Essentialism by Greg Mckeown

You’ve most likely heard of this book - Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I was really looking forward to reading this book and it did not disappoint. I listened to this while on maternity leave and it catapulted me into thinking about returning to work differently. I knew how I was operating at my previous job was not how I wanted to continue my career. This helped me article what about the role, company, culture I wanted to move away from and what was great and gave me energy.

Instead of a book review, I thought I’d highlight my favorite bullets below: (You know, in the spirit of essentialism)

• Make REAL tradeoffs. “Less but better” -> Pursue this relentlessly

• Once you give yourself permission to stop doing everything, you can give your best self to something

• If everything is important you’ll end up over-worked but under-utilized (just sit in that for a moment)

• Denying a request is not the same as denying a person

• Identify and break the cycle of “learned helplessness”

Thinking through how to build your future:

• What deeply inspires you?

• What are you distinctly talented at?

• How could you work on a particular need in the world?

And finally - a major theme of this book is DISCERNMENT. I love this word from theological circles and I don’t think it’s used enough in secular ones. His premise is the more time you take to think through something - discernment - the less time you’ll waste doing things that you shouldn’t be doing. Most of the book outlines different ways to do just that.

We’re all perpetually tired from the last 2 years of this pandemic. This book can help be your guide to resetting into what is truly aligned with your purpose and what is just accumulated noise.

Cheers to clarity in 2022!