Keeping it Short and Simple

Often things in life seem overwhelming. Sometimes it is because we have overloaded our platter by taking on too much at once. Other times we seem to feel overwhelmed by less then others seem to be able to run with easilly. Why is that?

I believe we often make things appear more complicated and bigger then they really are. I cant be sure about this but I think its residue from our schooling, where a longer text was taken more seriously than a short text. Where the more complicated and wordy the thesis, the more respect it commanded. Of course this isn't entirelly true, quality of the work is also a major factor, but it's no coincidence that business men who write about running businesses and professors and doctors who write textbooks are in two vastly different division as far as number of pages go.

My impression is that in the academic world there is a constant competition for tenure where it mostly comes down to: "Ha, ha. My latest publication was thicker (and therefore better) than yours! I'm the better Doctor/Researcher/Professor." Now I know that I am probably being very unfair with that statement and do apologise to anyone I might have offended.

What I'm trying to say is that people who are successfull in business, who are successfull in managing their own lives all understand the art of Keeping It Short and Simple (KISS, or as some would have it: Keep It Simple Stupid.) What does that mean in everyday terms? When you get an asignment to do something you might feel overwhelmed because a tiny part of you is still stuck in that academic mindset where quantity trumps all. So you feel like you have this huge task that has to be done better than anyone else.

What you need to do is take a few deep breaths and take a step back. Then look at what you actually need to accomplish. What is the minimum that has to have happened to be able to call the task done? Then break that down into simple steps to get there. List all the demanded material, the demanded competence and then start looking at where you can find it. Maybe someone else has a skill that makes them more suited to do part of the task. Se if you cant outsource that part to them etc. etc. The bottom line here is to keep things simple. Complicated != Better.

No one will reward you according to the amount of work you put in. They look at the result and reward you accordingly. How you came to that result is not interresting to them. So why not do it the simplest and most efficient way possible?

Well in order to not be a hypocrite and make this an overly long post I will end here for now. Good luck out there.