Why Millennials Need To Adopt Essentialism

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that living in the 21^st century as millennials can be stressful. In addition to the external things at work in our society (the economy, the insane rise of national gun violence and whatever the Supreme Court is deciding on) we have to face the fact that we have to live life every day. Our day -to -day grind, which can include work, family life, etc. often takes a toll on us. The global crisis of the last two and a half years has shown us that the preservation of our mental health is important. It has shown us that where we are mentally, directly impacts how well we perform. Whether it is as a parent, spouse, or whatever your career entails, performance definitely matters.

We May Have Found A Solution

Enter “essentialism.” In simple terms, essentialism is the idea of teaching a basic set of principles. However, in Greg McKeown’s titular book, he takes this idea a step further. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, is exactly what the title entails: a “how – to” for attaining less. Sounds crazy, right? Why would someone deliberately want less? Especially millennials. The author takes us through a scenario following a man who works in an office setting. He takes every job, and barely tells people no. Then, he changes. In order to preserve his own mental space, he starts to tell people no and two things happen. The first, being that the quality of his work increased greatly, which led into the second being that everyone wanted to work with him. The quality of his work improved because he made a personal choice for the sake of his mental health.

Quality Over Quantity

We all know which is better here, no need to go over it. But in a world where everything seemingly happens at one time, we tend to gravitate to the latter. We’ve been long given the “time management is key” argument, and to be real it’s not feasible for some people. Some can’t manage time because there is just no time to manage. Here’s where McKeown’s approach plays in. Instead of focusing on managing time for all of our tasks, we manage the number of tasks to help with opening up time.

Offloading. It’s like deleting apps, photos, and unnecessary things from our phones to free up space, we do the same with life. Find the essentials,and focus in on that. Everything else, limit/cut your time with. For the millennial, this can look like focusing on one thing at a time at work by not taking up too many projects. It can also mean, (bracing myself) getting off of social media or limiting your time. (Just check the Inclub Magazine’s official Instagram, then get off for the day) The idea behind his principle is that you must do less to have more of an impact.

Your Mental Is Important

At the end of the day, your mental health is key here. In light of what our society has experienced in the past two years, we must preserve the health of our minds. Sure, the improvement of the quality of work is important, but the quality of our actual lives is even more important. A healthier mind for each individual makes an overall healthier society.