The opening lines of the first chapter of this book – “Sam Elliot is a capable executive in Silicon Valley who found himself stretched too thin after his company was acquired by a larger, bureaucratic business.” – sucks you in and leaves you asking what next. It is a total page turner, that keeps you reading through as the author presents valuable truths in easy-to-understand language. His use of several real life occurances, pictorial diagrams and comparative table of the nonessentialist and the essentialist used throughout the book gives one a clearer understanding of his points.
Just three German words: Weniger aber besser which translates to English as: Less but better, captures the essence of essentialism so much so that a more fitting definition of Essentialism would be hard to come by. Some nuggets as captured in the book are here below:
– 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.
– The way of the Essentialist isn’t about setting New Year’s resolutions to say “no” more, or about pruning your in-box, or about mastering some new strategy in time management. It is about pausing constantly to ask, “Am I investing in the right activities?” There are far more activities and opportunities in the world than we have time and resources to invest in. And although many of them may be good, or even very good,
the fact is that most are trivial and few are vital. The way of the Essentialist involves learning to tell the difference—learning to filter through all those options and selecting only those that are truly essential.
I totally recommend this book to anyone who is grappling with setting the right priorities and looking to reorder his/her life.
PPBlessing 