Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

The way of the Essentialist is the relentless pursuit of less but better. It doesn’t mean occasionally giving a nod to the principle. It means pursuing it in a disciplined way.

in the words of George Eliot, “What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?”

Perfectionism makes essential tasks hard to start, self-doubt makes them hard to finish, and trying to do too much too fast makes it hard to sustain momentum.

I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

It is theoretically true that hard work equals better results. But in practice, this is true only to a point. After all, there’s an upper limit to how much time and effort we can invest. And the more depleted we get, the more our return on that effort dwindles. This cycle can continue until we are burned out and exhausted, and still haven’t produce

There are two types of results: linear and residual.

Strangely, some of us respond to the exhaustion and overwhelmingness by vowing to work even harder and longer. It doesn’t help that our culture glorifies burnout as a measure of success and self-worth. The implicit message is that if we aren’t perpetually exhausted, we must not be doing enough.

Outdated assumptions and emotions make new information harder to process.

Discovering the effortless way of living is like using special polarised sunglasses while flyfishing. Without them, the glare on the water makes it difficult to see anything swimming below the surface. But as soon as you put them on, their angled surface filters out the horizontal light waves coming off the water, blocking the glare. Suddenly, you