If You Want To Make Something Complex, Simple, Do This

Meeting complexity with complexity causes more complexity.

Humans love to make things difficult. We add more steps, more communication, more excuses, more worries, ending with more frustration. It’s vital to break down complexity into simple rules, helping you stay focused and quick decisions in the face of chaos.

Here’s how to start creating simple rules:

What is a simple rule?

According to Donald Sull, who wrote the book, wait for it, “Simple Rules,” they are “shortcut strategies that save time and effort by focusing our attention and simplifying the way we process information.”

The rules aren’t universal like “work-hard.” They’re tailored to a particular situation, job, or person who’s using them.

Seek to find your highest leverage activities.

Focus on what drives the most significant results or where your biggest bottleneck occurs.

In one of my companies, we’ve identified a bottleneck to how fast we develop Junior Account Executive team members.

We created a simple rule called “Assign, Highlight, QA, Re-assign.”

As a team, we know what this means, helping us focus on a high leverage activity that helps reduce development bottlenecks.

Use simple rules as a guide.

They should provide you with the right direction for your role or activity.

Here are a few examples:

“Call 10 prospects per day.”

“Make it ridiculously wasy to do business with us.”

Or how Nicolas Cole advocates for “don’t edit” and “volume wins” to new writers.

What simple rules can you use for your complex activities?

Forget the work-life balance myth. Are you ready to start living your best life?

Join my newsletter where I’ll help you optimize life’s potential and become the best version of yourself, no matter what stage of life you’re in. 🙏