Why Less is More: Embracing Simplicity in Life and Business
When we think about progress, we think about adding stuff to what’s already there. We build more, bigger, and more complex. We rarely think that progress can also be achieved by taking away, by building less, smaller, simpler.
We are driven to know more, to get more information, and to do more stuff. We rarely question whether having more information is actually any good. Often it isn’t.
In the business world, we keep adding new products to our product lines and rarely remove the ones that don’t perform particularly well. We spread our focus and budgets thin. We add more people to be able to handle all the work that’s coming, rarely questioning whether that work actually needs to be done.
More information and more work lead to more stress, less focus, more difficult decision-making, and generally lower well-being.
Why Do We Pursue More, Accumulate And Overconsume?
Mark Twain supposedly said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Even though there is no proof that he actually said that, it is a nice sentiment that encapsulates the problem with “more.” More doesn’t equal better. Making things simpler is hard, but the results are often superior to the complex system, product, or process we started with.
The problem, of course, is that sometimes we are too lazy or don’t have the time to make things simpler. We are satisfied with “good enough.” We have done our job, like writing a letter, and now it is time to move on to the next thing. Could we make the letter better by cutting some parts out? Yes. Is it worth the effort? Well... that depends. Settling for “good enough” is usually sufficient. But sometimes, it would indeed pay off to take the extra step and simplify, cut, and remove elements to make the final product better.
Sometimes, it is not our laziness; it is simply the need for others to see all the hard work that went into our masterpiece. This is particularly true in writing. You wrote a hundred thousand words and don’t want to cut it in half. Yes, it may greatly improve the book, but no one will know that you wrote so much more if you delete half of it. Your effort will be wasted and unacknowledged. It feels wrong. Yet, it is the right thing to do, so the remaining words in your masterpiece are much more powerful.
In fact, this "more is better" mindset is being reinforced in schools. I still remember being required to provide as many details as possible about how I arrived at the results of various problems in math classes. It wasn’t enough to calculate and write the answer; it was important to document every step of the calculation and write it all out. The teacher needed to know how you arrived at the answer and that you didn’t copy it from someone else. You had to provide much more than what truly mattered: the correct answer.
1. Natural Tendencies: Accumulation comes to the mind first.
We continue accumulating rather than simplifying because accumulation comes to our minds first. We don’t even consider removing items. We only start thinking about it when we reach a point of desperation when we can’t find other ways to improve the situation by adding things. Then we begin to remove.
2. Evolutionary Instincts: Our ancestors’ need to collect food for survival may influence our hoarding tendencies.
It seems that our need to collect things may also stem from the need of our ancestors to gather food to survive. The more food one could obtain, the lower the chance of starving to death. This tendency to hoard may extend beyond food, as the same reward system in the brain is triggered when we accumulate other items.
Before we renounce all our worldly possessions, it is important to point out that our need to collect things has played a significant role in the rise of civilization. Hunter-gatherers lived in small groups where it was easy to know one another and work collaboratively. As they settled down to build larger and more durable shelters, along with the advent of agriculture, these groups grew bigger, making it difficult to know everyone.
As a result, mental shortcuts based on people’s possessions and the clothes they wore were created. If you wore lion skin, everyone knew that you were a skilled and fearless hunter. Similarly, today, when you wear a police uniform, everyone knows you are there to serve and protect. With the help of such categories, we were able to survive in larger groups, leading to the emergence of civilizations.
During the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism, the pursuit of more became a way of life. Increased production meant greater prosperity for everyone and a higher likelihood of peace. However, increased production also led to a widening gap between the wealthy and others; yet, as long as everyone was generally improving, it felt acceptable.
3. Visibility of Achievement: Adding is more tangible than subtracting.
One of the main culprits is our need to see the results of our work. If you build a building, you add something to the empty space, and you can see what you have achieved. If you remove the building, you create an empty space. There is nothing to be seen there. You may have improved the neighborhood, but it is invisible. In a competition, the person who built the building will win over the one who removed it.
4. Competence Display: We often equate having more with being more capable.
Psychologist Robert W. White introduced the idea of showing competence as a basic human need already in 1959. He concluded that showing competence is not only a way to survive but to avoid feeling helpless and show how well we can deal with the world around us. What is the best way to show competence? To achieve something. To build something. To complete a task. This internal drive seems to contribute to our desire for more. By having more, we are showing competence. We are showing that we are better than others. And we want others to see our competence.
