemed to her that it was impossible to indulge her own desires like that, but gradually she created for herself a free space in which she was engaged in creativity. She was no longer scattered between dozens of projects, but carefully planned each one, taking into account potential obstacles. The quality of her work has returned to its previous level.

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then your only option is to become an Essentialist.

The path of the essentialist

Dieter's main design principle can be summed up in a short German phrase: weniger aber besser ("less but better"). And this is the most successful of all possible definitions of essentialism.

The path of the essentialist is not to promise myself: “From the first of January I will say “no” more often”, and not to finally clean out the inbox in the mail, and not even to find a new one for myself. time management strategy. The Essentialist constantly asks himself the question: “Is this what I do?” There are so many opportunities and things to do in the world that we don’t have enough time or resources to do everything. And although many of them seem interesting to us, only a few are really necessary. 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.

The Essentialist does not learn from his own mistakes, but carefully plans his life to avoid them. He does not make decisions instinctively, but consciously chooses several of the most important tasks from dozens of tasks and strives to complete them. The path of the essentialist always straight and bright. In other words, essentialism is a disciplined and systematic approach that allows you to determine the most effective points of application of efforts. If you learn how to do it right, then the very execution of tasks will not be difficult at all.

Published with permission from The Crown Publishing Group and Synopsis Literary Agency

* * *

Chapter 1. The Essentialist

Wisdom is to remove everything unimportant from your life.

Each small victory added confidence to Trisha. Now she judged orders by a more rigorous criterion: “Can I spend my time and resources on something better?”

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then your only option is to become an Essentialist.

The path of the essentialist

Dieter's main design principle can be summed up in a short German phrase: weniger aber besser ("less but better"). And this is the most successful of all possible definitions of essentialism.

Model

An essentialist who walks his own path is in control of his actions. Therefore, this principle leads to new levels of success and significance. It allows us not only to enjoy the result, but also to enjoy the movement towards it. But there are a huge number of obstacles that push us off this path and prevent us from becoming true essentialists.

The Way of the Non-Essentialist

I wanted to fill this day with peace and happiness, but in fact I felt tense to the limit. My newborn daughter lay in my tired wife's arms while I was on the phone with my office, checking my mail and worrying about being late for a client meeting. One of my colleagues wrote to me: “It would be better if she didn’t give birth on Friday afternoon, I need you at a meeting with X.” As you can imagine, it was Friday. I knew (or at least hoped) that this was a joke, but I still felt that I needed to be present at work.

At the same time, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I wanted to spend these hours with my wife and child. So, when they asked me once again whether I would appear at the meeting, I gathered all my will into a fist and confidently answered ... "yes."

To my shame, while my wife and newborn daughter were in the hospital, I went to work. When the meeting ended, a colleague said to me: "Our client really appreciates that you were able to come." But to be honest, the expression on the client's face was nothing like respect. His eyes read: “What are you even doing here?!” I said yes, just to please my colleagues, and as a result, my family, my reputation, and even my relationship with the client suffered.

Subsequently, it turned out that nothing important was decided at that meeting at all. But even if it mattered, I would still make a fool of myself. In an attempt to please everyone and everyone, I did not bring any benefit, and even gave up what is really valuable.

From this situation, I learned one useful lesson for myself:

Learn to place accents in your life. Or someone else will do it for you.

After this story, I became re-interested (read: became obsessed) with the question of how and why people make certain decisions in their personal and professional lives. Why do we not want to use all the opportunities available to us? And how can we learn to make such decisions that would fully reveal the potential both in ourselves and in the people around us?

These questions have already driven me to quit law, leave England, get to California and get my degree from Stanford. In an attempt to answer them, my colleagues and I spent two years writing Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. For answers, I opened my own training company in Silicon Valley. Now I work here with a lot of talented and smart representatives of interesting global companies and try to set them on the path of essentialism.

My company is approached by a variety of people. Some of them live under a constant burden of problems. Some are considered successful, but they are haunted by a desperate desire to do everything perfectly. Others have become so dominated by their managers that they no longer understand that they are not obliged to complete all the tasks offered. Working with them, I tried to understand why such brilliant, smart, talented people are trapped in meaningless little things.

And what I realized really surprised me.

I once worked with a very dedicated manager. He fell in love with technology as a child, and very soon his knowledge and passion for technology began to pay off. He was ready to build on his success and continued his studies in this field with great enthusiasm. When we met, he literally radiated energy. He wanted to try and experience everything. New interests arose in him every day, if not every hour. But at the same time, he lost the ability to see among the many possibilities that were really important. Everything mattered to him. As a result, he only spread himself more and took a tiny step forward in dozens of chosen directions. He worked too hard and too inefficiently. I also depicted it in the left column of the table located above.

