Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less

A must read for everyone. Highly relevant in today's time.
Dont go by reviews which says the book can be shorter without losing essential contents and bla bla.
Reviews can be witty but in no way it will reduce the importance and usefulness of reading the book.
If u skip the book based on such similar reviews there is no bigger loser than yourself. Highly recommended book it is.

I got less out of this book than most because I was already familiar with a lot of the ideas present. However, they're presented concisely, and so the book is probably worth a read for most.

A lot of good reminders and tips on how to focus on the essential. Parts are a bit cheesy but still a real good book

Essentialism – 5 Stars

The big caveat here is that I read this in 2025, even though it came out in 2011. A lot of the ideas have since gone mainstream and been repeated endlessly in books and podcasts. At first, I thought it would just be a helpful reminder—but I ended up finding several nuggets that were either new to me or phrased in a way that made me see things differently.

The book is well written and fairly concise, though it could’ve been shorter. The author also narrates the audiobook and does a great job.

I didn’t really disagree with anything in it. It goes well with The One Thing by Gary Keller. The interesting challenge now is figuring out how to blend essentialism with all the GTDing, pomodoring, and time-blocking that I rely on.

DNF - the book talks about using your time wisely, and I don't think reading this book is worth it. Very shallow anecdotes and examples. Maybe worth reading if you have a problem saying “no” to things and really need a kick up the butt.

Key takeaways:

- If you are not careful, saying ‘yes' can become your default position. Have you ever found yourself stretched to thin? Would you rather to five things poorly, or two things well? Maybe one thing exceptionally? Do you catch yourself feeling busy, but not productive? The way out is the way of the Essentialist
- ‘Do less, but better.'
- It's not a new years resolution. It's about pausing constantly to ask, ‘Am I investing in the right activities?'
- I agreed with most components of this book, it seemed well supported, however I think there is a time early in a new career or young adulthood where it makes sense to be open to several opportunities until you find what you want to become an essentialist in.
- ‘Discern the vital few from the [trivial, mediocre, good] many'
- You can't have ‘ten top priorities.' Priority means one, the thing that comes prior.
- I like the concept where Frank O'Brian has a ‘thinking retreat. Once a month, he gathers his team into a room for a full day. No emails, no phones allowed. No agenda. The purpose is simply to think and talk. This meeting falls on the first Monday of the month, when everyone is at the top of their game. Clients know not to expect any response on that day. This allows them to take time to re-center on what is essential. That is nearly impossible to do without dedicated time to think. It's hard to grow or innovate without that space. The meeting also serves as a litmus test: if someone can't make the meeting because they have too much going on, either we are doing too much or we need more people. We don't get this time unless we force it into the schedule. It will not occur naturally.
- Focus is something we have, but it is also something we do. In order to have focus, we need to escape TO focus. An essentialist focuses the way our eyes focus, not by fixating on something, but by constantly adjusting to the field of vision. Turn off your phone, computer (literally). Take everything off your desk (literally) but a pen and a paper.
- Sleep is VERY important, both physically and mentally. Get eight hours of sleep. Take a nap during your lunch break. This supercharges your brain and is linked to high performance. Sleep deprivation is very harmful.
- The ability to prioritize IS the priority.
- Essentialism requires a systematic, rigorous approach to hiring. 1. Interview the candidate by phone - this strips away visual cues while forming first impressions. 2. Candidate is interviewed by multiple people throughout the company. 3. If they make it through several rounds of interviews, they are invited to spend a day working with the team. 4. After the day, management sends out a questionnaire to the whole team - instead of just the obvious questions, ask, ‘Would they love working here?' ‘Would we love having them work with us?' No offer or commitment is made at this stage. The objective is to allow both teams to see each other as honestly as possible. If the team isn't absolutely sure, then the answer is no.
- ‘If it isn't a clear yes, it's a no'
- ‘If I didn't already own this, how much would I spend to buy this?' ‘If I didn't already have this opportunity (job, project, client, etc.), what would I be willing to do to acquire it?'
- Rather than asking yourself, ‘What would I say yes to?' ask yourself, ‘What would I say no to?'
- Essential Intent: ‘If we could be truly excellent at only one thing, what would it be? How will we know when we have succeeded?' When looking at mission statements, grandiose is usually bad. Compare: ‘Eliminate hunger in the world.' vs ‘Build 150 affordable, green, storm resistant homes for families living in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans.' The concreteness makes it real, the realness makes it inspiring. This applies to way more than your work mission statement. Apply it to your life.
- I love this idea of saying no to most things firmly because you are so confident in what you want to do. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure what I want to say yes to, at the moment. Saying no FIRMLY is important. When you get a request you don't want to say yes to, but you are having a hard time saying an outright no, say: “I'll need to check my calendar and get back to you”, “No, but I know someone who might want to help”, or, simply say nothing, make it look like you are thinking about it, and wait for the other person to fill the void. People are so afraid of awkward pauses they will probably let you off the hook.
- We can say ‘no' and regret it for a few moments, or say yes and regret it for days, weeks, months, or years.
- Beware of sunk cost bias. ‘If I was presented with this project right now, in it's current condition, what would I be willing to do to acquire it?' An essentialist asks, what else could I do with this time or money if I pull the plug now?
- The Endowment Effect: Nobody has ever washed a rental car. We tend to overvalue things that we already possess. How much would you be willing to sell a mug you currently own for? How much would you be willing to pay for it if you didn't already own it?
- If something doesn't suit the essential intent, drop it. What is the obstacle, that, if removed, would remove the majority of other obstacles?
- Look for small changes we can make in the things we do often, rather than big changes.
- Done is better than perfect. Minimal Viable Product

