How Essentialism Helped Me Through Burnout
It was one year ago, around this time, most likely, that I first heard about a book called Essentialism. I was on the cusp of a serious case of burnout at the time, and I was trying to figure out what to do and how I could get myself out of the hole that kept getting darker and deeper. It's a shame I don't remember where I saw this recommendation because, one year later, I would go back and thank that person and let them know how valuable their sharing has been to my life. That's why, since reading the book, I keep talking about it to people I think can benefit from it. It can truly change your life if you get the message—not necessarily transform it, but change it for the better for sure.
This week, I prepared a short presentation for my coworkers on Essentialism, and so I got to go through the pages where I had highlighted during my previous reads, trying my best to do it justice in this presentation. I ended up leaving a lot out of it, since I only had 20 minutes, but I thought to share this gist of the book here as well, hoping someone who needs it stumbles upon it the same way I did. What you read from this point is directly taken from the book, and what I added/changed is in italics.
The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin? Have you ever felt both overworked and underutilized? Have you ever found yourself majoring in minor activities? Do you ever feel busy but not productive? Like you’re always in motion, but never getting anywhere?
If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the way of the Essentialist.
Dieter Rams was the lead designer at Braun for many years. He is driven by the idea that almost everything is noise. He believes very few things are essential. His job is to filter through that noise until he gets to the essence. For example, as a young twenty-four-year-old at the company he was asked to collaborate on a record player. The norm at the time was to cover the turntable in a solid wooden lid or even to incorporate the player into a piece of living room furniture. Instead, he and his team removed the clutter and designed a player with a clear plastic cover on the top and nothing more. It was the first time such a design had been used, and it was so revolutionary people worried it might bankrupt the company because nobody would buy it. It took courage, as it always does, to eliminate the nonessential.By the sixties, this aesthetic started to gain traction. In time it became the design every other record player followed.
Dieter’s design criteria can be summarized by a characteristically concise principle, captured in just three words: Less but better The way of the Essentialist is the relentless pursuit of less but better. It doesn’t mean occasionally giving a nod to the principle. It means pursuing it in a disciplined way.
It is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to 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 your highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.
The Core Idea of Essentialism: Less but Better
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.
The book uses the example of a cluttered closet. In the same way that our closets get cluttered as clothes we never wear accumulate, our lives can also get cluttered as well-intended commitments and activities we’ve said yes to pile up. Here’s how an Essentialist would approach that closet:
1 - Explore: Instead of asking “Is there a chance I will wear this someday?” you ask more disciplined tough questions: Do I love this? Do I look great in it? Or as Marie Kondo would say “Does this spark joy?” If the answer is no, you would get rid of it. In the personal or professional life, the equivalent would be: Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution toward my goal?
2 – Eliminate: Let’s say you have divided the clothes into two piles of ‘must keep’ and ‘probably should get rid of’ But we all know sending off that second pile could be really hard. Here’s the killer question: If I didn’t already own this, how much would I spend to buy it? This usually does the trick. In other words, you not only should determine which activities are the highest contributors, but also you need to still actively eliminate those that do not contribute.
3- Execute: Now if you want your closet to stay tidy, you need a regular routine for organizing it. You need a system to make executing your intentions as effortless as possible.
Explore: Trivial Many vs. Vital Few
One paradox of Essentialism is that Essentialists actually explore more options than nonessentialists. Nonessentialists tend to virtually agree to everything without actually exploring, whereas Essentialists systematically explore and evaluate a broad set of options before committing to any. Because the idea is to ‘go big’ on one or two activities, they deliberately explore more options to ensure they are picking the right one.
The highest point of frustration is when we want to do a too many good things. We know it’s not possible. In Essentialism however, we are looking for our highest point of contribution: the right thing the right way at the right time.
Select: The Power of Extreme Criteria
Mastering this Essentialist skill, perhaps more than any other in this section, requires us to be vigilant about acknowledging the reality of trade-offs. By definition, applying highly selective criteria is a trade-off; sometimes you will have to turn down a seemingly very good option and have faith that the perfect option will soon come along. Sometimes it will, and sometimes it won't, but the point is that the very act of applying selective criteria forces you to choose which perfect option to wait for, rather than letting other people, or the universe, choose for you.
The quote in the picture is a simple technique for decision making. When facing with an opportunity or decision: If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.
Eliminate: Cutting Out the Trivial Many
Many of us say yes to things because we are eager to please and make a difference. Yet the key to making our highest contribution may well be saying no.
