In today’s world we’re facing too many choices every day, with the social pressure and the ideas that you can have it all makes lots of us overwhelmed while not results in the maximum results. It’s true for person and also true for companies like Meta today. This book shares the mindset and framework for us to focus on the less but real critical things by explore, eliminate and execute.

First part the book introduces the core logic of an essentialist including the power of choice that we have control to ourselves, the unimportance of practically everything, the reality of trade-off. There are only a small percent of efforts yield the higher rewards than others while meaning most things are non-essential. The time and energy is limited so what you don’t do is just as important as what you do.

With the right mindset, the first step is explore to discern the trivial many from the vital few. Essentialists spend as much time as possible to explore, listen, debate, question and think. To do this you need space to escape and explore life including concentrating and reading. Lots of successful people like Bill Gates keeps time to read and think. Then it’s to look to see what really matters. Keep eye on the big picture, pay attention to the signal in the noise, filter for the essence of information. Keeping a journey, getting out into the filed, keeps eyes peeled for usual details and clarifying the question will all help you to tap into your inner journalist. While explore and look, it’s important to remember to play to embrace the wisdom of your inner child. Play is essential to a happy life and sparks exploration. Also another critical things in life is sleep to protect our ability to promise. Sleep is priority and breeds creativity. Then it’s to select with the extreme criteria. “If the answer isn’t a definite yes then it should be a no” and you should focus on only the top 10% of the opportunities. They should align with your passion, talent and value.

The second step is to eliminate to cut out the trivial many. To clarify the essential intent that’s concrete and inspirational and how it means be done. Living with intent. Dare to say no gracefully. The main thing is to keep main thing the main thing. There are different ways to say no and it’s much more graceful than a vague or noncommittal yes. Say no with options is a common strategy to reject gracefully. We need learn for quick no and slow yes. Another hard part to make the tradeoff is the sunk-cost bias. To make the right choice we need be comfortable to cut loss. Admit past failure is important for future success. Also be caution to make commitment to others too quick, a 5 seconds pause could help. Eventually we need edit to keep reducing distracting details just like movies. Last but not least it’s critical to set boundaries. To know that you have limits you will be limitless, with the rule in advance will eliminate the need for the direct “no”. It’s a source of liberation and with practice it’ll become easier and easier.

The third step is to execute on the few vital things effortless. First is the importance of buffer, as we know the only thing we can expect is the unexpected so we need practice extreme and early preparation. This is true to lots of time when we estimate the effort and the book suggested to add at least 50% to the estimated time. Then it’s find the obstacles and remove them instead of doing more. After that it’s important to keep the progress with small wins. Start small and gets big results and celebrate small acts of progress. Then it’s about the importance of routine to design it that makes achieving what you have identified an essential to the default position. Do the hard thing first and do one thing at one time to makes things look easy. Keep asking what’s important now to focus on the present and enjoy the moment. Eventually it’s BE the essentialist and make it habits of every day in the little moments in life. With more clarify in the purpose, more control to your power, more joy in the journey and eventually live a life that really matters.

This book actually reminds me lots of principles I read from books in the past. Think big, start small and move fast. Focus on what really matters, Realize the importance of routine and saying no. The 20/80 rules and decision framework. It’s good to keep repeating the good principles and practicing to really internalize them.

The appendix discussed about leadership essentials which worth writing down here. The less but better mindset, the ridiculously selective on talent, define the essential intent by ask what the one thing we could do, focus on each team members’ highest role and goal and attribution, listen to get what is essential, check with people on how to remove obstacles to enable small wins and eventually build a unified team that breaks through to the next level of contribution.