Less is a good thing

Tuesday August 13, 2013

By Robyn Viljoen

We are living in a world of scarcity and not abundance. Every day I have conversations with myself and others about, “How can I do more with less time, money, people or experience?”. I can’t see this problem changing. In fact, I think it will get worse. So what do we do? Start by changing our mind set. We need to learn to do more with less and start becoming creative.

Many parents have shared stories with me about giving their children expensive Christmas or Birthday presents. A couple of hours into the day the kids are having more fun building a hut out of the cardboard box than the gift they were given. In a similar vein, we’ve had more fun on a budget camping holiday with heaps of stories to share than staying in a luxury hotel.

I discovered the concept of “Embracing Constraints” in the book Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. Here are some examples they share in their book. Working with less forces us to be more creative. Writers use constraints to force creativity all the time. Shakespeare revelled in the limitations of sonnets. Writing in plain clear language helps create more of an impact. One of the most successful slogans in the world is Nike’s “Just do it!. A really simple concept with a very powerful message.

Chef Gordon Ramsay in the programme “Kitchen Nightmares” illustrates this philosophy really well. The menus of restaurants that are struggling often have a very large selection of dishes. Owners often fall into the trap of thinking the more they offer the better the appeal. Unfortunately the opposite happens a wide range often results in sub standard food. Ramsay’s first step in most cases is to trim the menu from more than thirty dishes to ten. By reducing the volume you increase the quality and end product. For most of us when we experience a problem we want to want to add more resources to sort it out rather than taking some things away.

Fried and Hansson emphasise that long lists don’t get done. Long lists are guilt trips. The longer the list of unfinished items the worse you feel about it. Break a list of hundred things into ten lists of ten things and focus on one list at a time. By working with less we feel satisfied, motivated and we see progress. They suggest that you don’t prioritise with numbers or labels e.g. “this is high priority” In most cases you end up with a huge amount of high priority things which defeats the purpose. Rather prioritise visually. Put the most important thing at the top and let the others fall beneath. Focus on crossing off the next thing on the list.

It doesn’t matter how much you plan, you will still get things wrong. Don’t spend too much time over analysing, rather get moving on something else. Long projects sap morale from people. The longer it takes the harder it is to stay focused and motivated. Sometimes the things we place huge amounts of emphasis on don’t get the results we really looking for.

Organisations often fall into this trap of creating bloated products. We constantly want to add more features that are never used nor needed by customers. It is frequently quoted that people only use 20% of the capability of their Smart Phones or Microsoft Office products.

So rework what you doing and start focusing on cutting down, reducing volume and increasing focus. Let’s make this the year of getting things done.