Hi friends,

I’m currently rereading the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown and it has made me rethink how I work and prioritize my life.

McKeown uses a slogan by Dieter Rams, who was the lead designer at Braun, to succinctly describe the premise of the book, “Less but better.”

I’ve gotten into the habit of filling any free time with work to feel productive, but really, I’ve just been avoiding the reality of life—we have to make trade-offs and can’t solve every problem.

The amount of good and even really good opportunities that get presented to us are nearly infinite, which in theory is great, but we are finite beings and need to focus on the great opportunities.

If you are a people pleaser by default like me, saying no to someone or some opportunity can feel daunting. But saying yes to something you’re not completely thrilled about may mean that you’ll have to say no to other opportunities that align better with your values down the road.

We shouldn’t be paralyzed with making decisions. We should be more intentional about what it means to say yes to someone or something and remember that saying yes to this thing means that you’re saying no to literally everything else. A few moments of social discomfort by saying no can free you from the burden of having to do something that you don’t 100% want to do.

My big takeaway from the book is that we need to pick a handful of things that are most important to us and spend our time on them. For me, this includes my work, health, writing, and relationships.

Essentialism isn’t about getting more things done. It’s about getting the few most vital things done and being intentional with how we are allocating our time—because time is our most valuable non-renewable resource, and we should treat it preciously.

Until next week,

Kevin