Greg Mckeown Quotes

Remember that if you don’t prioritize your life someone else will.

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?

Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.

There should be no shame in admitting to a mistake; after all, we really are only admitting that we are now wiser than we once were.

If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.

The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years.

Essentialists see trade-offs as an inherent part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?

Sometimes what you don’t do is just as important as what you do.

Today, technology has lowered the barrier for others to share their opinion about what we should be focusing on. It is not just information overload; it is opinion overload.

Just because I was invited didn’t seem a good enough reason to attend.

What do I feel deeply inspired by?” and “What am I particularly talented at?” and “What meets a significant need in the world?

A popular idea in Silicon Valley is “Done is better than perfect.

We can either make our choices deliberately or allow other people’s agendas to control our lives.

the killer question: “If I didn’t already own this, how much would I spend to buy it?

Sleep will enhance your ability to explore, make connections, and do less but better throughout your waking hours.

We overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house, or even intangibles like the number of our followers on Twitter or the way we look in our Facebook photos. As a result, we neglect activities that are truly essential, like spending time with our loved ones, or nurturing our spirit, or taking care of our health.

The reality is, saying yes to any opportunity by definition requires saying no to several others.

Essentialism: 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.

NO IS A COMPLETE SENTENCE. —Anne Lamott

You can do anything but not everything

We often think of choice as a thing. But a choice is not a thing. Our options may be things, but a choice—a choice is an action. It is not just something we have but something we do.

the pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure. Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place.

Make your peace with the fact that saying ‘no’ often requires trading popularity for respect.” —Greg McKeown, Essentialism

The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the nonessentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.

EVERY DAY DO SOMETHING THAT WILL INCH YOU CLOSER TO A BETTER TOMORROW. —Doug Firebaugh

Perfectionism makes essential projects hard to start, self-doubt makes them hard to finish, and trying to do too much, too fast, makes it hard to sustain momentum.

It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.

We need to learn the slow ‘yes’ and the quick ‘no.

A non-Essentialist thinks almost everything is essential. An Essentialist thinks almost everything is non-essential.

Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?” The cumulative impact of this small change in thinking can be profound.

Weniger aber besser. The English translation is: Less but better.

The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities.

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

...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.

What if society stopped telling us to buy more stuff and instead allowed us to create more space to breathe and think? What if society encouraged us to reject what has been accurately described as doing things we detest, to buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like?11

When you say yes to something nonessential, you are saying no to something essential

REMEMBER THAT A CLEAR “NO” CAN BE MORE GRACEFUL THAN A VAGUE OR NONCOMMITTAL “YES

when people make their problem our problem, we aren’t helping them; we’re enabling them.

Don’t ask, “How will I feel if I miss out on this opportunity?” but rather, “If I did not have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it?

As John Maxwell has written, “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

ROUTINE, IN AN INTELLIGENT MAN, IS A SIGN OF AMBITION. —W. H. Auden

Do not do more today than you can completely recover from today. Do not do more this week than you can completely recover from this week.

The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default.

to Lao Tzu: “In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

by abolishing any chance of being bored we have also lost the time we used to have to think and process.

Of course, nobody likes to be bored. But by abolishing any chance of being bored we have also lost the times we used to have to think and process.

Past a certain point, more effort doesn’t produce better performance. It sabotages our performance. Economists call this the law of diminishing returns:

of all forms of human motivation the most effective one is progress.

one wrong hire is far costlier than being one person short.

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

Done is better than perfect.

the complexity of modern life has created a false dichotomy between things that are “essential and hard” and things that are “easy and trivial.

Remember: When you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. When you focus on what you have, you get what you lack. Use this

The word school is derived from the Greek word schole, meaning “leisure.” Yet our modern school system, born in the Industrial Revolution, has removed the leisure—and much of the pleasure—out of learning.

The best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves. If we underinvest in ourselves, and by that I mean our minds, our bodies, and our spirits, we damage the very tool we need to make our highest contribution. One

You have to look at every opportunity and say, ‘Well, no … I’m sorry. We’re not going to do a thousand different things that really won’t contribute much to the end result we are trying to achieve.

SEPARATE THE DECISION FROM THE RELATIONSHIP

When we push back effectively, it shows people that our time is highly valuable. It distinguishes the professional from the amateur.

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.

Remember that if you don’t prioritise your life someone else will. But if you are determined to prioritise your own life you can. The power is yours. It is within you.

By pairing essential activities with enjoyable ones, we can make tackling even the most tedious and overwhelming tasks more effortless.

In order to succeed at something, you have to get it done.

When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless.

A true Essentialist, Peter Drucker believed that “people are effective because they say no.

To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make.

I have worked tirelessly to understand why so many bright, smart, capable individuals remain snared in the death grip of the nonessential.

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

Less but better.

In a reverse pilot you test whether removing an initiative or activity will have any negative consequences.

Reading a book is among the most high-leverage activities on earth.

