Greg McKeown Quotes

by abolishing any chance of being bored we have also lost the time we used to have to think and process.

Take a deep breath. Get present in the moment and ask yourself what is important this very second.

The awkward pause. Instead of being controlled by the threat of an awkward silence, own it. Use it as a tool. When a request comes to you (obviously this works only in person), just pause for a moment. Count to three before delivering your verdict. Or if you get a bit more bold, simply wait for the other person to fill the void. 2.

Essentialism: only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.

Just make sure to select something that was written before our hyperconnected era and yet seems timeless. Such writings can challenge our assumptions about what really matters.

Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft in their book Make Space,

Remember that if you don't prioritize your life someone else will.

Essentialism is not about how to get more things done, it's about how to the 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.

Play stimulates the parts of the brain involved in both careful, logical reasoning and carefree, unbound exploration.

To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make. Ironically,

One of the best ways to seed an opportunity is to allow someone to discover the opportunity for him- or herself.

If I didn't already own this, how much would I spend to buy it?

...the faster and busier things get, the more we need to build thinking time into our schedule. And the noisier things get, the more we need to build quiet reflection spaces in which we can truly focus.

The word priority was singular for 500 years - what does priorities mean - 'many many first things.'

I think we are in a non-essentialist bubble - everything seems important - so of course nothing is.

The ancient Greeks had two words for time. The first was chronos. The second was kairos. The

It is not just the number of choices that has increased exponentially, it is also the strength and number of outside influences on our decisions that has increased. While much has been said and written about how hyperconnected we now are and how distracting this information overload can be, the larger issue is how our connectedness has increased the strength of social pressure. Today, technology has lowered the barrier for others to share their opinion about what we should be focusing on.
It is not just information overload; it is opinion overload.

The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. 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 have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.

It would have been easy to think of the jobs in terms of that ratio between time and reward. But I knew what really counted was the relationship between time and results.

In a piece called "No More Yes. It's Either HELL YEAH! Or No," the popular TED speaker Derek Sivers describes a simple technique for becoming more selective in the choices we make. The key is to put the decision to an extreme test: if we feel total and utter conviction to do something, then we say yes, Derek-style. Anything less gets a thumbs down.

Of course, nobody likes to be bored. But by abolishing any chance of being bored we have also lost the times we used to have to think and process.

I'd rather be honest and lose than be dishonest and win

I think we've been oversold the value of more and undersold the value of less.

The life of an Essentialist is a life lived without regret. If you have correctly identified what really matters, if you invest your time and energy in it, then it is difficult to regret the choices you make. You become proud of the life you have chosen to live.

Done right, a strategic intent is really one decision that makes 1,000 decisions.