Improving By Subtracting

What I read: Subtract: Why Getting to Less Can Mean Thinking More by Leidy Klotz. Published in Behavioral Scientist April 12, 2021.

Among my friends and social media followers it is well known that I am a proponent of simplification. Over the years I have extoled the benefits of various approaches like the 100 Things Challenge, Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and Minimalism.

The “less is more” narrative has permeated a lot of what I’ve written and talked about in recent years. It informs my daily life from how I manage my computer files to the business processes I create for work. Generally, I believe simpler is usually better and fewer is typically easier to manage. I stand by that opinion.

So, when this article reached my inbox, it was immediately interesting. After reading it I ordered the book, Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz. After I finish the book I’m likely to have more to say about the topic. I’m about 20% into it and can already recommend it.

That we as humans appear to have a default tendency to add rather than subtract should not come as a surprise to anyone. Klotz begins his article with food for thought for the reader.

Consider the following questions: Do your resolutions more often start with “I should do more of . . .” than with “I should do less of . . .”? Do you spend more time acquiring information—whether through podcasts, websites, or conversation—than you spend distilling what you already know?

How about: Do you add new rules in your household or workplace more often than you take rules away? Have you started more organizations, initiatives, and activities than you have phased out? Do you think more about providing for the disadvantaged than about removing unearned privilege?

And: Do you have more stuff than you used to? Are you busier today than you were three years ago?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re not alone. In our striving to improve our lives, our work, and our society, we overwhelmingly add.

I answered yes to all his questions. My guess is you did too, or at least most of them. Throughout every aspect of our lives it’s quite clear we continue to add even when subtracting might ultimately produce a better outcome.

Do not assume that Klotz is suggesting we simply eliminate for the sake of just reducing. Klotz proposes that it’s not all about reducing, but rather actively arriving at that way of thinking or doing.

Subtraction is the act of getting to less, but it is not the same as doing less. In fact, getting to less often means doing, or at least thinking, more.

In study after study Klotz discovers that we mostly appear to assume the addition solution to a problem is superior to the subtraction solution. However, he contends we need not be prisoners to the default addition way of thinking. We have a choice, but that choice will not flourish amid passivity. Reaching a decision in which subtraction is the better solution is hard work and its implementation difficult.

The problem is that we neglect subtraction. Compared to changes that add, those that subtract are harder to think of. Even when we do manage to think of it, subtracting can be harder to implement.

But we have a choice. We don’t have to let this oversight go on taking its toll on our cities, our institutions, and our minds. And, make no mistake, overlooking an entire category of change takes a toll.

Neglecting subtraction is harmful in our households, which now commonly contain more than a quarter of a million items. Someone has to organize and keep track of all those juicers, ill-fitting clothes, Legos, and everything else we’ve accumulated. That’s a lot to pay for and to think about, and it represents a lot of our time, time that is only getting scarcer, especially when we overlook subtraction as a way to relieve our obviously overbooked schedules. We neglect subtraction in our institutions. In our governments and in our families, we default to adding requirements. Ezra gets more and more rules, and grown-ups deal with federal regulations that are twenty times as long as they were in 1950. Too many rules and too much red tape can distract from the behaviors we’re really hoping for.

While Klotz’s takes on subtraction, which I view as equating at least somewhat to minimalism and simplification, differs somewhat from my own, it resonates as similar. I have long advocated for reducing the number of something to improve it. Here are a few examples from my own life.

In my corporate work I am continually charged with creating or modifying businesses processes of various kinds. Anyone who works in such business landscapes probably either must adhere to such processes or wrangle with them from a management standpoint. I can attest that whether it’s in large planning meetings or someone struggling with a process privately at their desk, adding steps or complexity is the norm, not the exception.

Throughout an organization employees might adhere to a process laid before them with each step taking many collective hours and resources to complete. Should every step in a process require all levels of management approval? Probably not. Would one click to get to important information on a website be better than three? Almost always. Yet, it’s amazing how often we do not arrive at a solution that subtracts.

When I read this in the article, “…households, which now commonly contain more than a quarter of a million items,” I popped my head up and looked around my own home and let out a despondent sigh. I have so much crap laying around, and I don’t consider myself a hoarder or rabid consumer.

There might be a move to another city in my future and the thought of moving all that stuff is paralyzing. I know I need to trim stuff down and knowing that my hesitancy has roots in a commonly shared experience helps. It gives me a bit more determination to exert effort to subtract from my domestic surroundings.

If you look at my calendar you’ll see a packed series of booked time blocks with nary a space between them. I’m overcommitted. I’m overbooked. I know this. Time on this planet is finite no matter how much I would like to live forever. I need to make better use of it and free up more “me time” on my calendar.

Historically I have been a list maker. I make all kinds of lists and some version of a to do list is often among them. Intellectually I know from reviewing what I planned to do and what I ended up doing that my to do lists should be shorter. Yet, contrary to logic, I keep packing them with more tasks.

How many times have you attended a meeting with a long agenda and thought to yourself “we’ll never cover all of this,” and you don’t. The meeting ends and the last few bulleted items never get addressed. It’s a frequent occurrence unless the meeting organizer has some skill and creates an agenda that leaves padding for the inevitable side conversations.

Traveling is a passion. I love it. What I hate is packing for trips. I’m not sure why but packing has always been something for which my procrastination rears its head. Part of the reason is I try to pack for every contingency. That’s silly I know. I get back from a trip, open my suitcase, and realize I’ve only used half of what I brought. I chastise myself, proclaim I will pack less next time, then the next trip arrives and I make the same overpacking mistakes.

Reading is one of my foundation activities. I read constantly. Every day. This is a good thing. But for some reason I default to the mistaken assumption that reading more books is always better. I try to remember the advice of Mortimer J. Adler. He said the deep, studied reading of a single great book is far superior to more casual reading of many books. Despite me knowing that advice and parroting it often over the past decades, I still seem to feel reading more books will improve me and my education. As with so much of life, I need to focus on quality not quantity.

I could take you on a tour through the rest of my life and you would encounter numerous examples of my tendency to default to addition and not subtraction. I hope that you take some time to reflect on where you might engage in some active subtraction for your betterment.

Although famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was referencing design and structures when he uttered his well-known “less is more” axiom, maybe it’s a good thing for us all to consider.

Each day my email inbox is full of newsletters and email alerts to which I subscribe and few garner my attention as quickly as those from Behavioral Scientist. Check it out. Gets five stars from me.