To avoid diminishing returns on your time and effort, establish clear conditions for what “done” looks like, get there, then stop.

another way to think of improving results. Instead of focusing on the efforts and resources we need to add, the Essentialist focuses on the constraints or obstacles we need to remove.

When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless. Drip by drip we allow our power to be taken away until we end up becoming a function of other people’s choices—or even a function of our own past choices. In turn, we surrender our power to choose. That is the path of the Nonessentialist. The Essentialist doesn’t just recognize the power of choice, he celebrates it. The Essentialist knows that when we surrender our right to choose, we give others not just the power but also the explicit permission to choose for us.

two most personal learnings that have come to me on the long journey of writing this book. The first is the exquisitely important role of my family in my life. At the very, very end, everything else will fade into insignificance by comparison. The second is the pathetically tiny amount of time we have left of our lives. For me this is not a depressing thought but a thrilling one. It removes fear of choosing the wrong thing. It infuses courage into my bones. It challenges me to be even more unreasonably selective about how to use this precious – and precious is perhaps too insipid a word – time.

In every set of facts, something essential is hidden.

After all, if you don’t set boundaries—there won’t be any. Or even worse, there will be boundaries, but they’ll be set by default—or by another person—instead of by design.

There is a difference between losing and being beaten. Being beaten means they are better than you. They are faster, stronger, and more talented.

Clarity equals success.

Options (things) can be taken away, while our core ability to choose (free will) cannot be.

Getting more sleep may be the single greatest gift we can give our bodies, our minds, and even, it turns out, our bottom lines.

Becoming an Essentialist means making cutting, condensing, and correcting a natural part of our daily routine – making editing a natural cadence in our lives.

What if society encouraged us to reject what has been accurately described as doing things we detest, to buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like?11

Routine is one of the most powerful tools for removing obstacles. Without routine, the pull of nonessential distractions will overpower us. But if we create a routine that enshrines the essentials, we will begin to execute them on autopilot.

We have good reasons to fear saying no. We worry we’ll miss out on a great opportunity. We’re scared of rocking the boat, stirring things up, burning bridges. We can’t bear the thought of disappointing someone we respect and like. None of this makes us a bad person. It’s a natural part of being human. Yet as hard as it can be to say no to someone, failing to do so can cause us to miss out on something far more important.

Once an Australian nurse named Bronnie Ware, who cared for people in the last twelve weeks of their lives, recorded their most often discussed regrets. At the top of the list: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”6 This requires, not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials, and not just getting rid of the obvious time wasters, but cutting out some really good opportunities as well.

Instead of trying to accomplish it all – and all at once – and flaring out, the Essentialist starts small and celebrates progress. Instead of going for the big, flashy wins that don’t really matter, the Essentialist pursues small and simple wins in areas that are essential.

When there is a lack of clarity, people waste time and energy on the trivial many. When they have sufficient levels of clarity, they are capable of greater breakthroughs and innovations – greater than people even realise they ought to have – in those areas that are truly vital.

activities and efforts to keep in your life, you have to have a system for executing them. You can’t wait until that closet is bursting at the seams and then take superhuman efforts to purge it. You have to have a system in place so that keeping it neat becomes routine and effortless.

When I ask executives to identify their boundaries they can rarely do it. They know they have some, but they cannot put them into words. The simple reality is, if you can’t articulate these to yourself and others, it may be unrealistic to expect other people to respect them or even figure them out.

In a piece called “No More Yes. It’s Either HELL YEAH! Or No,” the popular TED speaker Derek Sivers describes a simple technique for becoming more selective in the choices we make. The key is to put the decision to an extreme test: if we feel total and utter conviction to do something, then we say yes, Derek-style. Anything less gets a thumbs down.

Life doesn't have to be as hard and complicated as we make it. Each of us has -- as Robert Frost wrote -- "Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep." No matter what challenges, obstacles or hardships we encounter along the way, we can always look for the easier, simpler path.

What if, rather than fighting our preprogrammed instinct to seek the easiest path, we could embrace it, even use it to our advantage? What if, instead of asking, “How can I tackle this really hard but essential project?,” we simply inverted the question and asked, “What if this essential project could be made easy?

Strangely, some of us respond to feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by vowing to work even harder and longer. It doesn’t help that our culture glorifies burnout as a measure of success and self-worth. The implicit message is that if we aren’t perpetually exhausted, we must not be doing enough. That great things are reserved for those who bleed, for those who almost break. Crushing volume is somehow now the goal. Burnout is not a badge of honor.

For too long, we have overemphasised the external aspect of choices (our options) and underemphasised our internal ability to choose (our actions). This is more than semantics. Think about it this way. Options (things) can be taken away, while our core ability to choose (free will) cannot be. The ability to choose cannot be taken away or even given away – it can only be forgotten.

When we are unclear about our real purpose in life—in other words, when we don’t have a clear sense of our goals, our aspirations, and our values—we make up our own social games. We waste time and energies on trying to look good in comparison to other people. We overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house, or even intangibles like the number of our followers on Twitter or the way we look in our Facebook photos. As a result, we neglect activities that are truly essential, like spending time with our loved ones, or nurturing our spirit, or taking care of our health.

