Seems like in the past couple of weeks I’ve caught myself saying something like, “this is just too hard,” or “things are getting too complicated” more and more. I’m sure part of the reason is me — I seem to become more annoyed at little things than in the past, if that’s possible. Anyhow, it appears that more and more simple things are being made needlessly complicated.
I ran across a term a few days ago that I especially like, coined by Scott Berkum — “complexifier.” Complexifiers are people that go out of their way to make things more complicated. For some reason, I’ve run into a lot of these people lately.
In my opinion, just about everything is already complicated enough — we don’t need to make them complicated, or more complicated — they already are. What we need to to is to make them simpler. We all encounter people every day that seem to take even the most simple task or situation and make it (needlessly) complicated. There’s a phrase, “don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.” At least one way to interpret that is that it means don’t make things more complicated than they need to be. When I was gainfully employed, people always used the term KIS or KISS (Keep It Simple [Stupid]) but they almost never did. Projects nearly always got more complicated than necessary. Some people over-communicate and complicate matters just to prove their worth to a problem. A few weeks ago, I agreed to have a drink with someone — it took 2 or 3 phone calls and several follow-up e-mails before this someone decided that the date, time and place had been clearly communicated.
In my experience, I’ve found that in the great majority of cases, the simple solution is usually the right solution. Many/most people believe that if it’s too simple something must be missing or some critical aspect is being overlooked. Some things may be too good to be true but too simple to be right doesn’t hold true.
In the past, I’ve been accused of taking the easy way out when I pick, or support a simpler solution. The energy used to arrive at a simple solution is probably just as great as that needed to get to a complicated solution. Rarely do you “get out” of any work when arriving at the simpler solution.
I’ve heard it said that life is only as complicated as we choose to make it. I’m not sure I totally agree with that, but I do agree with something I read about making mountains out of molehills — “We all have shovels in which we can choose to either pile dirt on our molehills or dig it away from our mountains.” Whoever said that is certainly right. I think we should all attempt to not be Complexifiers and become Simplifiers.
— 30 —