Constant activity defines modern life. Throttled by countless meetings, after-school programs, responsibilities, and plans, many people find it challenging to simply keep pace, let alone succeed in everything they do. Sadly, this experience is increasingly common and entirely draining. It pulls people away from considering their true desires and empties every day of the delight it carries. The best-selling author Greg McKeown knows this well and channels his personal and professional know-how into a crash course on “Essentialism”—an inspiring alternative for lives that have grown so encumbered by content that their substance is all but hollow.

Tugged away from his wife’s bedside by an important “work thing,” Greg McKeown knew something was up. McKeown allowed his role as dutiful employee to usurp that of husband and brand-new father far too easily. If that wasn’t depressing enough, the meeting he simply couldn’t miss was pointless. If McKeown opted to spend the time sitting alongside his wife instead, no one would have thought him any the worse for it (least of all his wife). Thankfully, it wasn’t long before McKeown perceived his shortsighted mistake: Failing to investigate the crucial aims of one’s life and treating every appeal as an unquestionable demand is dangerous. According to McKeown, lifestyles that march forward to the choppy rhythm of this “Nonessentialism” are lopsided, misguided, and unsustainable—they must be consciously avoided if one wishes to live worthwhile days at all.

Despite the harm of this lifestyle, its appeal is symptomatic of contemporary culture. The late writer and expert in entrepreneurial thought Peter Drucker distinguishes this moment from others for the multitude of directions it offers. According to him, now individuals “will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.” Theoretically, one might keep a day job, start up a new business, participate in any number of clubs, and start writing that long-dreamed novel on the side. Every venue appears wide open. Though the world seems like our oyster, as we look closer, this is far from the truth. 

According to a concept in psychology experts call “decision fatigue,” too many options can be problematic. As people sift through a whole sea of factors, responsibilities, and possibilities, they gradually lose their capacity to do so productively. Their thoughts and attention are laden with concerns they unflinchingly assume are worth their time. This infectious striving often seems like an unavoidable reality. It’s one that can be traced back through history, too. Interestingly, the oft-repeated singular term “priority” was introduced during the 1400s, but as the steadily speeding 1900s arrived to the fore, the term put on some ideological weight. The now common “priorities” is today’s catch-all word for seeking to, as McKeown puts, “do it all,” placing everything on the line in the meantime.

Instead, practice taking a step back to get a proper view of the life you’re giving your time to. As you do this, you’ll be able to discover if it’s something beautiful or treacherous—a structure worthy of your efforts, or an edifice you need to whittle down.

The psychologist-philosopher William James once said, “My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.” This kind of “free will” might sound like fiction, or an impossible ideal in a world of supervisors, friends, and loved ones who throw their every need at you and expect them all to stick. Often, it doesn’t seem that you have any say in the course of your life at all. That’s how McKeown felt as he was pulled from his wife by the whims of his workplace, and it’s one of the most damaging illusions he seeks to dispel through his work. The lifestyle practice that McKeown calls “Essentialism” begins here, on the grounds of individual action and the ability for people to determine the route of their lives with their decisions.

When they do, they’ll learn to embody one of Essentialism’s most powerful mottos drawn from the German designer Dieter Rams: “Less but better.” It might feel strenuous and maybe even wrong at first, but as an individual decides to get rid of the parts of his or her day that consume time, it’s easier to redirect that replenished freedom into worthwhile activities. For instance, the multi-billionaire Warren Buffett saw this truth clearly and made his brilliant financial moves on the basis of its principle. According to Mary Buffett and David Clark in The Tao of Warren Buffett, the mogul pours all of his money into a handful of trusted sources rather than a range of outlets, reaping huge dividends as a result. Similarly, deciding to hand over a task at work (with your boss’s permission), or opting out of a weekly obligation will reward you with increased time and a greater capacity to employ that time in a significant way. 

Southwest Airlines is another brilliant example of McKeown’s practices put into action. Under the leadership of Herb Kelleher, the company initially decided upon a singular aim of affordability and tailored the airline’s efforts in light of that emphasis. For instance, Southwest forgoes perks like flight food or designated spots to remain an affordable option for casual flyers. Though many people thought that Southwest’s informed decision would be an entrepreneurial death wish, over time their insight quite literally paid off—a result that made budget-conscious flyers quite happy, too.

