It’s common to get lost as you try to juggle different things in your business. After all, a business has many components that need attention and thorough execution. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when there’s too much to do to the point of not knowing where to begin. This is where essentialism comes in.
This concept helps you to prioritize tasks and effortlessly execute plans. When you become an essentialist, you learn to do the most important things in your business and life.
To become an essentialist, you must have a core mindset to guide you. Your mindset determines your choices, helps you discern, and allows you to make trade-offs. Other components of the concept include setting limits, saying no, and cutting commitments.
Choice
While you may not have power over your options, you indeed have control over what you do. Your actions are your choices. Failing to make a choice leaves you feeling helpless. This is because your situation will push you towards an option. Although making a choice may not always be easy, taking action gives you a sense of power and control.
Discern
Decide the efforts that lead to the most rewards. Note that putting more effort will not always lead to the desired results. Instead, aim to work smart and opt for options where the least effort will result in the most reward.
Trade-Off
Make a trade-off by choosing the option that you want the most. But you first have to weigh each option to understand what is needed. When selecting the right option might seem like a dilemma for you, try not to overthink. Instead, be selective. A simple trick you can apply is to go for what you feel the most conviction to do.
Limits
Let’s face it, no one can ever agree to everything thrown their way. Also, you can’t choose all the options you have. Setting limits on how much work you do is critical. Setting a limit determines your boundaries. This way, you’ll escape the temptation to work on too many tasks at a time. Plus, limiting what you do and how you spend your time makes you focus on the most important things.
Uncommit
Being selective and exercising trade-offs calls for you to drop some activities. Knowing when to uncommit is a valuable skill. It helps you cut your losses and become assertive about your decisions.
Channel the time, energy, and money you invest in unproductive activities elsewhere. It’s not easy cutting ties with something you’ve invested in. However, failing to do so might lead you to incur more losses.
Say “No”
Learning how to uncommit means that you must also learn how to say “no.” This helps you offset the pressure others put on you to do something. Be courageous yet graceful in your “no.” While saying “no” comes naturally to some people, others struggle with it. They don’t want to seem rude and mean. As a result, they end up with too much work to do, which puts undue pressure on them.
Verdict
You can’t maximize your productivity when you take on all tasks that come your way. You need to focus on the most important things. To do so, you must learn how to discern options, make choices, and make trade-offs in situations. You should also have limits and learn to say “no.” Essentialism helps you become super-efficient.