Book notes from Essentialism by Greg McKeown
Sleep
- No employee is expected to
drive to work after a red eye flight
- Come in late after staying
late at work the night before.
- Companies and leaders like
these know that 'protecting your assets' is a matter of fiduciary
responsibility
- Google to take a nap in one
of their famous nap pods.
- Our highest priority is the
protect our ability to prioritize.
- To discern the essential few
from the many trivial, mediocre or even the good.
- By definition this is a
process of prioritization.
- Filtering of options that,
at first glance all look important.
- Sleep will enhance your
ability to explore, make connections, and do less but better throughout
your waking hours.
Select
- The power of Extreme Criteria
- 'No more Yes, It's either
Hell Yeah or No.
- Twitter leader - 'If the
answer isnt a definite yes, then it should be a no.'
- The 90 percent rule
- As you evaluate an option -
think about the single more important criteria for that decision.
- Give the option a score
between 0 and 100 - if you rate it below a 90, the automatically change
it to a 0.
- No indecision.
- Applying highly selective
criteria is a trade-off. Sometimes you will have to turn down a
seemingly very good option and have faith that the perfect option will
soon be coming.
- Nonessentialists apply
implicit or unspoken criteria to the decisions they make in both their
personal and professional lives.
- 'If my manager says I
should do it, then I should do it.
- 'If someone asks me to do
something, I should try to do it'
- Over time they had become
more and more indiscriminate and eventually the company's portfolio of
projects seems to share only the criterion that a customer had asked them
to do.
- Now it became difficult to
distinguish themselves in the marketplace because their work, which had
previously occupied a unique and profitable niche, had become so general.
- Make your criteria both
selective and explicit affords us a systematic tool for discerning what is
essential and filtering out the things that are not.
Selective,
Explicit and Also Right.
- They began with the basic
assumption that they would rather be understaffed than hire the wrong
person quickly.
- When they are looking for a
new employee, they have a rigorous and systematic selection process.
- 'If it isnt a clear yes, then
it's a clear No.
- Box CEO - Aaron Levie -
on hiring: simply asks if the
person is someone he'd want to work with every day.
- 'One of the ways we think
about this, could this person have been one of the founding members of
the team'
- Jim Collins - Good to Great -
if there is one thing you are passionate about - and that you can be best
at - you should do that one thing.
- Advanced Search as three
questions
- What am I deeply passionate
about.
- What taps my talent.
- What meets a significant
need in the world.