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Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

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What is the trade-off?

In Life 8 Mins Read By

There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.- Thomas Sowell

Life is a fight for territory; we are always trading off something for yet another thing: your Work or Your Marriage, Your Mental Health, or Mindless scrolling on social media. Unfortunately, there is always a trade-off. The question is not if you are trading off something; instead, the question is, what are you trading off?

Take, for instance, you run a not-for-profit organization, but you are attending conferences all year round, all over the world. The trade-off would probably be less time working on your project. Another example is social media/instant messaging, picking up your phone every 15 minutes to check the latest updates for the dopamine rush. Still, the trade-off is either having less face to face conversations or having less time to work on your goals. You get the drift, most times you cannot have it all.

trade-off /ˈtrād ˌôf/ noun : a balance achieved between two desirable but incompatible features; a compromise.

In her 2014 Dartmouth Commencement Speech, Shonda Rhimes delivers a very compelling speech on trade-offs:

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essentialism

Book Summary: Essentialism by Greg McKeown

In Book Summaries 8 Mins Read By

If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.

THE WISDOM OF LIFE CONSISTS IN THE ELIMINATION OF NON-ESSENTIALS. —Lin Yutang

Print | Kindle (eBook) | Audiobook

Essentialism by Greg McKeown is a very great book about living by design, not by default. The book goes in depth on how to relentlessly pursue less and concentrate on what really matters. As an Essentialist, you need to focus on the few things that are really essential, think of the trade-offs, say no more often and EXECUTE.

Here are my favourite take aways from reading – 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. The way of the Essentialist isn’t about setting New Year’s resolutions to say “no” more, or about pruning your in-box, or about mastering some new strategy in time management. It is about pausing constantly to ask, “Am I investing in the right activities?“

Am I investing in the right activities?

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.

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