In his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown shares his thoughts about the differences between “essentialist” and “non-essentialists.” In a nutshell, essentialists are able to sift through the myriad noise in our world and focus in on the 1-2 most important things that will drive them to their personally most important goals. They are able to separate the vital few things that will make an outsized difference from the trivial many that will just distract from the main goal.

Sounds pretty easy, right?

While it is easy to say, no one is always an essentialist. No one is always able to discern the signal from the noise; the vital few from the trivial many.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. How can we learn to separate the vital few from the trivial many?

Here are 3 strategies that can help us!

3 strategies to separate the vital few from the trivial many

1. Determine your North Star

There is no one universal most vital goal or aim or North Star. The truth is that one person's vital few may be someone else's trivial many. And vice versa.

In order to soft the noise for the signal successfully, we have to know what signal we are looking for. And too many of us are walking around without ever having thought about what matters most to us.

This happened to me during training. And it led to burnout. I lost focus of what I actually wanted in my career – professionally and personally. As a result, I chased a lot of noise. But once I established my North Star, it became a whole lot easier to find what I wanted and build the life I wanted.

And it is ok not to know what yours is right away. It will require exploration and introspection. And time. The key is to start taking these steps.

2. Learn to say “no”

Another thing that is so much easier to say than to do.

We hate to miss out on any potential opportunities. And we hate awkwardness. Or not being a team player. So we all, in our lives, end up saying “yes” to most of the asks and opportunities that come our way throughout a normal day.

The problem here is that most of these things we say yes to only serve to distract us on our path following our North Star.

The solution? We have to start saying “no!” If a task or ask or thing to do does not take us one step closer to our North Star, then we should not be pursuing it.

So how do we do this? Well, we do it respectfully, but in an honest and up front way. Even in a professional setting, you can always respectfully ask even a superior if they would prefer you to prioritize this trivial task against your “North Star” goal. This will usually cause them to recognize the distraction and retract their request.

In the end, you will likely even garner more respect by saying no.

3. Get obsessed

Ok, so you've established your North Star and started saying no to anything that doesn't align with it. What's next?

Now, you have to harness productive obsession. Your North Star is what you are passionate about – personally, professionally, or otherwise. You should be obsessed about it. Start thinking about it all the time. Every day, think to yourself: Am I bringing myself closer to or further away from my North Star? And make sure you start taking actions to get closer.

Surround yourself with a support circle. Talk to your friends and family about your goals and plans. Seek our mentors and reach out to learn from them.

Simply put, go get it.

A corollary to my life

When I recognized that my overall well being was being significantly negatively impacted by my poor financial well-being, I found a new North Star – financial well-being and, ultimately, financial freedom.

After that came the hard part, pushing aside non-essential activities that just served to distract me from my overall goals. I categorize these “trivial many” into external distractions and internal distractions. External distractions were some other activities unrelated to personal finance that just didn't align or would take me away from my more important endeavor. But there are tons of internal distractions with any North Star as well. In personal finance, they are things like active investing or worrying excessively about financial decisions like your allocation of international value vs growth stocks that ultimately will have little impact on your wealth building.

Lastly, I became obsessed. In a healthy way. In fact, this blog is a manifesto of that obsession. It became a way for me to surround myself with like-minded doctors and also keep myself accountable. And to keep learning and enacting the strategies needed to keep me on track.

And in the end? It's been well worth it!

What do you think? Are you separating the vital few from the trivial many? How do you do it? Do you find it difficult sometimes? Why? Let me know in the comments below!