How to make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter

In Essentialism. The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown maintains that we shouldn’t try to do everything that comes to our mind, as it’s simply impossible and even harmful. For the last couple of decades, people have been encouraged to multitask. Numerous personal development courses have been offered, success has been measured by wealth, and being perfect at everything has been a generally accepted norm. Today’s trend is to enjoy your life: the happier you are, the more successful you are. Greg McKeown considers the ability to focus on the essentials the crucial skill of a modern person.

Everyone can do what really matters with less effort by following the three principles:

- Explore: discern the vital few from the trivial many, choose the things that really matter.

- Eliminate nonessentials: cut of the trivial many, choose the things not to be done;

- Remove obstacles: create a system for removing obstacles and making task execution as effortless as possible.

People often realize that they take on an excessive burden, but cannot relieve it for various reasons: a large number of tasks, information noise, pressure of society, desire to get everything at once. But time is a limited resource, and it’s more profitable to follow the principles of essentialism over the long run. You can put and fix this system in your routine in several ways: for example, the author suggests to start your working day with the most difficult tasks and move to the simple ones, stop postponing scary tasks, and remember that done is better than perfect.

Source: genius.space