The disciplined pursuit of less

McKeown describes two ways to live. The nonessentialist says yes to almost everything, spreads effort thin across many directions and makes little progress in any of them. The essentialist chooses the vital few things and puts real energy into them.

He points out that the word priority was once singular. Only later did people start talking about priorities, as if many things could come first at once. Essentialism is about restoring that single focus.