This will be my last post on this wonderful little book! Re-reading this has reminded me that, while I do still have some great routines and habits built into my day, I’d forgotten why I need them and had lost my motivation to keep building on them. I’m happy I finally got around to reading it again. It feels like I read it just in time, like maybe it was waiting for just the right moment.

“But if we create a routine that enshrines the essentials, we will begin to execute them on autopilot. Instead of consciously pursuing the essential, it will happen without our having to think about it.” From Essentialism by Greg McKeown

This is similar to the concept that The FlyLady uses to get all the housework done. I found her website over fifteen years ago and it changed my life. Seriously. Housework can be overwhelming for anyone, add in three kids, two dogs, and a personality like a squirrel on crack, and you’ve got a situation that might end up with someone calling CPS because that house…wow…children should not be subjected to that. She helps you set up routines, easy ones, that get the essentials out of the way so that you can focus elsewhere and enjoy life instead of slave away.

Coming into this book with those skills under my belt, made it easy for me to see where I could be applying essentialism everywhere else. Morning, afternoon, and evening routines are easy to create and stick to when I’m only focused on what I can actually do to make life better, instead of wildly going from one thing to the next and then losing my mind when a curve ball comes screaming in over the plate.

My list of essentials is short. I’m often accused of shirking when people ask me to take on new responsibilities, but only I know how much energy and time I have to spend. If it doesn’t fall under one of my essentials, and it feels outside my sphere of influence, I let it go. If it doesn’t get done, I suppose it didn’t need to be done.

I cannot and will not feel guilty that I’ve created a world for myself that doesn’t make me look like a busy bee all day every day. Yes, I have a lot of time. I have read, I write, I cook from scratch, because I made my life that way so that I can.

Now…if I can only make my mind work that way as well. That is what brings me to the next book I’m reading, The Path of the Human Being by Dennis Genpo Merzel.

Go back to my first post, “Essentialism by Greg McKeown” to read more quotes from the book.