Essentialism, Greg McKeown
(back to books)
- Substrat: almost everything is noise
- until you know what is important right now, what is important right now is to figure out what is important right now
- killer question: “If I didn’t already own this, how much would I spend to get it?”
- essentialist way:
1) explore (discern trivial many from vital few),
2) eliminate (cut trivial many),
3) execute (remove obstacles and make execution effortless)
- stop making casual commitments, stop stepping in, stop caving in to social pressure
- technique to assess opportunities:
write it down, define 3 min criteria and 3 top criteria it needs to pass so that you invest time (needs to pass 2 out of 3 for each)
- reverse pilot: test whether removing an initiative/activity has negative consequences
- paradox of success: 1) clarity of purpose, 2) reputation as „go to person“,
3) diffused efforts from external demands on time,
4) distraction from highest level of contribution
- formulating an essential intent avoids straddling of strategies, politics, lack of leadership
- Bill Gate's think week: week off to think/read (also during Microsoft's high-growth in 80s)
- from Jeff Weiner, CEO at LinkedIn, FCS (a.k.a. FOCUS): "Fewer things done better", "Communicating the right information to the right people at the right time", "Speed and quality of decision making"