This past summer, I read and very much enjoyed the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. From this book, I learned a fun fact about the Oscars. I learned that since 1981, every film that has won Best Picture (which many argue is the most coveted award of the whole show) has also been nominated for Best Film Editing. The 2 awards are strongly correlated. In short, you could say a good movie is well edited.
The same can be said for life. Imagine if your life was your version of a Best Picture. To live your best life, it is also important to be really good at editing that life.
What do I mean by this? Well, the content of the Essentialism book has really stuck with me. I’ve shared several of my learnings on the blog already, like daring to say no in order to live your best life. But Chapter 13, on editing your life, particularly resonated with me.
As many of you know, how I earn income these days is as a medical writer. I work at a medical communications agency, and I spend my days as the member of the team who creates the content for our clients. But for a long time before I was a medical writer, I was an editor. And I loved it. Maybe more than I love being a writer. Editing is formulaic (my favorite subject in school growing up was math). Editing makes sense to me. It’s like working on a puzzle, focusing on one piece at a time that then comes together to make a beautiful masterpiece. And you can also think of that beautiful masterpiece as your life, my friends. You, in fact, can be the editor of your own lives.
How to be the editor of your life
In his book Essentialism, McKeown writes that editing “involves the strict elimination of the trivial, unimportant, or irrelevant.” And he argues that we can use the concept of editing, which we typically think of in relation to content creation, in our every day lives.
An editor is not merely someone who says no to things. A three-year-old can do that. Nor does an editor simply eliminate; in fact, in a way, an editor actually adds. What I mean is that a good editor is someone who uses deliberate subtraction to actually add life to the ideas, setting, plot, and characters.
Greg McKeown, in Essentialism
McKeown gives us 4 steps, 4 ways of deliberately subtracting, for editing our lives.
Cut
Just like an editor of a story would cut things out that are confusing or that complicate the reader’s understanding, we too can cut out options that do not serve us in our lives. McKeown argues in Essentialism that eliminating options is the foundation of decision making.
Have you ever heard of choice fatigue? I get it every time I go to the grocery store and see the 143 options I have for a simple loaf of bread or a bag of chips. The idea behind cutting options is that you’re ultimately making it easier to choose. Fewer options = easier decision.
However, McKeown warns that cutting options takes discipline. Don’t expect it to be easy. It doesn’t always feel good in the moment to eliminate, especially if it’s an activity or event that you enjoy. But he argues that everything you cut eventually produces joy due to the realization that “every additional moment we have gained can be spent on something better.”
Take for instance when I got rid of Facebook. It was a really tough activity for me to cut, but it ultimately led to so much happiness because I made more room in my day for other activities I was complaining I didn’t have enough time for.
Condense
According to McKeown, “condensing means saying it as clearly and concisely as possible.”
I’ll admit, this is a step where I struggle. Most people who know me know I am a rambler. It’s hard for me to get my point across quickly and succinctly. This is true when I’m speaking, and also especially true when I’m writing.
But this is also why I love to edit. Particularly when I write an email, I tend to be wordy. I ramble on and on, and the message gets lost. So I find myself editing my emails constantly. I always edit, keeping the point I want to make at top of mind. I ask myself, “If I was reading this, would I get what I’m trying to say?”
Or in McKeown’s words, “Instead of saying it in two sentences, can you say it in one? Is it possible to use one word where two are currently being used?”
What does this mean for our lives? Well, the whole idea behind condensing is to be able to do more with less. We need to eliminate the meaningless to make room for the meaningful. This could play out in many ways in your life. Do you have too much stuff, too much clutter in your life, such that it gives you anxiety? I know many who feel this way. Maybe you need to spend some time organizing and giving or gifting things away. Or maybe you have a house that is too big for what you need, and you want to reconsider the type of place with which you dwell. Are there tasks that you do during the day that you could combine to free up more time? Do you really have to go to that work meeting where you’re listed as an optional participant? Can you plan your meals for the whole week rather than make multiple trips to the store? The possibilities are endless!
Know your why
In addition to cutting and condensing, an editor’s job is also to make things right, whether it’s something small like correcting a grammar mistake or something big like catching a faulty conclusion. And to do this really well, you need to know your audience. You need to know who the work is for as well as the client you’re editing for.
To be a good editor, one has to have a crystal clear sense of the overarching purpose of the work. In Essentialism, McKeown writes about Michael Kahn, a film editor who works a lot with Steven Spielberg. Kahn will often do what he thinks Spielberg wants instead of what he tells him to do. Because he knows the purpose, the intent of the work, he can make corrections as an editor that Spielberg doesn’t even know he wants.
