The Reality of Being a Parent, Entrepreneur, and an Essentialist
This week was too much.
There were football try-outs, a year-end hockey party, basketball practice, and preparing for a year-end hockey tournament after winning our local division (go Wolves!).
At work, we built a report to close off a major client engagement, and with another client are deep in the throes of prepping for a 3-day company on-site, onboarding a new executive leader. At the same time, we're preparing for the launch of our next UNBLOCK Yourself program and the 2026 Waypoint Retreat.
Ironically, we also recorded a podcast this week on one of our favourite books - 'Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less' - by Greg McKeown.
You can get a great summary of the book in that episode, but here's our best attempt at a summary in two sentences:
An essentialist is someone who strives to achieve more by focusing only on the 'vital few' activities, and ignoring (or de-prioritizing) the 'trivial many'
A non-essentialist, on the other hand, races around with a jam-packed schedule, moving from one thing to the next, trying to keep all the balls (essential or not) in the air.
Recording a podcast makes it easy to suddenly feel like an authority on the subject. But... this week was far from the specimen of what an 'essentialist' lifestyle would look like. So we wanted to explore this a little bit.
Looking back at the week that just happened, the first question we asked about everything that happened was 'what was essential'?
From a parenting lens, was making dinner essential? Getting to football tryouts on time? Putting the kids to bed?
From a work lens, was the final client report essential? The hours spent building a new process, or onboarding a new team member? Preparing for the launch of our new programming?
As a parent and an entrepreneur, the answer for this week is just 'yes' - this was a week where there were a LOT of essential things that happened, and they just happened all at once.
So... the next question we explored was 'is this sustainable'? That is, if every week was like this one, could we keep up the pace that we're working at?
This was simpler: the answer is 'no'. There was too much converging at once, which prevented us from being our best at times, whether that was getting impatient with each other or with the kids along the way. Even though the essential things got done, there were some other important 'non-essentials' that didn't... like picking up a prescription for a tooth infection, spending time on personal finances, and reading a book with the kids before bed.
The third and final question we asked is the most important one. How can we make sure there aren't more weeks like this one?
As parents, unexpected demands come up all the time. In fact, in our experience, the demands tend to become highest right when they're least 'convenient', and often things that don't seem essential... well, they are. Parenting, or caregiving of any sort, carries a heavy burden on time.
The same can be said for entrepreneurs. If you're like us, you know that the work, while of your own creation, is endless and relentless. In a similar way, the demands also tend to surge at the least opportune times, and many of the tasks can feel, and often are, essential at the same time.
So... how do we make sure this doesn't keep happening?
The first take-away from this week is to give ourselves grace. Being an essentialist is a philosophy and aspiration, not a thing you can be all the time. That means that when we find ourselves racing around at a higher intensity than we'd like, all is not lost. We can still be overwhelmed, busy AND strive to apply more principles of being an essentialist to our lives. Both things can be true at the same time, and we need to acknowledge that sometimes... it's just too much.
The second take-away from the week is to anticipate and plan. While we were overwhelmed this week, we know that the intensity will persist for another couple of weeks yet as we prepare for, and then execute, an important client on-site. While this week got away from us, we're both closing out the week with long to-do lists, and are setting a game plan to help us better move through the week ahead.
Whether you're a parent or not, an entrepreneur (or not), or are both (like us!), the ideas presented in Essentialism are so useful both at home and at work. They're universal, deeply helpful, and sometimes aspirational when too many 'essential' things collide at once. When those weeks happen, we hope you can step back and do some more of what we needed for this week:
Give yourself some grace - some days, weeks, or even seasons can be full of 'essential' work (both personal and professional), and it can be overwhelming. This isn't a signal that things aren't working... it's a signal that too many things are converging at once, and that happens.
Prepare and plan - unexpected things come up, but taking the time to prepare for a week (or few weeks) ahead, and mapping the work and activities that need to get done will help you take back control of your time, and ensure that at least the MOST essential things (if not everything) get done.
The things worth doing in life often are the hardest. In our experience, the way of the essentialist is among the most useful strategies to make progress on those hard but important things, even when things don't go to plan.