Episode 588 – Becoming an essentialist

“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.”
― Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

• This is from the book E by …. And today I want to talk about 3 key takeways that reminded me that I have to take control if I want to make my life meaningful

• Thank you for being here
• QFY is all about how to become your best self and today we are talking exactly about that
• I have alluded to today’s topic and corresponding book in the previous episode
• Essentialism
• More than just a concept or a revolutionary idea
• Essentialism is a way of life, or as the author says:

Essentialism is not a way to do one more thing; it’s a different way of doing everything. It’s a way of thinking.

• Which makes this book more than just another motivational book that you enjoy while reading it, but that you quickly forget about once you put it away
• Essentialism is an alternate approach to life
• And while a lot of the examples in the book are work-related – it does become clear that one can BE an essentialist in all of life

Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin?
Do you sometimes feel overworked and underutilized?
Do you feel motion sickness instead of momentum?
Does your day sometimes get hijacked by someone else’s agenda?
Have you ever said “yes” simply to please and then resented it?

• These are the questions the author asks on his website
• And yes, everyone reading this will answer YES to at least one of them
• And yes, this makes it look like a cheap marketing strategy but I have to say – I like the 3^rd question
  • Stretched to thin? – Sure, a lot
  • Overworked and underutilized – happens in every job I ever had
  • Other people’s agenda – yes we all find our days hijacked at times
  • And we all say YES more than we should
• But

Do you feel motion sickness instead of momentum?

• I like this question
• In fact, I feel like it all the time lately
• I am running around all day and yet, at the end of the day, I didn’t get done what I set out to do
• I have to be honest though
• I do get things done
• My car is filled with garbage bags full of clothes and shoes from a weeks worth of cleaning out my closets
• At work I am heavily involved in a major project that takes a lot of time
• I am busy doing
• But I am often not happy with the things I do accomplish because they are not what I wanted to accomplish
• The goals I write down in my planner every Sunday when I plan my week ahead – those don’t seem to get done
• MeKeown defines Essentialism as follows:

“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.”

• While I like what he is saying here, I want to be honest and tell you that I think this is very difficult in practical terms
• Knowing what is eseential at all times requires constant thought and evaluation
• One minute I may have decided what matters and I am all in
• But then the phone rings and a friend really needs me to talk thru a complicated matter
• Meaning
• What is the right thing can change on us in an instant
• I thought I did many right things before the pandemic hit
• But now we are all asked to reevaluate what is right
• However – I do think that this book provides a few very helpful solutions the question of how to best navigate the complex web of to many opportunities that we all find ourselves presented with every single day
  • For example – as I am writing this episode, text messages are popping up in the right hand corner of my screen and I am trying very hard to not look at them so I don’t get pulled into a different opportunity
• I remember speaking in past episodes that we can now live our lives almost entirely from our homes
• Little did I know that we would eventually have to do for the majority of our week
  • Even without commuting
  • Without going to the gym
  • And many of us don’t even go to the store either for groceries but have them delivered
• We are now spending more time at home than ever before in our lives
• Yet we are still bombarded with opportunities
• I feel almost as if before I had fewer distractions because I wasn’t receptive to them
• Because I was not at my desk and looking into a bright screen, I wasn’t exposed to so much information
• I was engaged with the world by interacting with the world
• Time was determined by Being in a given place
  • The time I had to be at work
  • The time I planned on being in the gym to get a decent workout in
  • The time I had to leave the house to arrive at my TM meeting or the yoga class
• Now everything is instant
• I click on a link in my Google calendar and boom – Yoga starts
• I leisurely end work around 5 to go for my afternoon walk, but sometimes its 4.30 and sometimes its 6pm by the time I go
• Hours run into each other
• Days run together
• Everything is more fluid because we have more time
• And this also makes us more susceptible to wasting it on non-essentials

• Here is how the Author describes the non-essentials:

“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.”

• Both the essential and the Non-essentials are different for everyone
• I am not spending time looking for a nicer house but I may lose a lot of time on the REI website surfing camping or climbing gear
• The messages that pop up on my screen may not be essential right now, but could be at a different time
• But this book added a lot of value to my current state of constant distraction in 3 key areas

One

• It reminded me of my power to choose
  • Sounds obvious – we know we have a choice with most things in our life
  • But do we always remember that?
  • I think so often we feel we need to attend to everything that comes up right away
    • The text message popping up could be important
    • We could be missing something on social media so we need to check it frequently
    • We remember something we need to purchase so why not do it right now in the middle of working on this report
  • Everything tiny problem that arises seems urgent
  • Why?
  • Because we have the power to solve it almost instantly
    • Before smart phones, we waited to get home from work to listen to messages on our answering machine and check the mailbox for any letters from friends
    • In Europe stores closed at 6 when I grew up, so if you remembered something to late, you’d have to wait until the next day to get it

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

• Airplane mode
• A friend reminded me of that function on my phone which is available to all of us
• We can choose to use it
• The author reminds us that we don’t have to do it all
• And it starts with our devices
• By allowing them to interrupt us at any time, we forfeit our power to choose
• Because once they beep and ring and flash, choosing becomes much harder
• Take this with you today:
• You can exercise the power of choice
• This means becoming more deliberate about your day by consciously deciding what and who is important at a given moment
• If you want to get something done that requires an hour or a day of time – make that time and don’t allow it to be taken away
• And yes, this may require some preparation like airplane mode, like going to a different part of your house or somewhere else altogether
• But this is all part of choosing