To be a good editor of your life, you need to have a crystal clear sense of your why. I articulated my why in a blog post just last week. Being clear on my why allows me to live more in alignment with my goals and values. If I think about my why with every decision I make, the decision is easier. It may seem daunting at first to consider your why each time you make a decision. But I promise, the more clear you are on your why, the easier it is. It will become so natural, it’s like you won’t even need to think about it. Because you’ll be living it. You’ll be living fully into your why.
McKeown also argues that knowing your why can help make course corrections. He writes that clarity surrounding our core purpose “enables us to check ourselves, to regularly compare our activities or behaviors to our real intent. If they are incorrect, we can edit them.”
I’ve said before that one of the best parts of a financial freedom journey is that money gives you options. Money gives you the ability to make course corrections. If you’re not happy, try something different! Edit your life until you get it right (or at least right for the time being).
Let it go
This step of editing your life might be my favorite, I think because I have had to do so much more work to achieve this step than I’ve had to do for the others. For me, cutting and condensing came much more naturally. Letting go was a tough concept for my perfectionist self to grasp.
McKeown writes in Essentialism that “the best editors don’t feel the need to change everything.” He writes about the power behind the disciple to leave something exactly as it is; the ability to hold oneself back from making an unnecessary change.
Being the editor of your own life means knowing when something is better off left alone, left untouched, left unedited.
I got my first lesson in letting it go at my first job after I left academia, the paycut editor job that ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. When I first started, I was still plagued by my perfectionist mindset. I was still running happily on the hamster wheel of life, trying to maintain the overachiever status I had always had and loved.
I burned myself out quickly. I was aiming for perfection, and so I wasn’t editing fast enough. I was working 10-12 hour days to meet my editing quota for the week. I didn’t know what to do. I was so unhappy and thought I’d have to quit. Lucky for me, I had made some good friends at the company. One by one, a few of them asked if we could meet (virtually). They asked me how I was doing, noticed I was working crazy hours. They were my saviors. They taught me how to let it go. They reminded me that we’re not aiming for perfection in our editing. In fact, our company advertised a less-than-perfect product. Because we were in fact human editors, not robots, and no human is perfect. They urged me that I had to find a balance between efficiency and quality. That if I didn’t want to burn myself out, I’d have to learn how to edit less, learn to let more things go.
And it turns out, they were right. I trained myself to let things go. If I second guessed myself, I moved on. I forced myself to leave something as is rather than take 10 minutes to figure out the best possible edit. Because usually, the first edit (or no edit in some cases), is the best edit. And you know what happened? I continued to get high Quality Scores. I continued to get customer requests for my work. And I was happier and more efficient than I’d ever been.
Closing thoughts: a work in progress
So there you have it, Greg McKeown’s steps of how to edit your life, with commentary by me. And you know what I’ve learned upon reflection? That I’m a work in progress when it comes to editing my own life, and I probably always will be. And I’m ok with that. Because life’s a beautiful journey, and we are constantly adapting to all the changes that are happening around us, all the time. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I try to cut things out, but I don’t always get it right. Sometimes I condense too much and end up right back where I started (still feeling stuck or anxious). Sometimes I lose track of my why and end up making a decision that isn’t the best. Sometimes my perfectionism still gets the best of me, and I have a hard time letting go.
In my previous job, I used to do all of the tasks that are spread out among 4 different people at my current job. What this means is that I know how to do a lot more tasks than I currently do, many of which I’m also good at. Because of my overachiever tendencies, it can be so tempting to jump in and respond, whether to an email or on a call with a client, because I know the answer or think I can do it better. But (more often than not), I don’t. I don’t jump in because I remember my why. I remember how horrible and burned out I was at that last job where I did have to do all the tasks. I remember how I took this current job to relieve myself of the tasks I didn’t find joy in (regardless of whether or not I’m good at them). I don’t jump in because I’ve noticed that the more I do, the more my colleagues expect of me. If I show I can do a task, and am willing to do it even if it’s not part of my role, they will expect me to do it.
What I’m really trying to say is, it takes constant work and deliberate practice for me to be the editor of my own life. And I can assure you that the same will likely be true for you too. But I’ve also found it to be empowering and life changing to be the editor of my own life.
As McKeown writes: “Disciplined editing can help add to your level of contribution. It increases your ability to focus on and give energy to the things that really matter. It lends the most meaningful relationships and activities more space to blossom.”
What areas of your life need to blossom? If you figure that out, then you can edit your way to your best life. Try it, and let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!