Achive more with less. When I first heard this, I thought it was just another “Bullshit productivity life hack.” This book proved me otherwise. It has convinced me to follow the path of essentialism.

Essentialism is really the definition of good selfishness. It's choosing to say no and saying yes to what's more important. It's cutting all your goals and focusing on what's the most essential right now. It's viewing your time as an assest. Your time is valuable. If u didn't choose how your life goes, someone will do it for you.

Successful people don't do more... they do less. They do only what they really need to do. They cut out any unnecessary distractions. It's important to focus only on one thing, just so you can give it all your energy and progress. It's that simple.

Always ask yourself, what's the most essential right now. What is it that i should remove from my day so i can focus on what really matters only. It requires dedication and discipline to do this. It's the practice of saying NO, saying NO to what really doesn't serve my purpose and meaning.

There was a variation for this approach, which i loved so much, too. It said that you can think of your life as a whole, not just the time increments. I'm thinking of it as seasons.... what season am I currently at?? If it's the gym season, so ama go wild at the gym and maintain what's essential (doing the bare minimum effort) while cutting the nonessential. After you finish start another season.

Method
1. Explore. Discern the trivial many from the vital few. Commit and go big on only a few items. Ask 3 questions:
• What do I feel deeply inspired by?
• What am I particularly talented at?
• What meets a significant need in the world?
2. Eliminate. Cut out the trivial many. Say no to social expectations.
3. Execute. Create a system for removing obstacles to execution.

Protect the Asset: Yourself
Our highest priority is to protect our ability to prioritize. This means reducing stress, getting enough sleep, and generally ensuring our mental health.

Selection
• Wait for the best rather than settling for good enough.
• 90% Rule: As you evaluate an option, think of the single most important criterion and rate the option from 0 to 100. If you rate it any lower than 90, change it to 0, and reject it. This prevents indecision and settling.
• Accept only the top 10% of opportunities. Take only those that are exactly what you're looking for.
• If it isn't a clear yes, then it's a clear no.

Elimination
• When evaluating an opportunity you have, ask, “If I didn't already have this opportunity, what would I be willing to do to acquire it?” If you wouldn't do much to acquire it, eliminate it.
• Run a reverse pilot: quietly eliminate (or at least scale back) an effort and see if it makes any difference. If it doesn't, eliminate it.

reread it

The art of saying no and stay focused on what matters. I liked the book and the simplicity of the message but overall I didn't like the “tone” of the book.

“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead, we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”

Eliminating Non-Essential from your life every day is easier said than done but this book provides an excellent framework to get you started. If you could do half of what is recommended in this book it would have a life-changing effect.
Highly recommended read at least to relook at the choices we make every day and do an audit of our lifestyle.

If I have one takeaway from this it is - “If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will.”

I feel like this was written as a direct call-out to a lot of my actions throughout my life. I am definitely going to take some lessons learned here and implement them in my daily life. I would highly recommend reading this book!

In some ways, this book feels more a lot more like a compilation of good ideas & productivity principles than a novel new way of doing things.

I agree with many of the other reviewers. Not only was an entire text on this topic nonessential, but the author is obnoxious to the point of distraction.

This book was written as some type of universal lifestyle guide under the delusion that everyone enjoys the same level of privilege as the author. His constant navel-gazing was frustrating, to say the least.

“Remember that if you don't prioritize your life someone else will.”

It started out very well and I felt the author made some good points but it became redundant fast. The ideas and anecdotes got too repetitive. It just didn't have enough to stand on for 260 pages.

Expect every chapter to begin with a quote. And then expect a bunch of more quotes and anecdotes from every famous personality you can think of. Little practical information. Conventional wisdom like ‘Be Present' etc.

