Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: useful, educational, but needs an editor

I picked up the book, Essentialism, based on a few good reviews that I read. The idea of pursuing less and accomplishing more appeals to me- I have so many hobbies and interests, that I often have lost interest in something by the time I gather all the items needed to pursue the hobby! College, something I really enjoyed, took me twice as long, because I took classes I was interested in rather than focus on a goal. Even now, I have more magazines and books than I can read in a lifetime. So, the byline of the book, “the disciplined pursuit of less” was quite meaningful to me!

I’ve recently started using index cards for taking reading notes, from Ryan Holliday’s article about keeping a commonplace book. One indicator of the relative value of a book is how many cards you make for each book (20 cards or so, is a book with a lot of personal meaning!). For Essentialism, I took 32 cards’ worth of ideas and quotations!

The book is divided into four parts- explaining the fundamentals of the philosophy, applying the fundamentals to your own life, weaning down the excess of your own life to the essential, and then following a minimalist lifestyle. There were a few chapters in each section that I found particularly helpful. I’m already pretty good at saying no to things that I don’t think add value to my life, but the ideas of weeding out things that aren’t 100% of what you want, and editing as a way of creating something better were new to me.

I think this would be a great book for someone who feels they aren’t effective in their life, or someone who is wanting to embrace minimalism. The book helps with the inner process of minimalism- to me, the external condition of a clean, simple environment is the result of the inner work. This book should help with the inner work. The book is a quick read- just 246 pages. The one fault I found with this book- I think it could have been shorter. There were a lot of concepts that were repeated over and over! I think the author may have been trying to reinforce the important concepts but at some point, I wondered if the book had been written as independent essays rather than a cohesive whole.

Author: lisayoung57

I’m a Board Certified psychiatrist, practicing on the East Coast of the US. I started this blog because I love planning, efficiency, minimalism, and technology, but am also strongly interested in making life better! I strongly believe that personal technology can make our lives easier, and minimize the time we do things that are less important to us. I hope you’ll come along on the journey with me of how to combine high-tech and the best of low-tech to make our lives better. I love Apple products, and will write about about uses for them in my own life and others on these pages. I am not affiliated with Apple, or any other company. Other things I like to do are read, meditate, drink coffee and tea, travel, hike, cook and spend time with my husband and two children. I have recently written a textbook chapter for Oxford University Press. View all posts by lisayoung57