Mckeown Greg

stretch their minds and think more flexibly, unconventionally, and creatively

Know and Not Be Knowing; The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation; As a Man Thinketh; The Essential Gandhi; Walden, or, Life in the Woods; the Book of Mormon; The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius; and the Upanishads

preference is for inspirational literature, though such a choice is a personal one. But for the interested, here are some to consider: Zen, the Reason of Unreason; The Wisdom of Confucius; the Torah; the Holy Bible; Tao, t

powerful effects of restoring play to our daily lives.

The majority of us were not formally taught how to play when we were children; we picked it up naturally and instinctively. Picture a newborn baby’s pure joy as a mother plays peekaboo. Think of a group of children unleashing their imaginations playing make-believe games together. Imagine a child in a state of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow as he constructs his own minikingdom out of a bunch of old cardboard boxes.1 But then as we get older something happens. We are introduced to the idea that play is trivial. Play is a waste of time. Play is unnecessary. Play is childish. Unfortunately, many of these negative messages come from the very place where imaginative play should be most encouraged, not stifled.

The word school is derived from the Greek word schole, meaning “leisure.” Yet our modern school system, born in the Industrial Revolution, has removed the leisure—and much of the pleasure—out of learning. Sir Ken Robinson

Play, which I would define as anything we do simply for the joy of doing rather than as a means to an end—whether it’s flying a kite or listening to music or throwing around a baseball—might seem like a nonessential activity. Often it is treated that way. But in fact play is essential in many ways. Stuart Brown, the founder of the National Institute for Play, has studied what are called the play histories of some six thousand individuals and has concluded that play has the power to significantly improve everything from personal health to relationships to education to organizations’ ability to innovate. “Play,” he says, “leads to brain plasticity, adaptability, and creativity.”

question is this: What is the “slowest hiker” in your job or your life? What is the obstacle that is keeping you back from achieving what really matters to you? By systematically identifying and removing this “constraint” you’ll be able to significantly reduce the friction keeping you from executing what is essential.

it was so revolutionary people worried it might bankrupt the company because nobody would buy it. It took courage, as it always does, to eliminate the nonessential. By the sixties this aesthetic started to gain traction. In time it became the design every other record player followed.

Less but better.

It doesn’t mean occasionally giving a nod to the principle. It means pursuing it in a disciplined way.

Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done.