3 Lessons from Essentialism That Transformed My Life
The Amplified Impact Podcast
December 21st, 2023
I’ve learned some incredible lessons from essentialism.
Productivity isn’t about doing more…it’s about doing what truly matters.
Remember that old book, ‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius? One line stuck with me: ‘If you seek tranquility, do less, but do what’s essential.’
I’ve actually detailed all six lessons in a YouTube video, so check that out if you’re looking to declutter your to-do list.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
Success isn’t about how much you get done, it’s about what you get done.
– Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
So you know me, if you’ve been around these parts you know that I am always looking for ways to be more focused and productive. But truth is, I feel as though I wasted years because I didn’t understand what it actually meant to be productive. And then I stumbled onto a book that made me realize I’d been chasing the wrong thing entire fairly. See, I’ve always, I guess, equated productivity with the idea of getting more done. But that’s not productivity. That’s just throughput. Productivity itself isn’t about getting more done. It’s about getting more done per unit of input.
Now what’s interesting is the book that eventually lifted the wool from my eyes. It was written over 2000 years ago and had nothing to do with productivity. It was just one man’s attempt to figure out what it meant to live a good life. And there’s one line from that book that I’m not making this up. I think about it every single day. It went like this. If you seek tranquility, do less or more accurately do what’s essential. Which brings a double satisfaction, to do less better.
Because most of what we say and do is not essential. This is from potentially one of my favorite books of all time. Definitely top ten, Marcus Aurelius’s meditations. And truly, in a very real way, I would say my life transformed the day I stopped chasing productivity and instead embraced the pursuit of what I call essentialism. Now there’s a book called Essentialism by Greg McCown I think is how you say his name. This is not about that book. I’ve read that book. It’s good, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
When I’m talking about essentialism, I’m not talking about his particular framework. I guess it’s more about my framework and three lessons that I’ve taken from essentialism that have served me well. This is what I want to share with you. The first one is success isn’t about how much you get done, it’s about what you get done. And another one of my favorite quotes of all time, it comes from Peter Drucker. So a couple thousand years after Marcus, he said, there’s no greater waste than to do with excellence. That which shouldn’t be done at all. Think about how much we do in our lives that just doesn’t matter, doesn’t really move the needle.
And yet we do it because our to do list says it. And because quantity often becomes the new proxy for accomplishment the more we can do rather than what we do. And I’m guilty of this. Where the days where I do the least, but the most high value work. Like for instance, one of the highest value things that I do with my time is writing. But the problem with writing is I can spend 6 hours doing it and maybe produce a couple thousand words. That doesn’t feel like a very productive use of my day in the grand scheme of things, when I just get to check off that one box on my to do list. But if I can check off email and making social media posts and engaging on social media and then doing my laundry and getting my hair cut and going to the gym, those are way more boxes that I get to tick.
And as a result, I feel more productive. But at the end of it all, I’m less effective in moving myself towards the goals that really matter towards in my life. Right? And so there’s this push and this pull. On the one side, we know success isn’t about how much you get done, it’s about what you get done. And yet when you only get the thing done that is actually the most important, and you’re looking at that one tick box on your to do list, you can feel like you haven’t done enough. And this is a battle that we all have to fight. I don’t know what the solution is, but just repeating this to yourself, it’s not about how much you get done. It’s about what you get done, has been very helpful for me.
The second lesson, and by the way, I’m under the weather. I’ve been sick for the last week. Jamie and I have. I don’t know what we have. We didn’t get tested for Covid, but we have been sick as dogs for the last week. And so a little bit low energy, but we’re pushing through. The second lesson from essentialism, is saying yes to this is just another way of saying no to that. Okay.
What I mean by this is to understand that every yes comes at the expense of something else. If I say yes to going out with friends for a night out of the town, then I’m saying no to a good night’s sleep. If I’m saying yes to binge watching Netflix, I might be saying no to going and getting a workout. Right. We only have so much time in our lives, so much that we can do. It’s the opportunity cost of if I do this, I cannot do that at the same time. So there has to be a trade. And the word decision stems from, I think, Latin for desidere, which means to cut off.
So to make a decision means to cut off the other paths, the other options, and to pursue the one. And I think often when we multitask, we try to protect all those different paths because the idea of cutting them off and just focusing can be very scary. And I’ve said this before, but I do believe that it’s true that focus is an act of courage, because you have to have confidence and belief that you have chosen the right thing and that everything else can fall by the wayside. And it is not as important as the thing that you’re focused on in that moment. And so I think multitasking in a lot of ways is an act of cowardice. I have to think on that. There’s something there that resonates with me. I don’t know if it resonates with you, but it’s definitely something to meditate on.
The third lesson from essentialism is that if you don’t set your priorities, somebody else will. And I’ve said this before, that you can either own your calendar or your calendar can own you, but there is no third option. And what tends to happen is because we don’t sit down and articulate to ourselves what does it mean to win the day? What is the most important battle that I need to win on this day, because we don’t do that. We go through life rudderless and without a compass pointing us in the direction. And so other people’s agenda becomes our agenda. Their emails suddenly become our priority, their phone calls, their text messages. Those things start to have importance because we haven’t articulated clearly what is your priority. And if you don’t do that, the world is constantly trying to make their issues your priority.
And very rarely have I found that that’s a recipe for moving towards your own greatness. To move towards your greatness, you have to select your mountaintop, your path, and you have to stay on it and stay focused. And again, that’s an act of courage. And it’s scary. I get that. But it’s the only way, I think, to make meaningful progress towards your goals is to set your priorities. So those are three lessons from essentialism. There’s three more that I did a video on, so you can get all six lessons on YouTube.
Just go search Anthony Vasino and then look for six lessons from essentialism that transformed my life. Go watch that video. I think if you’re struggling with so much floating around on your to do list, that video should hopefully help you trim that down, get down to what’s essential so that you can focus on doing less, but better. And that’s going to do it for me. Guys and gals, appreciate you as always. I’ll catch you in the next video. But until then, stay happy. Focus, my friend.
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