“Our life is frittered away by detail…simplify, simplify.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
I had an impromptu meeting the other day that brought to my attention the importance of simplification. The fellow I was meeting with and I were discussing how best to train another person on a particular system we had developed many years ago and it dawned on us that the system was in desperate need of review in advance of the training.
The system did what we needed it to, but unfortunately in an involved way. We picked it apart and soon realized that we could do away with more than two-thirds of the steps and achieve the same result. Before we make any changes to the system we will make sure that everyone affected by it has a chance to put in their two cents, but my expectation is that we saved hundreds if not thousands of hours of future work by putting our heads together for thirty minutes and asking the right questions.
How much in life is cluttered by unnecessary detail? I imagine a good deal of it is, especially now that creating records of detail is so easy in the digital age. It was a lot harder to keep extensive records when we were working with hammers, chisels and rocks or even film cameras. Remember those!?!
Don’t be afraid to question everything you do in the spirit of simplification. More often than not I’ve found that you can get something done just as well if not better in half the time, with half the work, provided that you look at it correctly and again, ask the right questions.
The right questions tend to relate to the discovery of limiting assumptions that you’ve held in relation to a particular area of function. Tasks you’ve been doing for years are usually a good place to start as they often contain a number of assumptions that may have been valid in days past, but that no longer have any bearing.
Enjoy the process of simplifying your life. It is as refreshing as a breath of cool, fresh mountain air!
Gregory Hake 
I think one of the assumptions of the modern society that is wrong is that data storage is much cheaper than it was a few years ago. Yes, it is much cheaper to buy a 1 TB drive than it was five years ago, but the costs of organizing that data are no cheaper than they were then, and that is the lion’s share of the expense anyway.
The ability to determine what data needs to be saved long term and what can be let go is one of the things that can make you or break you in business. Keep too much, and the administrative costs of that information will make your systems unwieldy. Keep too little, and you can end up re-doing work you already did (or even deal with government issues, depending on your industry).
I guess that the point is that you have to deal intelligently with all the issues in life, and there is nothing that will not benefit from a sensible review and a clarification if the steps are jumbled and the details are muddy.
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Good advice. I think this message is quite helpful for anyone who would like to reach their potential as unnecessary complexity stifles progress and dissipates valuable resources. The world is changing quickly and so should we and if we do, we should find that we can revisit prior decisions with greater breadth of understanding. One corollary to this is that we should maintain sufficient humility to accept the fact that our best is always yet to come!
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Systems designed to facilitate can often encumber, particularly over time as features and circumstances change. Systems can also morph into bureaucracies which tend to have a life and reproductive cycle of their own! In other words, the sooner inefficiencies are identified and eliminated, the easier it is. It’s so important to review systems and to reconsider assumptions on a regular basis. So much prejudice is unconscious, but it is always limiting if not suffocating to the forces of forward movement.
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Simplification begins at the point of asking the question. Be willing to ask the question! You’ve given us some amazing starting points as to how to do that, and how and why to be open to the answers. Thanks!
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It’s always helpful to review how we do things. Why spend more time on something because of inefficiency when that could free up resources for other projects or interests. P.S. I don’t remember the chisels.
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So helpful, especially as we approach the “new year resolution” time of year. You’ve defined the right spirit by which to make changes. Don’t wait, let the fresh start begin today!
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GREAT post!
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Digital applications, data storage etc. has changed everything. Taking the time to review business process is worth it. Even our present economy has made it so “business as usual” deserves a new scrutiny. The only thing that hasn’t changed is people appreciate and expect good service.
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