📖 Read Time: 5 minutes
📩 What you’ll get out of this newsletter: a breakdown of Greg McKeown’s Essentialism with a simple workflow, traps to avoid, and a fill‑in mini playbook you can use today.
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If you are a founder / CEO with a growing business and are looking for clarity & purpose in building your brand online and offline, let’s chat!
Without further ado…this week’s newsletter:
So this past week…
My co-founder, Brian, and I were chatting, and he mentioned something that got me thinking.
He'd been revisiting Greg McKeown's Essentialism, and what struck him (and me, after I dove back in myself) was how directly the principles in that book tie into everything we're doing; this newsletter, our business, our personal lives, family time, all of it.
I ended up giving it a listen this past week, and honestly, it felt like the perfect topic to dig into together (it’s also wild that the book somehow feels even more relevant now than when it first came out over a decade ago.)
So that's what we're exploring this week, how to cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters.
Hope you find it as timely and useful as we did (thanks, B!)
If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.
You start Monday with a plan. By 10 a.m., it’s gone.
Meetings multiply, inbox swells, “quick favors” stack up.
You’re busy, yet the needle doesn’t move.
Greg calls this the undisciplined pursuit of more, and it’s why capable people feel overworked and underutilized.
You don’t need more time.
You need fewer, better choices.
Essentialism is the disciplined pursuit of less, but better so your effort creates outsized results.
What it actually is…
Essentialism isn’t time management.
It’s choice management.
You deliberately separate the vital few from the trivial many, then cut the trivial and make the vital effortless to execute.
Here’s a breakdown of how and why Greg’s process works:
1. Why it works / psychology
Decision fatigue is real. More options, worse decisions.
Priority was originally singular. When everything is your top priority, nothing is.
Trade‑offs are reality. Ask “Which problem do I want?” not “How do I do both?”.
2. Repeatable mechanics
The “Hell Yes” Test. If something isn’t a clear yes, it’s a no.
One decision that makes a thousand. Clarify a single rule or intent that pre‑decides future choices.
Protect the asset. Sleep and boundaries fuel high contribution; sleep debt can impair you like a 0.1% BAC.
3. Workflow / framework (step‑by‑step)
Explore
Block blank space to think.
Run a weekly “advanced search”:
What deeply inspires me?
What am I great at?
What meets a real need?
Get into the field; look for what’s not being said.
Eliminate
Say a graceful no with honesty and respect; default to no unless it’s essential.
Uncommit sunk‑cost projects; ask, “If I didn’t own this, what would I pay to buy it?”
Execute
Remove friction so the right thing is the easy thing.
Use routines and small wins to create flow.
Protect sleep; you’ll make better connections and decisions.
4. Patterns to avoid
Straddling: trying to keep two incompatible strategies alive.
Reactive calendars: back‑to‑backs that kill thinking time.
Inbox‑driven priorities: loudest voice wins, real work loses.
Badge of busyness: mistaking motion for progress.
5. Make this your next move (mini playbook)
Paste this into your notetaker of choice (Notes, Notion, Google Docs, etc.) and fill it in:
Essential Intent (12 months):
If I could only achieve one outcome this year, it would be…
Why it matters…
Extreme Criteria:
For new commitments, my “Hell Yes” looks like…
Anything less becomes… No.
Stop List (this quarter):
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
Think Time Ritual:
Two 30‑min blocks of blank space on calendar, M–F.
Boundaries & Scripts:
Default reply to nonessential requests: “Thanks for thinking of me. I’m heads‑down on a few priorities and can’t take this on.”
Meeting rule: decline if no agenda or no direct contribution.
Sleep & Recovery:
Target nightly sleep: ______ hours; non‑negotiable window: _________.
Weekly Review (20 min):
What was essential? What wasn’t? What will I cut next week?
(Each element above is drawn from the book’s Explore–Eliminate–Execute loop, Jeff Weiner’s blank space practice, the closet test, extreme criteria, and “Protect the Asset.”)
TL;DR (How To Keep It Simple!)
Doing less is a performance strategy, not a luxury.
Treat attention like capital; invest only in the vital few.
If it isn’t a clear yes, it’s a no.
One rule can pre‑decide a thousand future choices.
Sleep is a force multiplier for judgment and creativity.
If you’re anything like me…
Reading (or revisiting) this book felt like an open invitation to implement a couple of these tactics into my daily / weekly routines (I’ll let you know how it goes!)
Are there any that stood out to you? Shoot me a DM or reply to this email, would love to know!
Hell yes,
— Alex 💭 (@heyalexfriedman)
P.S. Forward this to three essential people in your life 🙂
P.P.S. if you missed it at the top… we’re opening a few slots for October. If you are a founder / CEO with a growing business and are looking for clarity & purpose in building your brand online and offline, let’s chat!
