Book Review: Essentialsm

Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less is the most important book I read last year. In short, it's about using a systematic discipline every time you make a decision, which allows you to focus on things that really matter. It resonated so heavily with me because of all years, 2018 for me was the most frustrating in my teaching career in terms of my actual contribution to anything that felt worthwhile and meaningful.

It took four pages to hook me, once McKeown asks us:

Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin? Have you ever felt overworked and underutilised? Have you ever found yourself majoring in minor activities? Do you ever feel busy but not productive? Like you’re always in motions, but never getting anywhere? If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the way of the Essentialist.

McKeown, 2014, p.4

Considering I answered yes to all of them, I was instantly hooked. Sign me up! And the promise the first few pages set up didn't fail to live up to expectations. How to say no to things and people, choosing, identifying what matters, having trade off's, setting boundaries and being unavailable are just some of the things that jumped out at me from my initial reading.

What caught my attention mostly, was the question about majoring in minor activities. It made me reflect on my own role as a Leading Teacher, but also on how I see teaching every day in my personal setting. Everyday, I watch teachers and colleagues majoring in minor activities. Switchtasking, being busy, complaining about lack of time, frustrated by something and essentially being good at a whole bunch of other (minor) activities that take the focus of what’s actually important, or essential. Eg: Actual teaching.

After digging around, I found some interesting stuff online about the word essential.

Essentially:

adverb used to emphasize the basic, fundamental, or intrinsic nature of a person or thing. The very core of something.

Put another way, besides the other shit we are asked to deal with as teachers, the basic, fundamental, intrinsic nature and very core of who we are, are teachers. Teaching is essential. But to do, we must build relationships, be organised & mindful of our time. According to the Essentialist philosophy, we should be eliminating everything that takes time away from teaching. If you’re a teacher reading this, I bet you can see the difficulty in this, considering much of what we are expected to do, isn’t necessarily teaching. I feel like the diagram McKeown uses to explain the difference between an Essentialist vs a Non Essentialist is perfect for a teacher.

A Teacher, almost by definition is a Non-Essentialist. In a perfect word, the diagram on the right should illustrate a teacher, directing their energy on that one thing, teaching. But other issues, administrative, wellbeing, assessment, planning, extra curriculuar, professional development etc. They all pull against us like the students in our class vying for our time and attention.

As a leader, I feel like in my first two years of being in a leadership role, I've made teaching for my teams even more Non-Essentialist. One example is the introduction of our schools 1:1 iPad Program. In my first year, with my my forte being Digital Technology, I pushed the teachers in my teams to make Digital Technology a priority. Considering it was in my job description, I guess the push was somewhat justified, but after two years, I believe quite strongly that the iPad push has been something of a Non-Essentialist pursuit that has taken away from teaching and learning. A converstaion I've already had with teachers coming into those areas who are completely unfamiliar with how the iPads are used has gone along the lines of, "seriously don't worry about the iPads, on the scale of what's important in the first few weeks of term 1, the iPads aren't even on the board."

What matters is setting the climate of the classroom, building relationships, the classroom processes and knowing the curriculum. Focussing on the iPads so early are a distraction for both students and teachers.

I feel like 2019, is a good opportunity to start helping our teams make decisions that focus on what is essential. Taking this approach means I'll need to be mindful of things that come up that potentially will intrude on this. Normally, I've just switched, added in, asked for me of, or encouraged change without being mindful we're moving away from what is actually essential.

Term 1 2019, feels like a good time to change that and keep in mind Stephen Covey's well circulated quote.

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

Stephen R Covey