When people model the examples of Buffet and Southwest, deciphering the most impactful aspects of their days and endeavoring to rework the rest, they may not find themselves ever rolling in cash, but they might feel far more empowered.

With work goals, family members, and personal matters to consider, it doesn’t seem that you’ll ever have enough time to figure out what’s worthy of your time in the first place. Thankfully, the task of discovering one’s central concerns is a lot less cumbersome than it sounds, though it often looks strangely counter-intuitive. Leaders like Jeff Weiner and Bill Gates, for instance, continuously unlatch themselves from the concerns of their workaday lives to ponder their contents more substantially. Just as Weiner places half-hour mental resets into his frantic days as the CEO of LinkedIn, and Gates embarks from Microsoft for a biannual “Think Week,” people should seek out similar ways to reinvigorate their brains and approach their days with a refreshed mindset.

Albert Einstein models yet another way for people to recalibrate their minds away from the desk, office, or classroom. His witty mental games gave way to nearly unthinkable discoveries. Despite pages full of concrete mathematics, Einstein recognized that “the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.” According to the findings of psychologist Stuart Brown and psychiatrist Edward Hallowell, Einstein is (not surprisingly) right on target. As leader of the National Institute for Play, Brown followed the habits of 6,000 people and discovered that their participation in seemingly frivolous pursuits positively impacted every facet of their lives. These activities, which McKeown refers to as “play,” are proven to shush mental anxiety, too, which typically rouses one’s amygdala and tampers with the mental wherewithal provided by the hippocampus. So, if you want to muse like a modern-day Einstein, you might want to think about taking up a hobby.

If the idea of adding unnecessary activity to your day sounds too ambitious, you can still gain some distance and a much-needed cognitive reset in a literal wink. Sleeping supercharges the human brain and helps people conquer whole days’ worth of events, providing them with the mental stamina they need to approach their lives afresh. In a 2004 research study conducted by Luebeck University and released in the revered publication Nature, people who got an ideal eight hours of sleep were vastly superior at deciphering the answer to a puzzle than those who received less. Similarly, according to a Wall Street Journal article by Nancy Jeffrey entitled “Sleep Is the New Status Symbol for Successful Entrepreneurs,” the likes of Jeff Bezos and Marc Andreessen agree, ensuring that they get eight hours of rest every night—something their employees at Amazon and Netscape definitely appreciate.

Whether knitting or napping, granting yourself some hard-earned moments to simply dawdle and recover might sound superfluous, but those habits revive your thinking and make life much more pleasurable.

If there’s one word that nearly all of us hate to say, it’s probably that formidable two-letter term—the word “no.” After individuals figure out what’s truly central to their lives, they must then begin to take a set of scissors to the rest of their schedules. In this next phase of Essentialism, McKeown leads people to ask themselves, “What will I say no to?” Succumbing to every passing request and taking on enough responsibilities to send you whirling into a cognitive coma isn’t beneficial for you, your pursuits, or the people in your life. In order to preserve the most prized parts of who you are and what you seek to do, incorporating a frequent “no” into your daily dictionary isn’t a cold, heartless move but an entirely reasonable response. 

Stephen R. Covey, an accomplished author whose work The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People you’re probably familiar with, experienced this dilemma one night and came out better for it. Following a speaking event, Covey received a kind invitation to dine with a longtime colleague. But there was a problem; he had already promised to spend some time with his daughter that night instead, and the question threatened to derail his schedule. Even despite the press to say “yes,” a product of  “normative conformity,” or the psychological tendency to fold to even the most undesirable appeals, Covey remained firm. He and his daughter already decided what they would do with their night, so he politely declined the offer. Before any other label or position, no matter how laudable or esteemed, Covey was a father. As a result, he oriented the decision he made that night to bend to that particular end. Even to the moment of Covey’s death decades later, his daughter reminisced on the single-minded love he showed her when he turned that coworker down to enjoy his time as a father instead. 

