Productivity strategies do not work if we are focused on the wrong things. What we really need is an effective system for determining what is absolutely essential and the discipline to work on that thing. We need criteria that empower us to select our highest priority, and a strategy for eliminating everything else.

My guest, Greg McKeown has designed this system, and he has written about it in his award-winning bestseller, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. In addition to his writing and speaking, Greg is CEO of THIS, Inc., a Young Global Leader for the World Economic Forum, and a lecturer at Stanford University. In this interview he shares incidents in his own life that led him to develop this system, as well as the elements that make the system powerful.

In this episode, we talk about:

How we forget our power to choose
How our language shapes how we view the world
How our priority became priorities and what that means for our lives
Non-essentialism as a form of malware that has infected all areas of our lives
How the smartest, most driven, capable, and curious people are the most vulnerable to non-essentialism
Why we need to retire in our roles in order to gain perspective and get our lives back
How a list of 6 can get us to our number one priority
A game-changing way to use our journals as reflective, proactive tools
The power of small wins
The downside of email-to-email living
Why technology makes a good servant but a poor master
What it means to protect the asset in order to lead an essential life
The unimportance of practically everything
How discerning what is essential gives us the courage to push back on what is not
Teaching young people how to focus on what is essential
The three historical waves of non-essentialism or how we got here
Why you want to be an essentialist before the busyness bubble bursts
The trade off between our highest contribution versus what we got done today

Greg also talks about how he is making a deliberate choice to hold off on his second book in order to focus on his highest contribution. He explains how challenging it is to do that and how aware he is of the trade offs he is making along the way.

Selected Links to Topics Mentioned

@GregoryMcKeown

http://gregmckeown.com/

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

Panem - bread and circuses

World War II

Facebook

Tulip mania

Deep Work by Cal Newport

@JaniceKaplan2

http://www.janicekaplan.com/

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Thank you to Emmy-award-winning Creative Director Vanida Vae for designing the Curious Minds logo!

www.gayleallen.net

LinkedIn

@GAllenTC