This need to show off how competent we are is much more difficult when we have a minimalist mindset. How do you demonstrate your competence when you have removed something rather than added it? If you add another chapter to a book, you showcase your writing competence. If you remove a chapter, no one will ever know that you took it out. You know it. The book may improve as a result, but others won’t realize that you took a long draft and cut it down to a masterpiece.
5. Cultural Norms: Being busy is often seen as a badge of honor in modern society.
Over the last century, we’ve become busier than ever, often engaging in activities we don’t like and that bring no value to anyone. We are stuck in jobs we hate. We fill our free time with other responsibilities and activities simply because we feel we should. We don’t know how to get bored and do nothing; we are afraid of it. We are pursuing “more,” even when it comes to work, and for some reason, we are proud of it. “I’m super busy” is seen as a badge of honor. Somehow, we believe that being busy is the ideal state of being, and we look down on those who are not busy. They must be no good; they are wasting their time; they don’t know how to live. Or so we think.
This attitude goes back to our need to display competence. By saying yes to numerous commitments—more than we can handle—we try to demonstrate that we can manage it all. We want to showcase our competence. Yet, this often leads us to become overworked and stressed, causing our productivity and quality of work to plummet. We aim to show competence but end up displaying incompetence as we can’t handle it all, making ourselves miserable in the process. Saying no to things that are not important to us is the best way to solve this problem; however, it is often extremely difficult to do.
When we take on more work than we can realistically handle, we set ourselves up for failure. We can’t do a good job and thus miss out on the feeling of a job well done. We have to cut corners. The decision we face is not between doing things right or cutting corners; it is a decision about which corners to cut. This knowledge once again makes us miserable. When you know even before you start that you will do a bad job because you can’t give it the time and attention it requires, you won’t be excited about the prospect of doing the work. Even if it would be something you would otherwise enjoy and could excel at, your overcommitment to other tasks will prevent you from enjoying even the generally pleasurable activities.
6. Loss Aversion: We hate to lose things we already possess.
Another reason why we don’t like removing things is what psychologists call loss aversion. As it turns out, once we acquire something, we hate parting with it. You can see this in everyday life, as salespeople use it to their advantage. Let’s say you want to buy a car. What does the salesperson do? They try their best to get you to drive the most expensive car possible. Once you drive the car, you begin to create a mental image of owning it. If you don’t buy it now, it will feel like you have lost it. And that’s an unpleasant prospect. Once we own something, we automatically assign it a higher value than it had when we were considering buying it.
7. Fear Of Missing Out: We worry that the rest of society leaves us behind.
Information overload is a real phenomenon. How often do you hear or experience the feeling of being overwhelmed by information? How much of the information you receive is actually useful to you? What would happen if you didn’t receive some of that data?
Social networks and advancements in artificial intelligence have exacerbated information overload. Not only are you constantly exposed to an unmanageable amount of information, but much of it is not even true. Moreover, it is difficult to discern what accurately reflects reality and what is fabricated with ulterior motives.
One of my favorite quotes comes from American economist and political scientist Herbert Alexander Simon: “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention...” Too much information is not only overwhelming but also distracting. We spread our focus too thin and do not devote enough attention to things that truly matter to us and where we can have a meaningful impact. Yes, it may be interesting to know what a famous celebrity wore at the Oscars, but how will it improve your life? This information merely distracts you from learning or doing something that could be of real use to you.
What If True Advancement Lies In Simplification?
In Subtract , Leidy Klotz illustrates the benefits of less is more on a very tasty example. Doughnut. It was in 1847 when a teenager named Hanson Gregory questioned his mom about why the fried cakes she was making were soggy in the middle. He took a fork and created a hole in the middle of the yet-uncooked dough. He created the first doughnut. It fried more evenly and was tastier. All it took was to remove some dough. And yes, you can also argue that Gregory didn’t remove the dough but added a hole. And yes, he didn’t really simplify the process or the final product. However, that still doesn’t change the initial idea that removing a piece of dough from the middle of the cake could make it better.
“Simplicity isn’t about deprivation. It’s about making room for what’s essential. By simplifying, we create space for experiences, growth, and genuine connections.”
In fact, there are many benefits of making things simpler, removing stuff and underconsuming:
领英推荐
How To Embrace Underconsumption And Simplicity
In Subtract , Leidy Klotz talks about two types of “less.” The first type of less is achieved by not doing anything. The second type is achieved by actively subtracting from what is already there. The second type requires an active approach and some out-of-the-box thinking and is much rarer and much more valuable.
