I was listening to a podcast from New York Times Bestselling author Greg McKeown, who summarized the thesis of his book Essentialism this way:
It's not that when you say yes to something you say no to something. [But] that is progress, if you can psychologically get there, then you are further ahead than what we often do, which is to look at something and say, 'Is this good? Is this a good thing?' And if it's a good thing, well then we need to do it....As soon as you say, "Well, a yes equals a no," now you're being more sensible about it [and] more thoughtful about it. You say, "OK, It's not whether it's good, it's whether it's better than this other thing I would be doing instead."
But then really, where it starts to become almost shocking is where [we learn that] every time you say yes, you are saying no NOT to ten things, NOT to a hundred things, but everything. That's the point [of Essentialism]:
Every yes is no to everything else that you could possibly be doing right now.
What a great insight. I remember learning about opportunity cost -- or the value of the next best alternative -- in Econ 110 as an undergraduate student, and finding it to be a really helpful in making decisions. But McKeown is expanding this idea to not just include the best foregone alternative, but everything.
The implications for this seem far-reaching, especially for school leaders. You'll, of course, know how to apply this to your own situation. But it makes me think of how this could be a powerful mechanism to help leaders break out of the "tyranny of the urgent," as one colleague recently called it -- those tasks that always seem most urgent, but not the ones we'd choose to put first on our list. It can certainly help towards identifying and acting on what is most essential.