Transcription
Very often we feel like something is wrong with us because the majority of the time we feel lazy and unmotivated. But the truth is that this feeling has nothing to do with laziness. It's quite the opposite; you're doing too much.
I recently read a book by Greg McKuen, "The Disciplined Pursuit of Less," and it helped me a lot to improve my life. If you want to work less, get more done, and stop feeling overwhelmed, then this video is for you. I have seven lessons from the book, so let's get started.
Lesson One: Being busy doesn't mean you're doing something important. This is the simplest lesson of the book, and at the same time, I think it's one of the most powerful ones because it's so easy to forget. Sometimes you're doing a lot, but you don't feel useful or fulfilled. Time passes, and you haven't moved forward. The author says that this happens because the things you are doing are not essential. They look like important things, but they are not connected to your essential purpose, so they feel meaningless.
Maybe now you're feeling that you agree, but that there's nothing you can do to change it. And this is where I say you're wrong. People go through life feeling like there are many things that they must do. We must choose a certain career to be successful. We must get married. We must have social media accounts and have thousands of friends in each of them.
Do you know someone who is always trying to fit a little more into their schedule? I used to be that person. I knew I only had 10 minutes to get from my house to University, but I still sat down to reply to emails before before leaving. I told my friends I'd have dinner with them and told my Aunt I'd be at her birthday party when I knew both events would happen at the same time. Of course, I ended up arriving late, missing deadlines, delivering sloppy services, and hurting people who counted on me.
The truth is, you could probably go without most of what you do. You can choose the essential instead of the trivial. This will lead you to do fewer things, but better. Many people today look busy all day but don't get many results, and it's because they're not focused on essential activities. Maybe you're one of those people and would like to know how you can differentiate between essential and non-essential activities. The following lessons will provide some help.
Lesson Two: Miss good opportunities and focus on things that you are willing to give your all. Sometimes the problem is not that your boss or your friends are pressuring you to do things. Maybe you've been pressuring yourself to do more because you want to have it all. Many people in businesses think that missing a good opportunity is not acceptable, but missing good opportunities is one of the best things you can do for yourself. The reason is that not doing certain things leaves you with plenty of free time to do the things that matter.
There are many good opportunities in life, but only a few essential ones, and you want to be prepared for them. I'm not saying you should quit your job, sit, and wait for the perfect job to come up, or that you should deny working with every client that knocks on your door until you have only the perfect clients to work with. Well, what I'm saying is that if you're too busy trying to handle every little thing that comes your way, you won't have time and energy when the great things come.
When choosing between two opportunities, non-essentialists ask, "What will I have to give up?" While essentialists ask, "Where am I willing to give my all?" For example, if you're choosing which course to take next semester, as you go through the options, don't ask yourself things like, "Is there any chance I will need this skill in the future?" because that's a very principle. What you need to ask yourself is, "Will I love to do this course with all my heart?" This will make very few items pass the test, but the ones that pass the test are definitely the best ones. So, ask yourself, what are the criteria that your company adopts to choose its clients or its employees? For example, what are the criteria that you applied when you chose your job, your weekend activities, even your friends?
At a certain point last year, I realized I was enrolled in four sports classes in groups. I would go swimming two times a week, go to the gym on Mondays, play volleyball with my friends on the weekend, and go running with a marathon group on Fridays. It took me a few months to realize I didn't need to do all those activities to be healthy and that my money and my time weren't being well spent. So, I decided to choose just one of them, and the criteria I used were: "Do I love to do this?" and "Is this activity going to bring me the best results?" I chose one, and now I can focus my efforts on doing that one thing better. I'm less busy, I spend less money, and I can actually be more active now because I'm doing something I love, so I want to do it more often.
Lesson Number Three: Set limits. Non-essentialists say yes because of pressure. Essentialists only say yes to what really matters. Have you ever said yes just to avoid friction? Maybe it was an order from your boss, an invitation from a friend, a request from a family member, or a solicitation from a customer. When we say yes because it's easier, we risk having to say no to more important things. But saying no is not easy, is it? Yes, you might have some problems if you disobey your boss's order, or you might end up hurting people you love. Their immediate reaction may be irritation, disappointment, or even anger. But as time goes by, people will understand your no is more about self-preservation than about them, and they'll forgive you. They will respect you more because you know what your limits are.
