Achieve More with Essentialism

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Would you like to increase productivity and achieve more in the same amount of time? But first, you should know that you can’t do it all. You can’t be an expert in everything, nor can you schedule every work you want to do.

Trying to do that will fill you up with unnecessary worries and also, poor quality of work. Instead, we should learn time management techniques and focus on being an essentialist. 

Greg McKeown is there to help you identify the things essential for living and cut everything else. He is a management consultant who provided his services to some top companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google.

In his book Essentialism, George tells how to set your priorities right and do better by doing less. Once you know how to work effectively and efficiently and also eliminate the junk, you will have enough time to perform the needed jobs. 

Moreover, it will give you an emotional boost and thus, increase happiness, well-being and achieve more of what you want.

Listen to the summary at Blinkist or listen to the book at Audible.

How to set priorities in life?

One of the best personal productivity tips you can get is to find the things that matter the most to you, the ones you enjoy in and thrive on the most.
One of the best personal productivity tips you can get is to find the things that matter the most to you, the ones you enjoy in and thrive on the most.

The first step you need to take to achieve more is to get your priorities in position. There is a thing called learned helplessness, a situation where we just don’t exercise our power to choose. 

It happens when someone doesn’t get favorable conditions even after trying. Thus, they give up their choices and start working on whatever opportunities the life presents to them.

They do everything but are they getting results? 

Essentialism aims to increase your productivity and get better results. And what is productivity? It’s the ratio of output per unit input. Input is your labor and capital you put into doing a task and output is, well, the amount of work done.

So, here is how essentialism helps. First, you need to get away from the urge of doing everything. Choose the things that you excel at, which matters the most and stick to them instead of going in every direction. 

Read more: Curiosity or the Desire to Learn

They are the ones which will give you maximum success and satisfaction. And this process is ongoing.

Keep accessing your choices of what’s worth the time and make decisions accordingly. Time is ever-changing, and you need to know what to let go. 

The next thing would be to start doing those tasks you chose to do; less is better.

Less, but better

There are many types of productivity. If you want to increase your productivity, you definitely have to decide what is essential for you and continue to expand and thrive on these things.
There are many types of productivity. If you want to increase your productivity, you definitely have to decide what is essential for you and continue to expand and thrive on these things.

While it seems you can sort out what’s essential and what’s not, in reality, everything feels critical, and you end up doing it all. But let me quote one of the best essentialism examples, the Southwest Airlines, world’s largest low-cost carrier. 

They realized the negative effects of multitasking and hence, concentrated only on flying people to their destination.
Instead of offering them various premium services, they focused their services only to provide a mode of transportation.

And that’s one of the factors that increase productivity – to concentrate on one thing and keep improving yourself in it. 

Continental Airlines too, tried to walk on the path of Southwest but it failed, why? Instead of stripping down to essentials, they started a separate budget service which offered only flying (no extras). 

Read more: Learn About the Scarcity Mindset

But Continental Lite lost millions because the company couldn’t concentrate on it. It doesn’t matter how successful you’re or how much resources you have, doing everything isn’t feasible.

Learn to say NO

If you really want an answer to the question of why is productivity important, you need to learn to say no to some opportunities. Nobody can have everything and be productive at the same time, that's a fact.
If you really want an answer to the question of why is productivity important, you need to learn to say no to some opportunities. Nobody can have everything and be productive at the same time, that's a fact.

Failure in realizing the vitals and saying no to the rest may lead you to lose many opportunities. Many times we fear to say no, thinking that it might hurt people and damage our relationships, but try to look at the big picture. 

You may regret saying no for a few minutes, a week or so. The regret of saying yes to something that doesn’t matter, however, lasts longer.

Some people fall into sunk-cost bias just because they couldn’t decide when to say no and leave. Sunk-cost bias is a tendency to keep investing in something and not let go, even when you know it’s not going to work. 

And why do people do so? Because looking at the investment made already, makes it difficult to let go of it.

However, to get the full benefits of increasing productivity, you need to admit that you made errors and then, let them go.

Give yourself an escape

Facts about multitasking say that too much of it can be too much for you to handle. So it's only reasonable to leave out some free time for yourself, to reflect on your decisions and decide what you really want in your life.
Facts about multitasking say that too much of it can be too much for you to handle. So it's only reasonable to leave out some free time for yourself, to reflect on your decisions and decide what you really want in your life.

However, to make a firm and well-thought decision, you need some time, some free time with nothing to do. You will need to make an empty space in your day-to-day schedule to think about your life and the challenges you face. 

Knowing about all your problems and challenges will help you recognize which ones are more significant. You can thus, be prepared to be an essentialist and achieve more.

Many of our present-day CEOs and even Newton and Einstein used to go into solitude to help them focus on their plans. Another way essentialists use to stay focused is playing. 

Sports de-stress your mind and can help generate ideas which the minds can’t otherwise. By the way, don’t only work and play, take plenty of rest too.


Well, that would be all on the essence of essentialism… Less, the better! Are you up for it? So, make your list of priorities in life and set your foot on the path of essentialism. Drop everything that’s slowing you down and also, be prepared for obstacles. Hurdles are bound to be there, but you can get past them if you have got ample time. Essentialism is quite challenging, so start early. If you live by this principle, you'll undoubtedly achieve more!

Abhijeet Kumar a freelance content writer for aSabbatical.com
We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.