We’re constantly trying to do too much and to be all things to all people. Yet when someone makes a request, we say yes without thinking in order to avoid conflict or hurt feelings. We feel we have to do it all.

Because we’re stretched thin and going in too many directions, we make little progress. We feel overworked but underutilized because most of what we’re spending our time on isn’t really important. As Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, puts it, many of us are majoring in minor activities.

The way out of this trap is to practice essentialism: "do less but better." Essentialism is defined as the consistent and focused pursuit of less but better. It’s not about being more efficient or doing more with less (or less with less), as many companies demand of employees. It requires stopping regularly to ask yourself whether you’re spending your time and resources on the right things.

We have numerous opportunities to choose from, and obviously we can’t invest our time and energy in all of them. Some may be good or excellent, but most are unimportant; few are crucial or essential. Essentialism means differentiating among the options and selecting just a few essential ones while eliminating the rest. It’s doing the right things as opposed to doing more things.