1. Mindful Consumption: Before acquiring something new, ask, “Do I really need this?”
The first type is when you realize that your apartment is already cluttered with too much stuff, so you stop buying more things. In 2024, the term “underconsumption” started to trend on social platforms. Young people realize what our parents knew years ago. You don’t need a new phone or trendy clothes every few months. It is completely acceptable, sustainable, and cheaper to use the things you have as long as they serve your needs. You buy new stuff only when something breaks and can’t be fixed.
Every time you crave something new, ask yourself, “Do I really need this?” “How will this thing help me to advance my life mission?” “When was the last time I bought something similar, and how often did I actually use it?”
2. Active Subtraction: Don’t just stop adding; actively remove unnecessary elements from your life.
The second type of “less” is when you go into a cluttered apartment and throw away anything you haven’t used for years. You not only stop adding new things; you actively subtract from what is already there, making the apartment less cluttered, removing mess and distractions, and having fewer things to worry about. You prioritize simplicity and elegance over having more stuff.
Subtracting and achieving “less” is often more difficult than merely accumulating things. It requires a mindset shift and making difficult choices. Decluttering the apartment is a good example. What exactly should you throw away? You never know when you may need something you haven’t used in ten years again, right?
Leidy Klotz and the team ran some experiments on subtraction . In one of them, they asked people to transform a five-ingredient soup. Only two out of ninety participants actually removed some ingredients. The rest was adding more. The same is true when we are asked to improve our writing; our intuition is to add more words. And it rarely works. Often, the best strategy is to start deleting the writing and make it as short and to the point as possible. And that is hard and something most writers, me included, struggle with.
3. Reframed Reduction: Instead of “cutting” or “deleting,” think of simplifying as “cleaning” or “refining.”
How do you deal with the loss aversion we discussed above? You stop talking about it in terms of cutting, deleting, removing, or losing. Instead, you create a positive connotation with words like “clean,” “better,” and “simpler.” You want to make the text cleaner and easier to read. You want to have the apartment easier to maintain. You want to have the recipe simpler and tastier.
This requires you to catch yourself every time you have the tendency to think that you are losing something. When this happens, go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. You don’t want to lose anything; you want to make things better and simpler.
4. Practiced Saying No: Decline commitments that don’t align with your priorities.
Pushing back and saying “no” may sometimes sound scary, but it is a critically important skill and one you can learn. You deserve to have your life prioritized the way you want, not how someone else decides for you. By learning to push back the right way, you will build up your confidence, feel less stressed, find more time for what is important to you, and be seen by others as a confident and competent individual.
Not only can saying “no” help you maintain your sanity, but it may also help you be seen as more competent and ultimately become more skilled. Pushing back is largely about confidence, understanding one’s limitations, and setting priorities. When you know what your energy and skill limits are, you can prioritize effectively.
5. Joy of Missing Out: Learn to enjoy not being in the loop
I tend to listen to the news on the radio while driving, sometimes watch the news on TV, and regularly read news online. Most of that is rather negative and depressing. Politicians are arguing, wars are being fought, people are dying in accidents, natural disasters are ravaging the countryside, and climate change is killing the planet. Yet none of that information has had any impact on my life. If I knew nothing about all these things, nothing would change for me. I would still go through life doing the same things. The only change would be that I would probably be less stressed and more focused on what’s going on locally. We worry so much about what’s happening on the other side of the world that we forget to spend time with our local communities.
Am I saying that we shouldn’t do our best to build a sustainable economy, stop polluting the planet, try to help those in need, stop wars, and end world hunger? Of course not. All these things are important. But you can lead a sustainable life and help others without a constant bombardment of information about how terrible life is when, in reality, you are doing great.
Putting It All Together
I love the quote from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy written by Douglas Adams: “Man has always assumed that he is more intelligent than dolphins because he has achieved so much--the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But, conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.” It illustrates this point better than I could. Are we really sure that being constantly busy is the ultimate goal of life?
Remember: simplicity isn’t about deprivation. It’s about making room for what’s essential. By simplifying, we create space for experiences, growth, and genuine connections.
Embrace the power of simplicity. You might be surprised at how much fuller your life becomes when you choose to simplify.
More on the topic of Life and Career:
Originally posted on my blog about management, leadership, communication, coaching, introversion, stoicism, software development, and career The Geeky Leader or follow me on Facebook and Twitter: @GeekyLeader
Designer at Clickforcharity.net
1 个月This is why the phrase is Reduce, re-use, recycle. Our rulers seem to have decided that just recycle is enough.