To eliminate nonessentials means saying no to someone. Often it means pushing against social expectations. To do it well takes courage and compassion. Soeliminating the nonessentials isn't just about mental discipline. It's about the emotional discipline necessary to say no to social pressure.
The real question is not how can we do it all, it is who will get to choose what we do and don't do. Because when we forfeit our right to choose, someone else will choose for us.
REMEMBER THAT A CLEAR "NO" CAN BE MORE GRACEFUL THAN A VAGUE OR NONCOMMITTAL "YES"
As anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of this situation knows, a clear "I am going to pass on this" is far better than not getting back to someone or stringing them along with some noncommittal answer like "I will try to make this work" or "I might be able to" when you know you can't. Being vague is not the same as being graceful, and delaying the eventual "no" will only make it that much harder-and the recipient that much more resentful.
Limit: The Freedom of Setting Boundaries
BOUNDARIES ARE A SOURCE OF LIBERATION
There is story of a school located next to a busy road. At first the children played only on a small area of the playground, close to the building where the grownups could keep their eyes on them. But then someone constructed a fence around the playground. Now the children were able to play anywhere and everywhere on the playground. Their freedom, in effect, more than doubled. Similarly, when we don't set clear boundaries in our lives, we can end up imprisoned by whatever others have set for us. When we have clear boundaries, on the other hand, we are free to select from the whole area-or the whole range of options-that we have deliberately chosen to explore.
CRAFT SOCIAL CONTRACTS
I was once paired with a colleague who approached projects in a completely opposite way. People predicted there would be fireworks between us. But our working relationship was actually quite harmonious. Why? Because when we first got together, I made it a point to lay out my priorities and what extra work I would and wouldn't be willing to take on over the life span of the project. "Let's just agree on what we want to achieve," I began. "Here are a couple of things that really matter to me..." And I asked him to do the same.
Thus, we worked through a "social contract,". Simply having an understanding up front about what we were really trying to achieve and what our boundaries were kept us from wasting each other's time, and distracting each other from the things that were essential to us. With practice, enforcing your limits will become easier and easier.
Execute: Remove Obstacles
Whether our goal is to complete a project at work, reach the next step in our career, or plan a birthday party, we tend to think of the process of execution as something hard and full of friction, something we need to force to "make happen." But the Essentialist approach is different. Instead of forcing execution, Essentialists invest the time they have saved into creating a system for removing obstacles and making execution as easy as possible.
Flow: The Genius of Routine
Michael Phelps, the most decorated male Olympian of all time, has a very detailed pre-race routine that he has done for years. It’s quite extensive; if you have ever watched one of his races, you’ll see he does a thing where he flaps his arms in such a way that his hands hit his back, that’s the last part, before the race starts. Because he has done this for years and years successfully, the actual race is just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and has been nothing but victories. Winning is a natural extension.
I don’t mean to say he became who he is just because of his good pre-race routine—that’s oversimplifying. However, both he and his coach have talked about the importance of routine in his accomplishments many times.
DO THE MOST DIFFICULT THING FIRST
Find a cue-something you have already established as a habit as a trigger to do this. It is quite liberating. Do not get caught up in crossing the small, non-essential tasks from your list, because they’re easy.
MIX UP YOUR ROUTINES
It's true that doing the same things at the same time, day after day, can get boring. To avoid this kind of routine fatigue, there's no reason why you can't have different routines for different days of the week.
Focus: What’s Important Now?
At this point you might expect me to start talking about the evils of multitasking-about how a true Essentialist never attempts to do more than one thing at a time. But in fact we can easily do two things at the same time: wash the dishes and listen to music, eat and talk, clear the clutter on our desk while thinking about where to go for lunch, text message while watching television, and so on.
What we can't do is concentrate on two things at the same time.
When I talk about being present, I'm not talking about doing only one thing at a time. I'm talking about being focused on one thing at a time. Multitasking itself is not the enemy of Essentialism; pretending we can "multifocus" is.
HOW TO BE IN THE NOW?
When faced with so many tass most important this very second-not what's most important tomorrow or even an hour from now. If you're not sure, make a list of everything competing for your attention and cross off anything that is not important right now.
Key Takeaways:
The Core Idea of Essentialism: Less but Better: Rather than doing more, do fewer things at a higher level of quality.
The Power of Saying No: If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.
Cultivating Clarity of Purpose: What is the most important thing I have to do today?