As hard as it can be, if you don't say some no's and risk losing your job or hurting someone, you may miss out on something even more important. Besides, you might regret a yes for days, weeks, months, and even years. The author says that to an essentialist, if it's not an obvious yes, then it's a no. Let me repeat: if it's not an obvious yes, then it's a no. It becomes easier to say no when you focus on what you will have to lose if you say yes. It is not possible to be popular with everyone all the time, and a clear no can be kinder than a vague, uncommitted yes.
Don't be afraid to set limits. Setting limits has a cost, but the cost of not setting them is much higher. Besides, limits will always exist. The difference is whether you are the one who sets the limits of your own life, or you allow others to do it for you. When you start a relationship, hire a new employee, or become part of a group, immediately explain what your limits are. That will avoid unnecessary embarrassing situations, and you won't have to say no as often because people will avoid making requests that push your limits.
If you think saying no in a kind way is difficult, here are a few ideas that you can adopt according to your situation:
1. "I'm very busy doing this right now, but I'd love to meet you when I'm done."
2. "I'll check the schedule and get back to you." This one is nice because it gives you time to think and decide whether you want to do what the person is asking or not. Don't forget to give the person an answer after a while.
3. "Yes, but which one of my tasks should I stop doing to be able to focus on this?" This answer is especially useful when your boss asks you to do something, but you already have a bunch of other things to do, and you know you won't have time to do everything.
4. "Feel free to use my car. I'll leave the keys here for you." When someone has asked you for a ride, for example. This is an interesting option because it shows you won't do what the person has asked you to, but it also shows it's not personal, and you are willing to help in other ways.
5. "I can't, but maybe John is interested." Generally, whoever asks for something doesn't care who helps, as long as someone helps.
Lesson Four: Reduce damage. When deciding whether to continue an activity that hasn't been successful, non-essentialists think, "I've lost too much; I need to make this work." Essentialists think, "What could I do with the remaining time or money I'll save if I let it go now?" The sooner you give up on something that isn't working out, the less damage you will have. You should insist and try hard if you believe this is the right thing to do, but sometimes we insist on things because we're too stubborn to admit we were wrong. If that's your case, ignore the things you've lost and make a quick decision to let them go. Paying too much attention to what you've lost often leads you to make wrong decisions.
If you're not sure whether to give up an opportunity or an enterprise, or even an object, pretend you don't already own it and ask yourself, "How much would I pay for this item if I didn't already own it?" Or, in the case of an opportunity, "If I didn't already have that opportunity, what would I be willing to sacrifice to get it?" Suppose you bought a travel ticket to the mountains because you love to go skiing, and it cost you $50. When you got home, you realized you had already scheduled a trip. You had paid $100 on a travel ticket to spend that same weekend in a countryside cottage, which is something you don't like so much. The question is, do you go skiing or do you go to the countryside? Most people who were asked this answered they would go to the countryside because they had paid more for that trip than for the other. But that is not the best choice because you love to go skiing, but you don't like the countryside. If you're not choosing what's best for you, then it's a bad choice.
Here are a few tips to make sure you're always able to reduce the damage of your bad choices:
1. Admit failure. Only by admitting that we were wrong will we be able to leave a mistake in the past instead of investing more in it.
2. Seek a neutral second opinion. Someone who is not emotionally involved can give you permission to stop dwelling on something that is clearly not working.
3. Be aware of your habits. We tend to keep doing something just because we've always done it, and most of the time, we don't even realize it.
4. Start from scratch. For example, if you're planning your schedule for the next week, clear your calendar and start over. Which of the appointments you're adding now really make sense to you? Which ones do you feel happy to add, and which ones are meaningless? This tip works for everything, from your financial obligations to the relationships you maintain.
5. Use the reverse pilot strategy. Remove an activity, habit, or initiative and see if there are any negative consequences and if you really miss them.
