Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

McKeown teaches systematic discipline for discerning vital few from trivial many—making your highest contribution by ruthlessly eliminating everything nonessential.

Who This Is For

Overwhelmed professionals drowning in commitments. Executives spread too thin across initiatives. Busy parents juggling competing demands. Entrepreneurs pursuing too many opportunities. Anyone feeling stretched thin who wants to reclaim control and make meaningful progress.

Key Takeaways

• 90% Rule for Decisions: evaluate opportunities using selective criteria where anything scoring below 90 out of 100 is automatic no, eliminating “pretty good” options that distract from truly excellent ones that align with highest priorities.
• Deliberate Elimination: schedule quarterly reviews of commitments, projects, and activities to actively eliminate nonessentials, recognizing that simply not adding new things isn’t enough—must systematically remove existing waste to create space.
• Essential Intent: define precisely what success looks like with concrete, measurable, meaningful goals rather than vague aspirations, creating clear criteria for evaluating whether activities advance your singular most important objective.
• Graceful No: develop repertoire of ways to decline requests that honor relationships while protecting priorities—separate decision from relationship, offering alternative solutions, and remembering that saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else.
• Routine as Investment: build consistent habits around essential activities so they run on autopilot rather than requiring constant willpower and decision-making, investing time upfront to make execution effortless.