How To Focus On What Matters Most - Greg McKeown

Here are the top 10 key takeaways from Greg McKeown's conversation with Chris Williamson about essentialism, success, and focusing on what truly matters in work and life.

1. The paradox of success

Success brings new challenges that many don't anticipate. When people achieve success, they gain more options and opportunities, which sounds positive but creates its own problems. This often leads to what's called "the undisciplined pursuit of more" - trying to capitalize on every opportunity rather than being selective.

The more success someone experiences, the more essential it becomes to be disciplined about choices. Success doesn't eliminate problems; it creates different, often more complex ones. The antidote is "the disciplined pursuit of less but better" - being intentional about what you pursue rather than trying to do everything.

2. Distraction vs. disorientation

We've moved from the information age to the "influencer age." While the information age was characterized by distraction, the influencer age is defined by disorientation. This represents a fundamental shift in how we experience the world and the challenges we face.

The concept of "noise" has become increasingly relevant in the past decade. Everyone is "buried in noise" now, and the ability to eliminate noise or synthesize it into something meaningful has become a critical skill. This shift from distraction to disorientation represents a deeper, more foundational challenge that requires different strategies to address.

3. The law of highest priority

An important law states: "The highest priority today is the least likely thing to happen." Our most important tasks rarely happen automatically or by default. Without intentional effort, we tend to react to either trivial matters or urgent (but not necessarily important) issues.

Living reactively puts us at the mercy of whatever captures our attention next - notifications, random thoughts, or minor concerns. The important but non-urgent tasks often get postponed for months. The essential, most important things never happen first unless you deliberately make them happen.

4. The 90% rule for decision making

The "90% rule" suggests focusing only on things that are 90% or above important to you. If something isn't a clear "yes," it should become a clear "no." This helps escape the tendency to do merely good things at the expense of great ones.

Over the past decade, it's become clear that "we have only enough time left to do the 90% and above." When we spend time on trivial activities, we're making tradeoffs we wouldn't make if we clearly saw them as choices. The reality is that in every human system, a very small number of things matter disproportionately, but identifying them requires deliberate effort.

5. The six-minute clarity process

A practical method for gaining clarity takes just six minutes. The process follows three steps: "What, So What, Now What." Start by freely writing about what's going on in your head without judgment. Then analyze what it means. Finally, determine what actions to take.

For the "Now What" step, the "one, two, three method" works well - identify one highest priority item for the day (spend two hours on it), two things that are urgent and essential, and three maintenance items. This creates a "done for the day" list that, when completed, gives you confidence you've addressed the most important things.

6. Maximum vs. optimal effort

The difference between maximum and optimal effort is illustrated through the story of two expeditions to the South Pole. The British team followed a "maximum effort equals maximum reward" approach, pushing as hard as possible each day. The Norwegian team adopted an "optimal effort equals maximum results" philosophy, maintaining a steady pace of 15 miles per day.

The Norwegian team reached the South Pole more than 20 days before the British team. Moreover, the British team was so burned out that none of them survived the return journey, while the Norwegians completed their 16,000-mile journey home. This demonstrates that pacing yourself and maintaining consistent progress often yields better results than pushing to your limits.

7. The onion of human systems

Human systems resemble an onion, with noise and trivia at the outer edges and the most vulnerable, disproportionately important things at the center. As we move inward through the layers, things become more important and require more careful handling.

This pattern exists at all levels - in personal life, relationships, teams, organizations, and countries. At the very center are "meaning frames" - how we interpret situations and make sense of our experiences. These frames often have truths locked with untruths, creating subconscious operating systems that drive our decisions without our awareness.

8. The challenges of the success journey

Most advice focuses on how to become successful, but very little addresses what to do once you achieve success. As you climb higher, the number of people experiencing similar challenges decreases, leading to loneliness. The problems don't disappear; they become more complex with greater impact and more critics.

Success creates its own form of noise that makes it harder to maintain perspective. "Success traps are harder to escape than failure traps" because failure incentivizes change while success encourages you to continue on the same path. It requires greater self-awareness to step back, observe the system you've built, and decide if you want to continue or make changes.

9. The discipline of saying no

As your career progresses, you face the challenge of saying no to opportunities you previously would have begged for. The impact of each unit of effort becomes much greater, making the implications of your choices more significant. Simultaneously, the temptations and distractions multiply.

You need "reverse habituation" - the ability to say no to increasingly attractive opportunities. This becomes harder as options become more enticing and numerous. You need to develop this skill while receiving little sympathy from others who view these as "champagne problems," despite them being real challenges for anyone seeking success.

10. Confusion is universal at every level

Even the most successful organizations and individuals deal with confusion and chaos daily. The difference isn't that successful people eliminate confusion but that they have processes to move from confusion to clarity to creation.

Executives at top companies like Apple and Google are "just dealing constantly with the unknown of that next level of success." The outward appearance of seamless operation masks the reality that everyone faces uncertainty. Success requires continuously upgrading your skills and mindset to handle the complexity of your current level.