Lesson Number Five: Pay attention to what matters. There are three things that the author considers essential to everyone: taking time to think, playing, and sleeping. Let's see why.
Thinking matters. We have very little free time nowadays. Because of that, we are always on the move and rarely stop to ask ourselves if we are really doing what we should. We end up spending a lot of time with unnecessary things, and we'll only find out later that we wasted so much time. Sometimes you need to take some time off to think about life. Think of it as a disorganized closet packed with many clothes and shoes that you no longer use. Every morning, you'll waste time looking for clothes to wear among the ones you don't like. You'll have to try on several of them to know which ones still fit you. Then, you'll waste more time putting the clothes you've tried back on the hangers or folding them. All this time could be saved if you simply set aside an afternoon to clean and organize your closet and keep there only what fits and matters. It might not be easy to take an afternoon off, but that action alone would save you many hours ahead. The same happens with our life. To be able to focus on what matters, you need to take some time off to organize things and create focus. You need to stop and organize your closet if you want to make the process of choosing what to wear any easier. You need to stop and organize your calendar if you want to make your routine easier. You need to stop and organize your thoughts and priorities if you want to make life easier. The faster life is, the more we need to find time to stop and think. The more noise, the more we need to build silent spaces of reflection.
Playing matters. Playing is instinctive. No one needs to teach us how to do that when we're kids, but as we grow up, we are taught that playing is a waste of time. Some people think that anything playful is considered silly or a lack of professionalism, but play is essential in many ways. Research shows it has the power to significantly improve our health, relationships, creativity, and ability to innovate. Playing expands our range of available options and helps us see possibilities we wouldn't otherwise see and make connections we wouldn't. Besides, it's an antidote to stress. When a company discourages playing, it's also discouraging creative solutions, adaptability, and learning.
Sleeping matters. Let me put it this way: over the last 5 years, I have read several books on productivity and applied many tactics, but no tactic can be as powerful as a good night's sleep. Good sleep is the most powerful productivity tactic. I've talked about the importance of sleeping before in another video, so I won't go too deep here. If you are struggling with sleep, check out that video. The link will be in the description.
Lesson Six: Be a writer and an editor. I don't mean literally. There are two skills that writers and editors need to have that are very useful in other professions and other areas of your life too. So, even if you're not a writer or an editor, you need to learn how to clarify and edit.
If I told you the following description of a company's mission and values: "We aim to be the leader in all our markets for the good of customers and shareholders." Can you tell what kind of company we're talking about and which values govern it? Probably can't tell, right? Now compare it with the following passage from another company's description of values: "We believe that our first responsibility is to doctors, nurses, and patients; to mothers, fathers, and everyone else who uses our products and services. To meet their needs, everything we do must be of the highest quality." Isn't it much clearer? It may not yet be possible to say exactly which company we are talking about, but we know that its products are related to health and possibly related to children, as it mentions mothers and fathers. Just by reading that small passage, we also know that customer satisfaction and product quality are more important in this company than, for example, shareholder profit. The last description is part of Johnson & Johnson's mission description.
In 1982, seven people who had taken Tylenol died. Later, it was discovered that those Tylenol bottles had been violated and that the pills had been poisoned with cyanide. Johnson & Johnson's employees had absolute clarity about who should be a priority: customers, not shareholders. This is why it was easy to decide what to do next. The company ordered the immediate withdrawal of all Tylenol bottles from drugstore shelves, which resulted in a huge loss for shareholders (around $100 million), but safety for clients.
When deciding on your company's mission, you need to have specific goals and clear choices in mind, and the same applies to your professional and personal life. Are your values and your mission clear? Can you answer simple questions about your purpose in life, such as, "What do you want to achieve in your career in the next 5 years?" When your purpose is clear, it guides your actions, just like the description of Johnson & Johnson's mission guided the company's actions. If your essential goal is not clear, you'll waste a lot of time and energy going sideways instead of making progress on what matters. Your essential goal needs to be inspiring and concrete. Short-term goals can be quite concrete, but they usually don't inspire. Values like leadership and innovation are inspiring but not specific. The essential objective must be both. You need something measurable and meaningful. Here's an example of an essential goal: "To provide internet access to all inhabitants of the United Kingdom by the end of 2012." Simple, concrete, inspiring, and easy to measure. Here, team members know exactly where they are going. By finding the essential goal alone and making it clear, a thousand subsequent decisions are automatically taken. It's like choosing your profession. If you choose to be a doctor, then being a lawyer is ruled out. But if you choose to be a lawyer, you won't be able to specialize in neurology. A strategic choice makes thousands of other choices automatic for you.
