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Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Author: Greg McKeown

Overall Summary - Essentialism is a quasi-philosophy book about living a life true to yourself (also applicable to your business). It provides a systematic approach to build a life at the "highest point of contribution" (for you), meaning, doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons (rather than doing everything, because its popular, at the same time→leads to a life of high frustration). Then, it recommends ways to make the execution of that thing (almost) effortless.

"Essentialism is “the disciplined pursuit of less…but better”

Good ideas overall, but is one of those books that should be much, much shorter.

Part 0: Essense/Mindset

Intro

• Notes
• Essentialism is about living life by design, not default. Live purposefully and eliminate things that aren’t essential.
• “Essentialism is the discipled, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.” (p7)
• “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will” (p10)
• On biggest regrets people have before they die… "I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me” (p16, footnote 6)
• "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life” (p27, footnote 12)
• Steps to Essentialism:
  • Explore/Evaluate options (and their tradeoffs)
  • Eliminate the trivial options
  • Execute by removing obstacles
• Essentialism is “the disciplined pursuit of less…but better”