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Greg McKeown wrote Essentialism, one of my favorite books. I recently came across a 2012 article that he published in the Harvard Business Review titled The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. In it, Greg describes what he calls “the clarity paradox,” which he sums up in the following four phases:

Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success.
Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities.
Phase 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts.
Phase 4: Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

I think Greg is onto something when he suggests that we should purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminate the non-essentials from our personal and professional lives. Of course this advice doesn’t address the foundational question of how to define success, but that’s a topic for another time.

I’ve been enjoying the work of Mark Manson lately. His blend of irreverence, sarcasm and wisdom is unique (and entertaining). Here is one of his recent pieces that I particularly enjoyed. Also, he has a cool feature on his site that lets you listen to him reading the articles; Scroll down into the body of an article and an audio link will appear. I was introduced to Mark through his book with the hard-to-overlook title “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.”

I started 2016 with a determination to do less, but better. I was inspired along the way by the ideas in the books  Essentialism and Deep Work. Anyone feeling compelled to live more intentionally should check out these two works. I have also tried to take stock of the true cost (both monetary and psychological) of my time commitments and the “stuff” that I own. I’ve come across a few blogs on this journey that I continue to read regularly. Two of them recently published lists of their most popular posts of 2016: Becoming Minimalist top post of 2016 and No Sidebar top posts of 2016.