Minimalism

How many buttons on your microwave do you actually use?

There’s probably at least half a dozen options on it for pizza, defrosting, potatoes, and more. But my guess is that you mostly just enter an amount of time and press start.

Every extra button on microwaves increases the cognitive overhead of heating up your food. Their interface is often unintuitive the first time you use one that’s unfamiliar, and all it takes is one bag of burnt popcorn to retreat from the more “sophisticated” options.

My parents were thrilled to find a microwave that has buttons for common lengths of time. With a single press, they can nuke a plate of food for 90 seconds.

Adding complexity often feels good in the short term — more features! — but it can come at the expense of long term usability unless carefully considered.

There’s a reason why food delivery apps don’t also let you listen to podcasts. Adding that functionality would hamper the food ordering experience, and the existing features would distract from the podcast experience.

More isn’t always better. Look no further than a balloon that got filled with too much air.

This is obvious when spelled out with such extreme examples, but it’s easy to lose sight of in our day to day lives.

For example, adding more clothes to your wardrobe is fun until you run out of room and can’t find the pieces you love among those that are just ok. Without the occasional trip to Goodwill, you’ll be stuck with overflowing drawers.

Whenever we add more to something, its size and complexity grow as its usability and reliability shrink.

And everything, from cells to empires, eventually fall apart when they get too big.

Growing flower bushes takes commitment. You have to water and weed them, and ensure they are safe from bugs and disease.

Once they bloom, your work isn't finished: You need to prune the dying flowers to let the best ones shine. That way, the rest of the plant can thrive.

This is true for much more than flowers.

If the people visiting your website are filling out a form incorrectly, you could add some instructions to the form to make it clearer.

Or you could just redesign it to remove the confusing part.

When faced with a problem, it's easy to focus on additive solutions ("How do I instruct people to do this correctly?"), rather than subtractive ones ("What can I remove so that this needs no instruction?")

One study showed that when tasked with making a pattern of blocks symmetrical by either adding or removing blocks, only 20% of people chose to remove them.

Our minds are naturally drawn to additive solutions. But often, you can make a problem go away by simply removing the source of it, rather than adding a solution.

See also: Simplicity is Hard

Complexity is tempting because it's easier in the short term.

You don't need to consider the second order effects of your decision or worry about the long term cost of inefficiency. You can just enjoy the solution to your problem today.

But you'll pay the cost later on.

Simplicity, however, requires spending time up front to consider other options. Simple solutions often seem obvious, but they take a longer time to find.

You need to front-load the cost of them, with the understanding that you'll enjoy the benefits for years to come.

When we choose simplicity today, it becomes a gift to our future selves.

Effective writing is only as long as it needs to be to make its point.

This is true for much more than just writing.