Creating an essential intent is hard. It takes courage, insight, and foresight to see which activities and efforts will add up to your single highest point of contribution. It takes asking tough questions, making real trade-offs, and exercising serious discipline to cut out the competing priorities that distract us from our true intention. Yet it is worth the effort because only with real clarity of purpose can people, teams, and organisations fully mobilise and achieve something truly excellent.

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.” Pay

A woman named Cynthia once told me a story about the time her father had made plans to take her on a night out in San Francisco. Twelve-year-old Cynthia and her father had been planning the “date” for months. They had a whole itinerary planned down to the minute: she would attend the last hour of his presentation, and then meet him at the back of the room at about four-thirty and leave quickly before everyone tried to talk to him. They would catch a tram to Chinatown, eat Chinese food (their favourite), shop for a souvenir, see the sights for a while and then “catch a flick” as her dad liked to say. Then they would grab a taxi back to the hotel, jump in the pool for a quick swim (her dad was famous for sneaking in when the pool was closed), order a hot fudge sundae from room service, and watch the late, late show. They discussed the details over and over again before they left. The anticipation was part of the whole experience. This was all going according to plan until, as her father was leaving the convention centre, he ran into an old college friend and business associate. It had been years since they had seen each other, and Cynthia watched as they embraced enthusiastically. His friend said, in effect: “I am so glad you are doing some work with our company now. When Lois and I heard about it we thought it would be perfect. We want to invite you, and of course Cynthia, to get a spectacular seafood dinner down at the Wharf!” Cynthia’s father responded: “Bob, it’s so great to see you. Dinner at the wharf sounds great!” Cynthia was crestfallen. Her daydreams of tram rides and ice cream sundaes evaporated in an instant. Plus, she hated seafood and she could just imagine how bored she would be listening to the adults talk all night. But then her father continued: “But not tonight. Cynthia and I have a special date planned, don’t we?” He winked at Cynthia and grabbed her hand and they ran out of the door and continued with what was an unforgettable night in San Francisco. As it happens, Cynthia’s father was the management thinker Stephen R. Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) who had passed away only weeks before Cynthia told me this story. So it was with deep emotion she recalled that evening in San Francisco. His simple decision “Bonded him to me forever because I knew what mattered most to him was me!” she said.5 One simple answer is we are unclear about what is essential. When this happens we become defenceless. On the other hand, when we have strong internal clarity it is almost as if we have a force field protecting us from the non-essentials coming at us from all directions. With Rosa it was her deep moral clarity that gave her unusual courage of conviction. With Stephen it was the clarity of his vision for the evening with his loving daughter. In virtually every instance, clarity about what is essential fuels us with the strength to say no to the non-essentials. Stephen R. Covey, one of the most respected and widely read business thinkers of his generation, was an Essentialist. Not only did he routinely teach Essentialist principles – like “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” – to important leaders and heads of state around the world, he lived them.6 And in this moment of living them with his daughter he made a memory that literally outlasted his lifetime. Seen with some perspective, his decision seems obvious. But many in his shoes would have accepted the friend’s invitation for fear of seeming rude or ungrateful, or passing up a rare opportunity to dine with an old friend. So why is it so hard in the moment to dare to choose what is essential over what is non-essential?

Working hard is important. But more effort does not necessarily yield more results. “Less but better” does. Ferran Adrià, arguably the world’s greatest chef, who has led El Bulli to become the world’s most famous restaurant, epitomizes the principle of “less but better” in at least two ways. First, his specialty is reducing traditional dishes to their absolute essence and then re-imagining them in ways people have never thought of before. Second, while El Bulli has somewhere in the range of 2 million requests for dinner reservations each year, it serves only fifty people per night and closes for six months of the year. In fact, at the time of writing, Ferran had stopped serving food altogether and had instead turned El Bulli into a full-time food laboratory of sorts where he was continuing to pursue nothing but the essence of his craft.1 Getting used to the idea of “less but better” may prove harder than it sounds, especially when we have been rewarded in the past for doing more … and more and more. Yet at a certain point, more effort causes our progress to plateau and even stall. It’s true that the idea of a direct correlation between results and effort is appealing. It seems fair. Yet research across many fields paints a very different picture. Most people have heard of the “Pareto Principle,” the idea, introduced as far back as the 1790s by Vilfredo Pareto, that 20 percent of our efforts produce 80 percent of results. Much later, in 1951, in his Quality-Control Handbook, Joseph Moses Juran, one of the fathers of the quality movement, expanded on this idea and called it “the Law of the Vital Few.”2 His observation was that you could massively improve the quality of a product by resolving a tiny fraction of the problems. He found a willing test audience for this idea in Japan, which at the time had developed a rather poor reputation for producing low-cost, low-quality goods. By adopting a process in which a high percentage of effort and attention was channeled toward improving just those few things that were truly vital, he made the phrase “made in Japan” take on a totally new meaning. And gradually, the quality revolution led to Japan’s rise as a global economic power.3