WISE WORDS: Simplicity
Like pruning a fruit tree and thinning a vegetable garden
We get ourselves into trouble when we make a subject either too complicated or too basic. Too complicated, and our relatively small brains (no offense!) get overwhelmed and shut down. Too basic, and we leave out elements that are critical for understanding and a good solution.
To simplify isn’t about making things short and easy. It’s looking for the sweet spot between too complicated and too basic. It’s the Goldilocks zone: just right. The best way to simplify is to embrace complexity and then pare the thing back to the absolute essentials. It requires more mental energy to boil down a complicated set of facts to the few most important ones, so we often don’t go back and do the necessary focusing and pruning and editing to produce the best result. That’s how we end up with
the too-long article/essay
the 1K+ item to-do list
the committee report that no one reads (thank goodness for executive summaries)
the presentation that puts the audience to sleep (do you remember the three hour speech that preceded the Gettysburg address with its 272 words delivered in ~3 minutes?!).
The final draft of my essays is usually a third to half shorter than the first draft. When I give a presentation, I decide on the three or four big important ideas I want to cover, and then restrict myself to those few (though I will go deep on each one). It makes my job harder and the audience’s job easier. The result is objectively better.
Here are a few reminders to simplify ⬇️
Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. — Albert Einstein
Simplicity needs a kind of commitment. You have to be sure of yourself. If you’re not, you’ll listen to the complexity sellers. — Jaime Lerner
The perfect design is the one where every unnecessary element has been removed. — Henry Ford
Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things. — Isaac Newton
Omit needless words! — Will Strunk & E.B. White
I would have written something shorter, but I didn’t have the time. — Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify. — Henry DavidThoreau
Less is more. — Mies Van der Rohe
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. — Lin Yutang
Perfection is attained, not when no more can be added, but when no more can be removed. — Antoine de Saint Exupery
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all their sentences short, or that they avoid all detail and treat their subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. — E.B. White
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. — Leonardo da Vinci
I would have written something shorter, but I didn’t have the time…oh how very true!
A perfect reminder for our times when people have short attention spans and a vital need to grasp core messages.