I hardly finished it! While I enjoyed the first 30 or 40 percent, I felt bored but the obvious and super bloated content later on. I don't see why anyone would need to read 30 pages in order to agree sleeping is good for your health. Examples are boring as well. Disappointed it started so well but finished so bad. If the book is cut in half the pages it would be great.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown is truly amazing book. Options and choices day by day getting wider and human being have to choose from essential few rather than trivial many, otherwise one could stuck on a hedonic treadmill and getting nowhere despite spending more time and efforts on non-essentials. Greg illustrated how important it is to say no to trivial many so we could focus on things that matter most. Setting priority has been clarified within this book with few pretty tangible examples. In short you could grasp how you could improve exponentially on things that matter most rather than improve a millimeter on thousand directions.

Yet this book is go beyond essentialism and setting priorities. The author took us on a brief journey on few common fallacies that one might fall pray of. He elaborates on sunk cost fallacy with few example, as well as endowment effect. Decision fatigue also has been described, with few suggestions how we could stay of it. This kind of fallacies could be a real bottleneck in one's life, without even notice them.

This book covers a wide scope, while stay focus on the main objective. There are plenty of well-known figures and books have been quoted, which illustrates the level of research and study performed on the subject. One might miss a lot of crucial points which has been discussed within this book, since the author made sure to stay on the subject. Though it looks like he repeating himself over and over again he is delivering brand new insights.

I have been through the audio book read by the author multiple times and I have enjoyed it immensely. I highly recommend this book to everyone. This is a book you might what to go through more than once.

There seems to be an ongoing trend on books that make you reduce what's on your plate. But this one does not leave you without proper arguments as to why this could be beneficial for you. It's a fast read with good writing style but the concepts require you to think for a while on them.

This is a book I'll read again periodically. I read it on the heels of The One Thing by Gary Keller and the two compliment each other very well.

The non-essentialist tries to make room for everything. The essentialist realizes there must be tradeoffs and says NO to many things in order to say YES to most important.

I'm actively looking for opportunities to say “no”. ;)

Listened to the audiobook, which I enjoyed, but if I read it I probably would have rolled my eyes more.

I especially enjoyed multitasking v multi-focusing (especially since I listen to audiobooks while commuting or tidying) and listening to the remarks about Ghandi and other notable figures.

At times it came off too much as a ‘motivational speaker' which isn't my favorite style, but I tried to focus on the main message which I have a hard time disagreeing with.

Might check out some of the other books he mentioned – but only if I can get them in audio format.

Focus on what's important. There... I saved you a few hours.

I've never done this with any other book - when I got to the end, I went back to the beginning and immediately started over.

Nothing has clarified for me more why I feel so burnt out so much of the time, why I kick myself for constantly failing to make all the improvements I want to in my life, and why productivity tricks and systems weren't the ultimate answer.

The real answer is simple but far from easy: You must say no to most things. You must say no most of the time, even to very good opportunities.

This book truly helps you understand what is essential in your life, and how to eliminate non-essential activities and commitments. It acknowledges that the choices will often be hard, and helps you figure out your own best path through that difficulty.

This approach has already paid off for me - I have less stress and a feeling of space and ease in my life. Some upcoming plans that were starting to feel like a dreaded chore have regained their joyful tone because I cut out the nonessential things that were overloading me and thus making me view all my commitments as burdens. It isn't painless, but it is worth it.

This book dosen't follow what it preaches. What it preaches is “essentialism”. McKeown, the author, defines it as follows:

“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. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.”

Don't Get Things Done, Get the Right Things Done.

I enjoyed this book, though I did not agree with everything McKeown argued. He is a very persuasive author, I give him loads of credit for the research which went into this book, and a steady flow was kept up from start to finish. I really appreciated McKeown's realistic explanations concerning the difficulties of becoming an essentialist. Many of the principles within this book align closely with the philosophy of minimalism. For those who agree with minimalism will likely find a broadened view of like-minded principles.

McKeown's advice to ask yourself “what can I go big on?” was my favorite aspect of this read. It was somewhat revolutionary for me. I have listed my talents, goals, and applied realistic expectations to growth and even earning potential within those lists. I had not, however, placed any sort of emphasis on that which I felt I could, or would like to, “go big on.” For that, McKeown has positively impacted my life, qualifying this read as greater than merely enjoyable.

It is a simple idea: focus your attention on the most important things, eliminate the nonessential, and you will achieve great success. It is a book we need, don't we? Our parents never had the choices for using our time that we have; their problems were a lack of options. We suffer today from the opposite problem. We have too many choices. We can't do everything and when we try to do everything, we end up not doing much of anything.


Focus. On. The. Important. Thing.


Great wisdom here.