What's Essential?

After a month of vacation, I had a hard return back to reality.

It wasn't hard due to work.

It was hard because we moved house, and unfortunately hired a moving company that was anything but impressive.

When all was finally at our new house a day late, and with hundreds (maybe thousands) of euros worth of damage, we started the unpacking process.

It turns out that much of what had been packed wasn't essential.

Perhaps it seemed essential when it got put into a box back in June, but upon further examination, it turned out to NOT be as essential as we thought.

I even have an entire box of books to donate.

I don't think I would have been purging books and other non-essentials, if it weren't for the fact that I am reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown at the moment.

Although McKeown didn't write the book with the idea of purging surplus items in our lives like Marie Kondo, he did write the book to remind us that not everything is a priority, and not everything "needs" to be done.

How we spend our time matters, and not everything we do is essential.

If you've read Gary Keller's book, The One Thing you'll notice a similar theme.

McKeown invites us to ask, "Is this the very most important thing I should be doing with my time and resources right now?"
​
Keller invites us to ask, "What's the ONE THING I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary."

In our age of endless distractions and unending noise, it's easy to chase all those shiny ideas and projects.

Yet sometimes the best thing is to say NO -- to ourselves and to others.

How are you at saying no?

​Originally posted on Linkedin with comments.

Read Deeper Not Faster