Now, let's talk about what we can learn from editors. The work of editing a text, or a movie for that matter, consists mainly in removing everything that doesn't have to be there. When editing a text, the editor makes it difficult not to see what is important by cutting anything that clouds the important parts. This way, you can focus on what really matters. It may be painful to delete passages, pages, or even chapters that took you weeks to develop, but it's essential. In life, we can't simply edit a conversation we just had as we do with the text, but it's still possible to edit life for the future. Here's how:
* **Condense:** Eliminate meaningless activities and replace them with relevant ones. Do less so you can do more of what matters.
* **Correct:** Make corrections to your course so you can return to the main path that leads to your essential goal. Don't allow yourself to deviate from the main course.
* **Edit continuously:** Making continuous corrections prevents you from being forced to make a bigger cut later.
Here are a few examples:
* If you save a little money every month, you won't need to take drastic measures when you have an emergency.
* If you keep your house clean every day, you won't need to use a whole day to clean it on the weekend.
* If you care for the people you love every day, you won't need to make a huge effort to fix a broken relationship later.
Lesson Seven: Subtract and advance. Sometimes we need to solve a problem that is very small but affects the situation as a whole. Think of the saying, "A chain is as strong as its weakest link," or "A group is as fast as its slowest member." If you're trying to solve a problem, you need to identify the part of the process that is slower than all the others, or the weakest link. What is the weakest link in your work, for your life? What stops you from achieving what's important? Act on it. Instead of looking for the most obvious or urgent obstacles, look for the ones that slow you down the most in the long run. And then, instead of increasing the effort you make to compensate for it, focus on the constraints and obstacles that need to be removed.
For example, imagine you are leading a group to the top of a mountain. While some people can climb fast, others are falling behind, and you're afraid the group may scatter and some of you might get lost. So, you need to find out who's the slowest member of your group. The author suggests you place this person ahead. Everyone else should keep up with him. Now, if you want to speed up, that's the person you need to help. How can you make that guy walk faster? Can you, for example, distribute all the weight he's carrying among the other backpacks? Can you make sure he has fresh water and comfortable shoes? Does he know exactly where to go?
You can use this in your company. Who's the slowest employee who's keeping everyone behind, and how can you help this person work better and faster? Is it a matter of motivation or work conditions? Instead of hiring three more people to help your slow employee do his job, first, make sure your weakest link is happy and gets everything he needs to get the job done as efficiently as he can. Just like you can greatly improve a company, for example, by removing or improving an obstacle, you can also make a company move forward by focusing on small victories. Of all the forms of human motivation, the most effective is progress, and you want to make sure your employees are seeing the progress they're making, no matter how small it is.
Here are three things to keep in mind about moving your company or your life forward:
1. **Complete is better than perfect.** When you focus on doing all things perfectly, they might never get done at all.
2. **Starting early and small is better than starting late and big.** Early and small means getting started as soon as possible with the least possible investment of time.
3. **Make sure people can see their improvement.** There is something powerful about seeing your progress towards a goal. For example, crossing things that you've done off your to-do list is highly motivating. And if you're trying to stop eating sugar and you can do it for 5 days in a row, make sure you write on your calendar that you've done it. This way, you can see your progress instead of only knowing it.
Finally, I would like to say that you should think of essentialism as something you are, not as something that you do. It's not a matter of having an essentialist attitude here and there, but of turning essentialism into a way of life so you can live a meaningful and purposeful life. It's not an easy journey, but the rewards are huge, and you won't regret making the harder choices. Just the opposite; you'll always be proud of the life you chose to have. That's all for this video. I hope you enjoyed it and see you next time.