By Greg Mckeown
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of the non-essentials // Lin Yutang
Essentialism: less, but better
Essentialism isn’t about getting more things done, it’s about getting the right things done. It isn’t about doing less for the sake of doing less. It is about making the best possible investment of your time.
Live by design not by default
Figure out the highest point of contribution then direct your efforts there
If you don’t prioritize your life someone else will
Success often begets failure because we try to take on too much and get caught up in the undisciplined pursuit of more
For the first time lots of people have lots of choices. We now have to manage ourselves and as a whole we are unprepared to do so
The word priority was singular for its initial 500 years of existence, it only became plural in the 1900s. Multiple priorities is an oxymoron, priority means first—most important
A nurse who worked with people during the last weeks of their lives recorded their regrets. The #1 regret was “I wish I had the courage to live a die true to myself, not the life others expected me to live”
This book is meant to do for our career what a professional organizer does for our closet. We need to clean things out regularly and make deliberate decisions or we risk getting lost in the clutter
Essentialism is a method of choosing a few great things over lots of good things