Things are complicated.
In the world.
In business.
In relationships.
Sometimes this feeling of complication even appears within blog posts with complex sentences, where the writer wants to pack too much information in a single sentence that all too often feels like it would behoove itself, if that’s even possible for a sentence to do, but behoove itself nonetheless, to be way shorter, less verbose and with fewer complexities.
See?
Complicated.
Perhaps the best way to deal with the complicated and the chaos that often ensues is to simplify things.
Break things down.
Make them smaller.
And focus.
If you’re working on something right now and it has five parts to it, see if you can do it in three.
Here’s an example.
There’s a story about Steve Jobs and his leadership team.
They were participating in an offsite. He was his inspirational self and he got the team excited to come up with their top 10 list of things they wanted to achieve for the year.
The team worked diligently and laid all 10 out.
Steve then goes to the pad where all the items were listed. He reads. Pauses. And crosses out 8.
“Let’s focus on these 2.”
Simplify.
Apparently he did the same with the product portfolio back in 1997. There were 24 SKUs. He had the team shelve 20 to focus on four.
Simplify.
Another great example comes from the Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo.
She offers up her KonMari method as a way to declutter your closet — and your life. It involves assessing an item like a shirt or a pair of shoes, holding it in your hand and asking yourself, does this thing “spark joy?” If not — remove it.
Simplify.
And what would a plea for simplification be without a reference to the Sultan of Simplifying, record producer Rick Rubin. Rubin is famous for his stripped-back approach to song-making. As the maestro for Adele, Johnny Cash, Jay Z, Run-DMC, Tom Petty and many others once said:
“The less elements you have, you can hear the ones that are there, and they can sound better…”
Simplify.
If you’re working on something right now and it has five parts to it, see if you can do it in three.
If your to-do list is a mile long, pick the top three items you really want to make happen.
If your closet is giving you claustrophobia, shed it for joy.
All of which should inspire you to do one thing.
Simplify.