He looked at my sketch for a long time in silence, and then exclaimed: “This is the story of my whole life!” Then I drew the right side of the table and asked: “How can we choose one direction in which you can bring the greatest benefit?” He answered absolutely sincerely: "That's the whole point!"

PHASE 1. A well-defined goal helps you succeed.

PHASE 2. Success makes you an expert in your field, a “good old [name]” that you can always turn to. So you have more tasks and opportunities.

PHASE 3. The more tasks and opportunities require your attention, the more effort and time has to be allocated between them. You start to spray.

PHASE 4. You are distracted from what you should have given your full attention to. As a result, you no longer have a clearly defined goal that led you to success the first time.

Surprisingly, but striving for success can lead to failure. In other words, your own successes divert your attention from the more important things that led you to them. The paradox of success can be seen everywhere. In his book How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins talks about companies that were once Wall Street favorites but failed. He concludes that the constant desire for more and lack of discipline pushed them to their doom. This happens to businesses and to those who work for them. But why?

Why do people turn away from essentialism?

There are several reasons for this.

Too many choices

Over the past ten years, the number of options available to us in various areas has increased several times. With too many choices, we can't decide what's really important.

Great social pressure

Not only has the number of choices available to us increased, but the force with which external circumstances and other people are pressing on us has also increased. About how closely we are connected to each other in modern world and what a huge amount of information we have to process, has been said more than once. But such a connection also increases the strength of social pressure. Thanks to modern technologies anyone can speak out about what seems important to him. We are overloaded not only with facts, but also with private opinions.

"You can get whatever you want" mindset

In itself, this idea is not new. It has been present in human consciousness for so long that I am sure that almost everyone on Earth is infected with it. She is promoted in advertising, she is supported large corporations, it is included in job descriptions (in the form of long lists of knowledge and skills) and requirements for entering universities.

But today, when expectations are high and choices are endless, this mindset does more harm than good. People are trying to cram extra activities into their already crowded schedules. Companies verbally talk about the balance of work and leisure, but in reality they require employees to be in touch 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and so all year round. At work meetings, 10 priority tasks are discussed, and not a single person sees irony in these words.

I am not suggesting that you constantly refuse any offers. It's about about acting on a strategy and rejecting what you don't need. These can be not only things that you waste time on, but also quite promising proposals. You will stop blindly responding to the pressure of society, pushing you to work with dozens of different areas at the same time, and learn to choose from them only what you really need.

This book will do to your life and career what an experienced cleaning lady does to your closet. Imagine what a closet would look like if it was never cleaned. Do you think it would be clean and every suit would have a place on a hanger? No matter how. If you do not make a conscious effort to organize the space in the closet, very soon it will be clogged with old and unnecessary clothes. Of course, from time to time, when the clutter gets out of hand, you try to do a spring cleaning. But if you don't have a strict system, then things end up being the same as they were, because you can't decide which ones to throw away. Or you get frustrated because you accidentally threw away the clothes you were going to wear. Or you have a stack of clothes left that you don’t plan to wear, but are afraid to throw away.

In the same way that our closets become cluttered with unnecessary things, our lives are overflowing with tasks and responsibilities that we agree to take on. Most of these cases do not have an expiration date, and if you do not learn how to get rid of them, they can stay with you for life.

This is how a true Essentialist would clean his closet.

The first rule is to evaluate and investigate

Instead of asking yourself, “Is there a chance I will wear this in the future?” – show discipline and ask yourself: “does this suit me?” or “Do I often wear this?” If you answer no, then you have a candidate for outlier.

When making decisions in your personal or professional life, you can change this question in the following way: “Will what I do help me achieve my goals?” In the first part of this book, we will talk about such activities.

The second rule is to refuse unnecessary

Suppose you have sorted all the clothes from the closet into two piles: “definitely leave” and “maybe throw away”. But are you really ready to put the clothes from the second pile in a bag and throw them away? After all, you spent money on it! Research shows that we value the things we own more than they are worth, which is why we find it so difficult to get rid of them. If you are not completely sure, ask yourself Security Question: "If I saw this item in a store, how much would I be willing to spend on it?" This usually works.

In other words, it is important not only to determine which activities do not benefit you, but also to be able to refuse them. In the second part of this book, I will talk about how to get rid of excess, and in such a way as to win the respect of colleagues, bosses, clients and friends.

The third rule is to act

If you want your closet to always be in order, you need to clean it regularly. In this case, you will have to throw away a lot, and leave very little. You will have to find out the schedule of the local second-hand or charity center and set yourself the exact time to go there with things. Once you have decided which activities to keep in your life (that is, which ones are the most effective), you will need to develop a system for implementing them. In this book, you'll learn how to accomplish the most important tasks with the least amount of effort.

