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I’ve written before about how essentialism compares to similar concepts explored on this site, such minimalism and intentional living. But I want to use this post to provide a simple and straightforward definition for “essentialism.”
I’ll provide a summary of the definition of essentialism and how it can change your life here. But I highly recommend that you read Greg McKeown’s book for a full picture. It was powerful enough for me that I used the term in the title for this site, after all.
What is McKeown’s Definition of Essentialism?
The short definition is in the book’s subtitle: “the disciplined pursuit of less.” It’s an engaging title because it seems counterintuitive to try to have less. The motto of modern culture is the opposite: “If a little is good, a lot is better.” And yet many of us read self-help books like McKeown’s because we realize that motto doesn’t make us happy.
The pursuit of less must be disciplined because everything in our culture will tell you that you need to do and have more. If you don’t constantly complain about how tired and busy you are, you’re lazy. If you don’t have a house full of stuff, you’re a failure. Any minimalist can tell you it takes discipline to avoid collecting cheap manufactured goods.
Essentialism is a philosophy that will make you more productive. But it’s distinct from common productivity methods. McKeown says:
Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done.
The core message of the book is to choose just a few things that really matter to us. Most things, McKeown explains, are “noise.”
Most of us can relate to feeling like we’re pulled in a thousand directions and never having time for all the things we want to pursue. Once we filter out the “noise,” though, we’ll find that we actually have plenty of time to do the things that we really care about.
Often, we stay so busy that we don’t have time to think about what matters most to us. It can seem like everything we want or that interests us is equally important. And we like to believe that we can do all of it.
But the reality is that we can’t. And that leads us to the next point….
The Challenge of Essentialism: Making Trade-Offs
The definition of essentialism above sounds great on paper, and it seems like common sense. But how do you actually implement it in your life?
Well, you have to make tough choices. Right now, you’re probably doing quite a few things each day and juggling several life priorities simultaneously. You might have a job, a partner, children, pets, house chores, hobbies, volunteer gigs, social engagements, side hustles, friends, extended family, an exercise regimen, skills you aspire to learn…the list goes on, and they’re all vying for your attention.
To be an essentialist, you have to choose just a few that really matter to you. And here’s the hard part: you have to intentionally drop the rest.
We often don’t even realize that we have a choice about all the things we’re engaged in. As McKeown puts it:
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.
Although it can sound obvious to say it, the fact that we can choose not to do some of the things we routinely do is a huge wake-up call.
The Power of Trade-Offs
Even once we realize we can choose, we likely don’t want to choose. As McKeown puts it, trade-offs are hard because…
…by definition, a trade-off involves two things we want. Do you want more pay or more vacation time? Do you want to finish this next e-mail or be on time to your meeting? Do you want it done faster or better? Obviously, when faced with the choice between two things we want, the preferred answer is yes to both. But as much as we’d like to, we simply cannot have it all.
No one wants to hear that they can’t have it all, but McKeown presents it this way: Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up,” ask, “What do I want to go big on?” In other words, first choose what really matters to you – what you want more than anything else. Then, eliminating other “priorities” is all in service to really pursuing that goal.
“What do I want to go big on?” can be an intimidating question. Choosing to go big on one thing means that failing at that one thing is particularly painful. But ironically, by spreading your efforts over more things, you greatly increase your chances of failing at all of them.
To that concern, McKeown responds:
Yes, making the choice to eliminate something good can be painful. But eventually, every cut produces joy- maybe not in the moment but afterwards, when we realize that every additional moment we have gained can be spent on something better.
Essentialism, by definition, requires tough trade-offs.
How Will Essentialism Change Your Life?
The painful process of deciding which things in your life are non-essential – including things that you may like! – is so worth going through. Once you know what matters to you most, it’s suddenly easy to manage your time and to make life decisions.
Here are some benefits you’ll see when you start to implement this simple philosophy:
More progress in the direction you choose
Your energy may currently be scattered in many directions. You’re making a tiny bit of progress in all these directions. Channeling your energy into one direction will up-level it exponentially. For example, let’s say you want to learn French and you spend an hour per week studying. Imagine how much faster you would become fluent if you put in 20 hours per week instead. That’s the power of choosing a single priority.
More clarity
Examining your priorities and filtering out the non-essential will give you immense clarity about your life. It may sound like what you want would be obvious to you, but it’s surprisingly not for most people. There is so much noise in our environments – messages advertising and pop culture, other people’s demands, frivolous distractions – that it’s actually very hard to know what you want if you’re not being disciplined about exploring that line of inquiry. Essentialism gives you the power of actually knowing what you want because you’ve bothered to think about what you want.
Easier decision making
Similar to the note on clarity above, once you’ve sorted out your top priorities, it’s easy to make decisions and to say no. McKeown goes in depth in his book about how hard it is to say “no” to other people’s demands and requests. But it’s also hard to say “no” to our own desires for things that aren’t truly essential to us. As McKeown puts it:
So why is it so hard in the moment to dare to choose what is essential over what is nonessential? One simple answer is we are unclear about what is essential.
Once you have that clarity, when you face a decision – whether to accept an invitation, whether to apply for a certain job, how to spend free time on a Saturday, etc. – it will be easy to see which option promotes your primary goal.
Better time management
Do you often wish that you had more time to dedicate to certain projects or interests? Do you start to-do lists (even mental ones) in the morning and find by the end of the day you got sidetracked from most of your intentions? Are you often rushing from one task to another and perpetually late? Once you start implementing the essentialist philosophy and filtering out the noise, you won’t be trying to juggle a thousand things at once. Suddenly, you’ll find that you have plenty of time for the things you care about.
Empowerment
Above, I described the power of saying “no” to your own desires when they’re non-essential. But it can be incredibly hard to say “no” to other people, especially for those of use with people-pleasing tendencies. As McKeown puts it:
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.
But once you’ve done the work of sorting what’s essential from what’s non-essential in your life and gained that clarity, it’s much easier to say “no” to requests that would distract from your primary goals.
…sometimes you will have to turn down a seemingly very good option and have faith that the perfect option will soon come along. Sometimes it will, and sometimes it won’t, but the point is that the very act of applying selective criteria forces you to choose which perfect option to wait for, rather than letting other people, or the universe, choose for you.
As an essentialist, you’ll make your own decisions rather than allowing others to pull you along on a path that you haven’t actively chosen.
Respect from others
To build on the last point, we may think that refusing a request from another person will damage the relationship beyond repair. At work especially, it can feel like we need to accept every request from a supervisor and even colleagues lest we be labeled “not a team player.”
But McKeown explains that, counterintuitively, others will respect us more when we start to respect our own time. He encourages us to trade “popularity for respect”:
…when the initial annoyance or disappointment or anger wears off, the respect kicks in. When we push back effectively, it shows people that our time is highly valuable. It distinguishes the professional from the amateur.
When you accept every task thrown at you, others will naturally assume that your time isn’t very valuable, and you can be called upon to help with just about anything at any time. Being selective about what you say “yes” to signals to others that you value your own time and effort, and that will lead them to respect it more as well.
What do You Think?
Have you ever tried implementing this philosophy at work or in other areas of life? How did it change things? What’s your definition of essentialism? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments!
You may also like…
One Simple Reason You Struggle with Time Management and Goals
What Does Essentialism Mean and How Does It Compare to Similar Movements?
Loved Essentialism? Here Are 5 Thought-Provoking Books to Read Next
