Do Simple Better

Do simple better.

Traditional teaching has never been enough for me. I like to say that I wasn't built to work in traditional schools. I was an instant mismatch there. I've always loved working fast, hard, and deep on really difficult problems to build funky and creative solutions. As I've gotten better at this process in and out of education, I've grown in one unlikely area.

Radical simplicity in my process.

This, of course, didn't come naturally to me. In fact, I'd argue that it is not natural for most educators or professionals in general. People have a tendency to complicate what is actually very simple and I was no different.

The most challenging and fun work environment I've worked in was this "school" called Alpha. Picture school + design studio + creative studio and you'll get close to what it is like to work at Alpha. We were often tasked with really difficult problems to solve, projects, or programs to build. I always tried to do so much at once that I'd burn out and get tired or not finish a project in time because I was agonizing over ways to link certain kinds of content or ways to make something connected to multiple real-world industries.

One day, in a meeting with the Director of Alpha, as I explained my latest idea to be built in tandem with two others, Graham started chuckling to himself and said, "Mike. I'm going to say this to you and keep saying it to you until you get it. Do simple better. Moving pieces for the sake of flash or excitement doesn't always produce great results. Simplify your process and do that really, really well. Do Simple Better."

He'd gotten this from former Chicago Cubs Manager, Joe Maddon, which I knew about but it still felt new to me.

Those three words make up one of the best pieces of advice and coaching I've ever been given. And when I say coaching I really mean it. I can recall many times sitting in front of a laptop about to produce an overcomplicated idea and would hear Graham's voice from across the room, "Mike...do simple better." He actually said this to me every single day for about 2 years.

So now I'm saying it to you.

Educators, Content Creators, Entrepreneurs, Parents, Small Business Owners...Do simple better.

Let me show you

See this picture?

It is just the beginning of what would become a wall filled with stickies. It is a project I am working on with an incredible group of innovators to figure out what it might look like to build new pipelines of talent into innovative schools, Edtech startups, and innovative non-profit organizations.

Here, we asked hard questions, got off track, got back on track, tested assumptions, and all the other things on the ground floor of building out any great idea or product.

As we kept talking and questioning and making meaning of this all, someone on our team said the words, "This is getting at a new level of complexity." And almost like a knee-jerk reaction, I responded, "Well that means we need to simplify. Then whatever we land on we do that better over and over again." My teammate, friend, and colleague (shoutout to you Yusuf) facilitating this space then wrote out these two pink sticky notes and said, "Okay. Let's just go back to what we know and what we need to know." Then the picture became more clear. We did simple better.

The reason I love Do Simple Better as a methodology, an idea, and a mantra is because of what it does in processes like the one pictured here. It helps us get back to the places we know we can win over and over to build something that is truly special. It helps us remove mental and physical distractions.

This is not to say that complexity is never warranted. Doing simple better actually isn't about eliminating complexity. It is about nailing the basics of your design process or team, your business, your school, your sports team so that when you're met with complexity, you'll know how to break it down and navigate it.

As I've practiced this over the years I have become a better educator, designer, dad, husband, content creator, and entrepreneur.

What does it look like?

Do simple better looks differently for different people.

For a student, it might be timing your study sessions because you know you get more done that way. Don't overthink it. If you know you get more done in those short spurts, do more of that.

For a Content Creator, this might mean that instead of recording an audio podcast and doing a separate live video show that you just take the audio from your live show and tweak your format so it works for both. If you know you are short on time or are close to burnout go back to what you know will work and do more of that.

For a software developer, it means simply thinking about the number of clicks it takes the user to do a certain action.

For teachers, this could be as simple as just asking your students what they think.

I could go on and on and on here but I'll turn it over to you. Let me know in the comments what doing simple better looks like in your profession, business, or school!

Before you comment though, let me give you some advice...

Do simple better.