The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we plu...
Psychologists call this decision fatigue: the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.5
Our highest priority is to protect our ability to prioritize.
Only by going through the work of identifying extreme criteria were they able to get rid of the 70 and 80 per cents that were draining their time and resources and start focusing on the most interesti...
My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
I’m sorry. We’re not going to do a thousand different things that really won’t contribute much to the end result we are trying to achieve.’
It leads to what I call the paradox of success,2 which can be summed up in four predictable phases: PHASE 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it enables us to succeed at our endeavor. PHASE 2:...
Instead of spending our limited supply of discipline on making the same decisions again and again, embedding our decisions into our routine allows us to channel that discipline toward some other essen...
Instead of making just a millimeter of progress in a million directions he began to generate tremendous momentum towards accomplishing the things that were truly vital.
Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the nonessentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things...
Essentialist Thinks ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE
Before you can evaluate what is and isn’t essential, you first need to explore your options. While non-Essentialists automatically react to the latest idea, jump on the latest opportunity, or respond...
A Nonessentialist approaches every trade-off by asking, How can I do both? Essentialists ask the tougher but ultimately more liberating question, Which problem do I want? An Essentialist makes trade-o...
Once you’ve figured out which activities and efforts to keep in your life, you have to have a system for executing them.
For a type A personality, it is not hard to push oneself hard. Pushing oneself to the limit is easy! The real challenge for the person who thrives on challenges is not to work hard. He explains to any...
When teams are really clear about their purpose and their individual roles, on the other hand, it is amazing what happens to team dynamics. Formal momentum accelerates, adding up to a higher cumulativ...
WHERE IS THE KNOWLEDGE WE HAVE LOST IN INFORMATION? —T. S. Eliot
To eliminate non-essentials means saying no to someone.
The idea that we can have it all and do it all is not new. This myth has been peddled for so long, I believe virtually everyone alive today is infected with
Simms began by presenting the facts of the story: Kenneth L. Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills High School, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thur...