# Essentialism

> Markdown version of https://brajeshwar.com/2026/essentialism/ — 2026-10-02

I read Greg McKeown’s [Essentialism](/2022/books/) in 2022, and like most good books, it said out loud what I had been slowly doing anyway. Less, but better.[^rams] Over the years, I have applied it to what I own, and lately, more to the technology I live with.

This is my working list. It is not a system, and it will keep changing.

**Native, and open formats.** I prefer native apps over web apps dressed up as apps, and files over databases I cannot see. If my [notes](/2025/obsidian/), photos, and writing are in plain text, Markdown, JPEG, or PDF, I can open them in twenty years with whatever exists then. A format I can [walk away with](/2025/can-i-walk-out/) matters more to me than a feature I will use twice.

**Fewer accounts.** I have been stepping away from online accounts that mean nothing to me,[^accounts] the ones I signed up for to try something once, or because everyone was. I no longer need to be an early user. If something is good, it will still be there in a year, and I will hear about it from someone I trust.

**Essential apps only.** My phone and my computer each have a short list of apps I actually use. Everything else goes. If I need it again, I can install it again; that has rarely happened. Not everything [needs an app](/2026/there-is-an-app-for-that-it-should-not-have/) anyway.

**Fewer subscriptions.** Every subscription is a small promise to keep paying attention. I have canceled most of them. The ones that stay are the ones I would pay for again, today, without thinking.

**Cables, without guilt.** I used to keep every cable and adapter “just in case.” Now I want to be able to walk away from them, without the guilt, and without that dreaded nostalgia of the drawer. If a cable has not been used in a year, someone else can have it.

**A dumb home.** Our home setup is simple, and mostly dumb, on purpose. A switch should switch, and a lock should lock. Automation is an optional layer on top, and it is OK if it does not work. Nothing in the house should stop working because a server somewhere did.

**Layers, like an onion.** I think of everything in [layers](/2025/onion/).[^onion] The core is plain and must always work. Each layer on top adds convenience, and each one can be peeled away without breaking the one beneath it. That is how I dress, and that is how I want my technology to be.

**Hobbies I can walk out of.** I still tinker, build, and try things, and I enjoy it. The rule is that I should be able to walk out of any of it, any day, and nothing important falls apart.

**No regrets.** If I die tomorrow, I would like the family not to inherit a puzzle. No accounts to untangle, no subscriptions quietly charging, no closet of mystery boxes. Just a few good things, [in their places](/2026/avoid-losing-items-assign-places-for-them/), with [backups](/2021/backup/), that anyone can understand.


[^rams]: “Less, but better” is [Dieter Rams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Rams)’ *Weniger, aber besser*, the line he lived his design by at Braun. McKeown borrows it as the motto of the book.

[^accounts]: Every account is one more place for my data to leak from. I would rather [assume it will](/2025/naked-on-the-internet/), and keep fewer of them.

[^onion]: I first wrote about the onion layers for security and privacy, where it is better known as defense in depth. The same thinking works for almost everything else.

## References and Inspiration

- [Making quieter technology](https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/silence)
- [Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less](https://gregmckeown.com/books/essentialism/), Greg McKeown