Owning or running a small business is like standing in front a firehose that’s blasting out an endless stream of things you should be doing. RIGHT NOW! Every day, there are a few crises to solve, employees to train, new customers to help, new industry products or services to consider, vendors or agents or salespeople who want to meet with you and a dozen or so new dot-somethings you’re supposed to sign up for and start uploading photos, updates and videos throughout the day and night. Oh, and then there’s your actual job of making or selling a product or serving a client. And what about that family you vaguely recall?

If you run a small business, you already know how to cope: You start by accepting the fact that you can’t do it all. Or, as author Greg McKeown says in his bestselling book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, “Pursue only those things that are truly important — and forget everything else…You can’t have it all, and you can’t do it all.”

In his book, he writes, “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”

A SmallBusiness.com User-Favorite | Published first on 2.11.2015

What are the essentials?

“We overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house, or even intangibles like the number of our followers on Twitter or the way we look in our Facebook photos. As a result, we neglect activities that are truly essential, like spending time with our loved ones, or nurturing our spirit, or taking care of our health.”

McKeown advises that when considering what is essential, if you’re not 90 percent sure of doing something, just don’t bother. Don’t worry about it.” Get over the “fear of missing out” (or, as he says, FOMO). Learn, instead, the Joy of missing out (JOMO).”

And if you end up a little bored as a result, that’s okay too because “at the edge of boredom is all creativity,” he writes.

Give Yourself Permission to Stop Trying to Do it All

Says McKeown, “Only when you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”

via: 99u.com

(Art: Thinkstock)