The Power of Essentialism

1. If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Well Someone Else Will.
2. Essentialism is 3 things.

• Explore (Explore your prioritizes)
• Eliminate (Eliminate non-essentials)
• Execute (Execute a personal system)

Essentialism overlaps with productivity but it's not the same as productivity. Productivity emphasizes doing more things as efficiently as possible but Essentialism is about doing more of the right things. It is the mindset of doing the right things at the right time for the right reasons instead of doing everything now as efficiently as possible. You have the power to decide what truly matters. Most people don't realize that they are making a strategic choice in this do everything for everyone without really thinking about approach of life.

Deciding What Matters

1. Make a list of the absolute most important things in life. try to workout those things that are 90% or above important.
2. Every yes takes time away from another experience
3. Every time we say yes to something we are taking time and attention away from those vital few items.
4. Think of yourself as a journalist and your job is to ask questions and to explore and to create space to figure among all the amidst all the dots of the your life, what the lead is.
5. Ask this simple question to yourself: What is something essential in you life that you are under investing in?
6. There is no right or wrong answer to the question. Only you know what is essential in your life.
7. People allowed the expectations of others to guide them rather than their own internal voice of conscience guiding them.
8. A non-essentialist basically believes that everything is equally essential and everything's important. An essentialist believes that almost nothing is essential. Only a few things really matter.
9. think of important tasks as exponentially more important
10. Everything that is important does not follow a linear line but instead follows an exponential line. It's called a power law. The most important item in any list will be twice or more important  than the next item on the list.
11. Remember this; You simply cannot do it all.
12. Every time you say yes to something you say no to something else.
13. The 90 percent rule is that you think about your life through lenses or a continuum, where on the one hand are all the things  that are trivial, and as you move up the continuum, it's averagely important, then it becomes important and then at the high end, 90 percent of above that is where the most essential activities are.
14. 90% rule: think, how important is it, how exited am I from a scale 0-100?
15. What tasks and commitments are clear yeses to you?
16. These are the questions that you can ask right now so that you can start moving forward to becoming more of an essentialist. They are:
17. What is something that essential that you're under-investing in right now?

• Why does it matter so much to you?
• What needs to change?
• How much time will it take?
• What does success look like in that area?

Finding Space to Focus

1. Have a think week. A think week is every six months where there will be no phone calls, no digital distraction and try to workout what is essential?
2. If that seems impractical then you can start small. Maybe 1 hour a week where you just clear out all the rest of the clutter.
3. Build a dedicated time for yourself to think about what's important.
4. Review everything that has happened in the last week.
5. Look ahead to the next week and decide where you need to place your focus.
6. It helps to stay on track and when it is off track then it helps get back on track quicker than just allowing other people's agenda to do that.
7. Consider using paper and pen for planning sessions, to minimize distractions.

Eliminating Non-Essentials

1. Make a list of all the things you're over-investing in.
2. anything less essential is a candidate for elimination.
3. When you say yes to one thing you will be saying no to some thing else.
4. Practice saying 'No' more deliberately.
5. Change "I have to" to "I choose to, because if I don't..."
6. Remember there is a choice and in that choice is the space to negotiate.

Mastering the Slow Yes

1. "We have got to learn the art of the slow yes and the fast no".
2. don't agree to anything too quickly. take time to consider agreements.

Learning to Uncommit

1. To uncommit is the honest path of eliminating a previous commitment.
2. One of things that makes uncommitting hard for people is the sunk cost bias.
3. Sunk cost bias means that once we invest in something, we become more committed to it.
4. This is a perfect useful heuristic to have until when we are doing something that doesn't actually deserved to be completed.
5. The endowment effect means that we overvalue something because we own it.
6. The endowment effect means that you have this project you keep doing it, you keep just because it is yours.
7. To get out of this state ask the question: How much would I invest now to get into this project? If I was starting right now how much would I pay for this project?
8. It helps you to evaluate from it's current value, not from what you had originally estimated and not from this place of overvaluing it because you have invested in it before.
9. Start your new routine with a small commitment, then build over time.
10. When we constantly overcommit, we're not really being honest.
11. Uncommitting is a part of validating the character principle of being honest with people.
12. Sometimes we allow other people to continually make their problem our problem.
13. make a list of times you've said 'yes' and how you felt about your decision afterwards.
14. This help you to have a point of view and where your boundary should be. Because if you don't have a point of view, If you don't see clearly, you can't make it clear to other people.
15. Eliminating non-essentials is all about getting your life back.

Executing Essentialism in Your Life

1. For executing don't force, make routines, systems and habits to make it as easy as possible to do what matters most.
2. There are two ways of executing. They are:

• The first way is the way a non-essentialist approaches it. Force at the last moment, make it happen and it's an exhausting way to try and approach execution. You may only do the task you have identified as important once or twice.
• when starting a new routine, make a small commitment to start and let it build up over time. Consistency is more important than quantity

Build triggers into your schedule. make it easy to do what is essential and hart to do what is non-essential. Create a visual representation of your progress. Make a list of some visual cues you would like to try. Maintain a routinized weekly checklist to avoid wasting time scheduling your essential tasks. Sometimes scheduling an activity is as much work as doing it. By routinizing your regular tasks you save time your creative energy for more important projects.

Creating Accountability

1. Ask someone you trust to hold you accountable to your most important tasks.
2. Try creating a social contract that outlines your goals and ask your accountability partner to sign it with you.