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Because Essentialists will commit and "go big" on only the vital few ideas or activities, they explore more options at first to ensure they pick the right one later.

Focus and concentration are crucial, I wrote, so shorter training sessions with clearer goals are the best way to develop new skills faster. It is better to train at 100 percent effort for less time than at 70 percent effort for a longer period. Once you find you can no longer focus effectively, end the session. And make sure you get enough sleep so that you can train with maximum concentration.

If you regularly take a minute to check in with yourself, to ask yourself, "What's really important?" you may find that some of the choices you are making are in conflict with your own stated goals. This strategy can help you align your actions with your goals and encourage you to make more conscious, loving decisions.

There are individual differences in cognitive style, and the trade-off present in multitasking often comes down to focus versus creativity. When we say that someone is focused, we usually mean they're attending to what is right in front of them and avoiding distraction, either internal or external. On the other hand, creativity often implies being able to make connections between disparate things. We consider a discovery to be creative if it explores new ideas through analogy, metaphor, or tying together things that we didn't realize were connected.

by removing the recording function from Walkmans, Sony produced a product that had a lower range of functionality, but a far greater potential to a change behaviour. By reducing the possible applications of the device to a single use, it clarified what the device was for. The technical design term for this is an 'affordance',

Remember, zombie projects are low-value projects that nevertheless consume time, energy, and money. Killing them helps reduce neglected work and allows you to deliver more important projects faster and with fewer interruptions.

minimalists don't mind missing out on small things; what worries them much more is diminishing the large things they already know for sure make a good life good.

Satisficing is one of the foundations of productive human behavior; it prevails when we don't waste time on decisions that don't matter, or more accurately, when we don't waste time trying to find improvements that are not going to make a significant difference in our happiness or satisfaction.

Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it's about how to get the right things done. It doesn't mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at your highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.

Multitasking is the enemy of a focused attentional system. Increasingly, we demand that our attentional system try to focus on several things at once, something that it was not evolved to do.

If there is any one 'secret' of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.

Essentialists see trade-offs as an inherent part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, "What do I have to give up?" they ask, "What do I want to go big on?"

while most of us, fortunately, develop sufficient capacity to delay gratification to make it through high school or college and embark upon adulthood without landing in jail, our development nonetheless tends to be imperfect and incomplete, with the result that

Multitasking is a good way to screw up progress,

There is one thing we can do, and the happiest people are those who can do it to the limit of their ability. We can be completely present. We can be all here. We can give ... our attention to the opportunity before us. --Mark Van Doren

The effective executive does not, in other words, truly commit himself beyond the one task he concentrates on right now. Then he reviews the situation and picks the next one task that now comes first.

In bodybuilding or weightlifting, if you are going to attempt to lift a weight at the maximum of your current ability, you need to prepare before the lift and be completely focused during the lift. Any activity at the limits of your ability will require full concentration and effort. And, of course, in fields where strength and endurance are not so important -- intellectual activities, musical performance, art, and so on -- there is little point at all to practicing if you don't focus.

The executive who wants to be effective and who wants his organization to be effective always polices all programmes, all activities, all tasks. He always asks: 'Is this still worth doing?' And if it isn't, he gets rid of it so as to be able to concentrate on the few tasks that, if done with excellence, will really make a difference in the results of his own job and in the performance of his organization.

"Focus on the hardest thing first." After all, as Ray said to me: "We already have too much to think about. Why not eliminate some of them by establishing a routine?"

You just can't bring your A game to every situation. Knowing when to embrace Good Enough is what gives you the opportunity to be truly excellent when you need to be. We're not suggesting you put shit work out there. You need to be able to be proud of it, even if it's only "okay." But attempting to be indiscriminately great at everything is a foolish waste of energy.

His newfound commitment to doing only the things that were truly important - and eliminating everything else - restored the quality of his work. Instead of making just a millimetre of progress in a million directions he began to generate tremendous momentum towards accomplishing the things that were truly vital.

The more specific you can be about what you want, the more clarity you will have, and the more power you will command to achieve what you want more rapidly.

you can do anything in life, but you cannot do everything.

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing"

Focus is a matter of deciding what things you're not going to do. --John Carmack

'Bees cannot sting and make honey at the same time. They have to make a choice. Either they are going to be a stinger or a honey-maker.' Emanuel Cleaver

There is another benefit to implementation intentions. Being specific about what you want and how you will achieve it helps you say no to things that derail progress, distract your attention, and pull you off course. We often say yes to little requests because we are not clear enough about what we need to be doing instead. When your dreams are vague, it's easy to rationalize little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.