Simpler is mostly less

In my early days of learning programming, our teacher gave the class an assignment. Write an algorithm to generate the Fibonacci series. This was pre-google days. I got back with a 50 steps logic. My teacher shrugged and showed me how to do that in seven steps!

Then he said something that always stuck with me:

Make things simpler, and that mostly means less.

This tip works for all areas of life:

It’s easier to type in everything that comes to my mind and name my brain dump, an article. The challenge is to convey an idea in minimal words.

It’s easier to cook a dish with 20 ingredients than one with three.

It’s easier to hoard your house with things you don’t need. It’s difficult to keep the consumerism monster within us under check.

It’s easier to touch upon every concept in your textbook. It’s challenging to gain mastery in a handful of them.

It’s easier to have a long list of offerings on your website and hope customers will pick at least something out of the mix. It’s a challenge to make your digital content concise for your customers.

It’s easier to run through book summaries and pretend you gained the wisdom of five books in a week. A better option is to read slowly and internalize what a good book has to offer.

As you’d hopefully agree, the lesser options are mostly more rewarding 😇.

To make the best of your mind, make life simpler. Simpler is mostly less.