Greg McKeown Quotes

A true Essentialist, Peter Drucker believed that “people are effective because they say no.

Remember that if you don’t prioritise your life someone else will. But if you are determined to prioritise your own life you can. The power is yours. It is within you.

By pairing essential activities with enjoyable ones, we can make tackling even the most tedious and overwhelming tasks more effortless.

SEPARATE THE DECISION FROM THE RELATIONSHIP

When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless.

only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.

In order to succeed at something, you have to get it done.

When we push back effectively, it shows people that our time is highly valuable. It distinguishes the professional from the amateur.

When we are unclear about our real purpose in life — in other words, when we don’t have a clear sense of our goals, our aspirations, and our values — we make up our own social games. We waste time and energies on trying to look good in comparison to other people. We overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house, or even intangibles like the number of our followers on Twitter or the way we look in our Facebook photos. As a result, we neglect activities that are truly essential, like spending time with our loved ones, or nurturing our spirit, or taking care of our health.

In a piece called “No More Yes. It’s Either HELL YEAH! Or No,” the popular TED speaker Derek Sivers describes a simple technique for becoming more selective in the choices we make. The key is to put the decision to an extreme test: if we feel total and utter conviction to do something, then we say yes, Derek-style. Anything less gets a thumbs down.

When there is a lack of clarity, people waste time and energy on the trivial many. When they have sufficient levels of clarity, they are capable of greater breakthroughs and innovations – greater than people even realise they ought to have – in those areas that are truly vital.

When I ask executives to identify their boundaries they can rarely do it. They know they have some, but they cannot put them into words. The simple reality is, if you can’t articulate these to yourself and others, it may be unrealistic to expect other people to respect them or even figure them out.

only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that

In a reverse pilot you test whether removing an initiative or activity will have any negative consequences.

Strangely, some of us respond to feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by vowing to work even harder and longer. It doesn’t help that our culture glorifies burnout as a measure of success and self-worth. The implicit message is that if we aren’t perpetually exhausted, we must not be doing enough. That great things are reserved for those who bleed, for those who almost break. Crushing volume is somehow now the goal. Burnout is not a badge of honor.