Of course, life is not as static as a closet. Your clothes always stay where you put them (unless, of course, you have children growing up in your house). But in life, new clothes (that is, demands and offers) appear constantly. Imagine how you would feel if every time you opened a closet, you saw a mountain of someone's things there. In the morning it was still in order, and by lunchtime it was already littered with junk! Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens in most of our lives. How often do you start your day on schedule, and by ten in the morning you are already completely off track? Or how many times have you written yourself a to-do list for the day in the morning only to find that it got even longer in the evening? How many times have you dreamed of a quiet weekend at home with your family, and ended up waking up early on a Saturday to solve another problem or go on a sudden business trip? So, I have for you good news. There is an exit!

Essentialism is a system that teaches you how to put things in order in your life. And this is not spring cleaning once a year or once a week, but a disciplined approach that you apply every time you receive another offer. This is a way that helps you make the difficult choice between dozens of pleasant and interesting things in life and a couple of really necessary ones. Essentialism makes you do less but better so that every moment of your life brings you valuable results.

This book will tell you how to be honest with yourself and ignore the expectations of others. You will learn how to increase productivity in your personal and professional life, how to systematically place emphasis, discard the unnecessary and complete the necessary tasks with a minimum of effort. In other words, we will teach you how to less but better in all areas of your life. And here's how we'll do it.

Movement plan

This book is divided into four sections. The first describes the key characteristics of an Essentialist. The next three develop these characteristics into a systematic process that you can apply in any circumstance and at any time. Let me briefly describe each section.

Essence of essentialism

This part of the book talks about three characteristics without which a person is not able to think like an essentialist. Each of them is devoted to a separate chapter.

1. Personal choice. The first characteristic is the ability of any individual to decide for himself how to spend his time and energy. If a person has no choice, there is no point in talking about compromises.

2. Presence of noise. The second characteristic is the realization that almost everything around us is noise and only a few things really matter. That's why we take the time to identify them. Some are so much more important than others that the effort we spend looking for them pays off.

3. The importance of compromises. It is not given to anyone to have time for everything that he aspires to and to get everything that he wants. If this were not the case, we would not need to evaluate the available choices and discard some of them. By recognizing the importance of compromises, we stop asking, “How can I do this?” – and ask ourselves: “What exactly do I want to do?”

Once you recognize and accept all of these characteristics, you will begin to think like an essentialist. Of course, after fully understanding the above factors, the methodology described in this book seems natural and intuitive. It consists of three simple steps.

Step one. explore: how to separate the most important from the useless

The paradox of essentialism is that essentialists essentially consider more options than other people. An ordinary person is ready to agree to anything without hesitation. The Essentialist, on the other hand, takes a systematic approach and explores a huge number of options before choosing the right ones. And if a person is ready to invest all his time and effort in one or two projects, then it is logical to spend more effort on their choice and consider all options.

By using more stringent selection criteria, we turn our brain into a complex search engine. By typing “profitable opportunity” into the search bar, we get several dozen pages with answers and options. But we can apply an advanced search by asking ourselves three questions: “What do I like best about this?” “What do I do best?” and “What is in greatest demand?” Of course, now the search engine will give us far fewer results, but this is the point of the exercise. We don't look for many things to do, we want the best: the right things at the right time.

Essentialists spend a lot of time thinking, listening, discussing, and asking questions. But the study of the situation is not an end in itself. It is carried out in order to separate the necessary from the unnecessary.

Step two. give up unnecessary: how to discard what bothers you

Many of us agree to any proposals because we like to please people and be useful. However, sometimes our best contribution to the common cause can be the word “no”. As Peter Drucker wrote, "People are effective when they say, 'No, this doesn't suit me.'"

To get rid of useless things in your life, you will have to say "no" to other people. And do it often. That is, go against social norms. This requires courage and the ability to empathize. The ability to refuse people their requests includes not only mental, but also emotional discipline that helps us deal with social pressure. In this section of the book, we will talk about this serious factor.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/06/how-to-say-no-to-a-controlling/ www.huffingtonpost.com/bronnie-ware/top-5-regrets-of-the-dyin_b_1220965.htmlBronnie Ware, "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying", Huffington Post, January 21, 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/bronnie-ware/top-5-regrets-of-the-dyin_b_1220965.html , "An Orderly Pursuit of Less ".

Peter Drucker interview with Bruce Rosenstein April 11, 2005. Bruce recounted this interview in his book Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker's Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life (San Francisco, CA, Berrett-Koehler, 2009).

Current page: 1 (total book has 15 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 4 pages]

Greg McKeon
Essentialism. The Path to Simplicity

Published with permission from The Crown Publishing Group and Synopsis Literary Agency

Legal support for the publishing house is provided by Vegas Lex law firm.

* * *

Chapter 1
Essentialist 1
From English. essence - essence.

Wisdom is to remove everything unimportant from your life.

Ling Yutan

Each small victory added confidence to Trisha. Now she judged orders by a more rigorous criterion: “Can I spend my time and resources on something better?”

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then your only option is to become an Essentialist.