This example of fatherly devotion exemplifies another aspect of McKeown’s Essentialist creed—just as Covey delivered a kind though unwavering “no,” he constructed helpful “boundaries,” too. Unfortunately, these necessary mental, emotional, and physical constructs are increasingly difficult to maintain, especially considering the rise of working from home. Yet another esteemed thinker and author of the work The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen, discusses a moment in which he too was faced with a boundary-shaking decision. When a coworker entreated him twice to do some supposedly much-needed business on the weekend, like Covey, Christensen eloquently dismissed him. Despite visible bitterness from his colleague, Christensen resolved to save the weekends for the concerns of his home and his church instead. In his own words, he knew that, “If I had made an exception then I might have made it many times,” a tempting move that would ultimately stifle both his career and his family life.

It’s easy to think that nodding affirmatively to each and every person’s appeal and putting all of your time into various pursuits will create a rewarding experience, but that belief is a deception. And it’s one to which you should finally say “no.”

Despite all our best efforts, we aren’t always perfectly functioning machines. Even if the striving doers within each of us abide by the precepts of McKeown’s Essentialism, it’s still a tough feat to bring those ideals to fruition. That’s why he compels people to craft their own daily and lifelong battle plans to facilitate the eventual outcomes they wish to produce—whether it’s the draft of a screenplay, a brand new role at work, or a weekly adventure you want to turn into a family tradition.

This is exactly what the superintendent of the Richmond Police Department Ward Clapham did when he was faced by a worrisome number of young felons in Richmond, British Columbia. Figuring it was time for a change, Clapham kickstarted a new way to pursue those would-be criminals, a method that looked nothing like what had been done before. His resulting Positive Tickets program sought to facilitate a safer environment by granting those who followed the city’s rules a perk, setting up tiny motivators to contribute to a grander and more beneficial end. When contributing to the community wasn’t simply expected but actively respected, young people and adults looked at their actions in a new light. At the outset, Clapham’s Positive Tickets program might have seemed purposeless. Over time, though, it decreased a hefty recidivism rate of 60 percent to a much more manageable eight.

Clapham’s hands-on achievement is grounded in science, too. In a hugely impactful 1968 article from the Harvard Business Review, the psychologist Frederick Herzberg argued that what McKeown calls “achievement and recognition for achievement” are the best ways to get people moving toward their goals. Similarly, a 2011 study by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer echoes these findings. Their research shows that as people at last power down their laptops for the night, they are most content if they made a tangible contribution to a larger vision. People don’t need to begin with their grandiose pursuits and all-encompassing plans to eventually get there. In fact, if they were to do this, their endurance would eventually taper off.

Instead, when people view their visions as paint-by-numbers rather than portraits they must finish in a day, reveling in even the slightest bits of color they can add, they will learn to better appreciate the beauty of their work and themselves.

The Greek terms “chronos” and “kairos” are like fraternal twins. Though both words refer to the concept of time as experienced within Greek culture, they tackle the issue in crucially different ways. While “chronos” deals with an individual’s typical perception of the concept, “kairos” embodies the sense of being entirely detached from it. According to McKeown, this “kairos” only exists “when we are fully in the moment—when we exist in the now,” pulling our thoughts away from the invading concerns of the day to give ear to the actual tasks, events, or people at hand.

You’re probably familiar with the notion of mindfulness and the advantages that come with simply honing one’s awareness. But, actively incorporating these practices into daily life is far less glamorous than those Tibetan monks make it sound. Fortunately, as a longtime practitioner of Essentialism, McKeown reveals some of the ways he himself does a cognitive pivot back to the present. For instance, when he feels rattled by the frenzy of a day, he pulls out his journal and jots down everything he needs to do. As McKeown does this, he gives his brain a birds-eye view of everything he must accomplish, enabling himself to look over those details that were squirming in his mind to see which are the most pressing at the time. If you often feel the same way, an agenda, notebook, or even a stack of sticky notes might help you pry your brain away from its fretting and improve your mind’s awareness. Take a walk, or spend a few minutes staring out your window. When you give your mind the chance to root itself into the content of life once again, the definitions of everything will sharpen.

As the profound philosopher Lao Tzu writes, “In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.” Granting every moment its fair share of awareness helps you witness the most beloved parts of your day to cherish them with newfound enthusiasm.