“Let us reflect on what is truly of value in life, what gives meaning to our lives, and set our priorities on the basis of that.” - Dalai Lama
It’s rare when I read something that hits me so hard that I HAVE to share it word for word. This email by Greg Mckeown from
The Essentialist encapsulated perfectly how I prioritize my work and life and I hope you get as much value from it as me!
Greg writes:
I often say that if you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.
But how do we choose what to prioritize amongst the many important things we have to do?
The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular and meant the very first or priorist thing.
It stayed singular for the next 500 years. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution that people started using the term priorities, pluralizing it.
And yet, what does that even mean?
How can you have multiple first things?
This isn’t to suggest that there can’t be multiple important things - but when everything’s a priority, what it really means is nothing is a priority.
One thing you can do right now is to identify what your priority is at this moment by asking yourself this question:
What’s important now?
This is the first question to ask if you are just beginning your journey to becoming an essentialist. And it’s the first question to ask if you ever feel stuck or like you are becoming overwhelmed with too many priorities.
Don’t overthink it. Just ask the question, “What’s important now?”
A 1-Minute Strategy for Finding What’s Essential
- Identify your priority for this moment by asking, “What’s important now?”
- Write it down and focus on this today.
- Set a reminder to evaluate how well you focused on this throughout the day.
Click
here to listen to our podcast with Greg McKeown on a deeper dive into essentialism.
“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead, we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”