• A second big reminder was that in order to be effective, I need to be selective
  • I especially like the following phrase from the book:
  • If it isn’t a clear YES, then its a clear NO
  • Another way I often ask myself is – Am I going to be in it 100%? IF not, then its best to not even start
  • I need to apply that question to everyday activities
  • Do you sometimes find yourself reading information on stuff you KNOW you are never going to need?
  • For example – a friend wants to buy a house
  • So whenever he finds something he likes, he sends it to me
  • This happened earlier today
  • Well, suddenly after looking at his house, I found myself looking at houses in my area
  • I am not even looking to buy a house
  • The clear YES also applies to our time
  • Its ok to evaluate something for the purpose of making a decision
  • I looked into composting once and read all sorts of information about it
  • Then I decided against it for various reasons
  • But sometimes, the idea still comes back and I have to remind myself that I already made a decision
  • There is no need to spend more time reading about it unless my circumstances change
  • I like this quote from the book

The fear of missing out goes into full effect. How can we say no – the offer is right here for the taking. We might never have gone after it, but now it is so easy to get so we consider it. But if we just say YES because its an easy reward, we run the risk of having to later say NO to a more meaningful one.

• Who can not relate to this?
• Because something was easy – we said yes
• A party invite at the neighbors – easy – just walk across the street
• But we are not really close to these people and when we get an offer to do something much better, we feel bad
• I have been there many times
• In an effort just to fill my weekends I used to say yes to a bunch of stuff I didn’t even enjoy
• But being selective means we have to think about what matters to us AND we have to be OK not getting it
  • Without getting anxious and grasping for the next best thing
• Our world is full of opportunities
• Every day I get many of them in my inbox – articles, offers for courses to take, for clothes to buy and so on
• With every email I open, I am saying Yes to someone or something because I am giving them my time and attention
• We have to remind ourselves to be Selective
• What deserves your attention, your time, your energy?
• We have to think about this not just once in a while, but every single day
• Yesterday I wanted to finish this episode but instead I got lost in the stock market
• Today I have selected that only this episode matters, nothing else
• My phone is in the other room and I turned WIFI off on this laptop
• There is a lot I could or should be doing right now
• But there is only this one thing I want to be doing
• When we think about the many opportunities most of us have in life to choose among many great paths, I like the 3 questions the author poses in this book:
  • What am I deeply passionate about?
  • What taps my talent?
  • What meets a significant need in the world?
• If you are lacking direction at the moment – start there
• This doesn’t need to be a career change
• But it could be a volunteer opportunity, helping out a neighbor, or cleaning up an area in your community
• I really like these questions as a starting point to something new, or simply to help us get back on track when we find ourselves lost in to many things

And the lastly, and this to me is really the key to living an essential life – is to cut out options

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

• The default is, thanks to our modern lifestyle, lots of options
• My weekends in nature have taught me that we need very little to be happy
• Unfortunately, our environment wants to tell us we need a lot
• And when I looked at my overstuffed closets last week, I realized – I was hanging onto stuff because I thought I needed it
• But the fact that I didn’t ever wear any of these clothes was a clear indicator that I didn’t really need them
• NEED is a great way to begin designing your life
• These days, my purchases are all need-based – like the gear I will actually need when I am sleeping outside in a tent or climbing a mountain covered in ice
• In the past I bought things like Michael Kors purses, because I thought I needed them
• I allowed the world to tell me what Janine needs without ever questioning what I needed
• This goes back to the 3 questions I listed earlier
• I would add a fourth one we shouldn’t underestimate:
• What makes you happy?
• Design your life around it
• I haven’t turned the TV on once during the pandemic.
• I have considered it many times
• But I know once I turn it on once, I will keep turning it on and never finish the books that are more important to me
• Cutting out is hard, no question
• Because it means saying no
• But as the author writes:

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”

• AND

To apply the principle of condensing to our lives we need to shift the ratio of activity to meaning. We need to eliminate multiple meaningless activities and replace them with one very meaningful activity.

• And while I love these statements in general, I want to add that Sometimes there is value in the meaningless
  • The lounging around
  • The sleeping in
  • The evening Netflix night
• We sometimes need those moments and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up
• But if your days get lost in the meaningless pursuit of nothing, its time to pause and reflect
• And again, the 3 questions can be a great way to start
• There is a lot more in this book
• For example he talks at length about the power of saying no and even gives examples on a phrases to use that offer a polite no
• Overall a great read
• I zipped through it and got a lot out of it and maybe you do too
• Let me leave you with this quote:

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

• Every time I finish an episode, record it, edit it and post it, I feel momentum again
• And I want to do more
• This to me is the best indicator that I am on the right track
• I don’t feel motivated after nonessential activities
• Maybe accomplished and happy that they got done
• But probably not ready to do more of it
• And I think this is how you can tell what is essential in your life
• Small progress motivates you to do more
• Start there, my friends

Much love