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Can doing less help you accomplish more? That's the premise of Essentialism.

The essence of Essentialism is taking responsibility for your own life by more thoughtfully making choices. It means living by design and not by default, distinguishing the vital few from the trivial many.

Instead of acquiescing to the requests of others, ("When you say jump, we say 'How high?'"), the essentialist pauses and says, "Do I really want to do this? Does this make sense according to my own values and priorities?"

Making conscious choices means first, explore and evaluate, will this activity or effort make the highest contribution toward my goal?; second, eliminate, actively eliminating activities and efforts that don't contribute to your goals; and third, execute, adopting a regular routine (system) to make executing your intentions as effortless as possible.

The most valuable word in this process is "No." If an answer isn't a definite "yes," then it should be "no."

In addition to your personal life, Author Greg McKeown shows how to apply Essentialism as a leader in an organization to make it more effective and to make life better for the teammates.

He shares a beautiful example of Essentialism. A twelve-year old girl named Cynthia was excited to enjoy a "date" with her dad in San Francisco. After he made a presentation, they were planning to catch a trolley to Chinatown, eat Chinese food, shop for a souvenir, see some sights, and go see a movie. Then they would catch a cab back to their hotel and jump in the pool for a quick swim.

After her dad's presentation, an old friend greeted him and invited Cynthia and her dad out for dinner at Fisherman's Wharf.

Cynthia's dad thanked his friend profusely. "Dinner at the Wharf sounds great! But not tonight. Cynthia and I have a special date night planned, don't we?" He winked at Cynthia, grabbed her hand and they ran out the door for an unforgettable night in San Francisco.

Cynthia's dad was the quintessential essentialist, Stephen R. Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. (Some people might think he was rude to make this choice. Not Cynthia!)

As an adult, Cynthia reflected that his decision "bonded him to me forever because I knew what mattered to him most was me!"

Read and apply the ideas in Essentialism to accomplish more in your life by doing less.

Buy it on Amazon: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

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