Reducing To Improve

What I read: Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz. Published April 13, 2021.

In a previous post I referenced an article in Behavioral Scientist by Leidy Klotz, Subtract: Why Getting to Less Can Mean Thinking More. In that article I wrote:

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.

A few days ago, I finished reading the book and can recommend it. It’s a book with a consistent, singular message delivered from varying perspectives. The author includes supporting research along with relevant anecdotal examples of how subtracting can often improve. If that message is applied across various areas of the life experience, it has the potential to be one of the more important books for improving both your personal and professional lives as well as life on the planet generally. What is that message?

Klotz argues effectively, and the research he cites supports his argument, that the human tendency is to add rather than subtract. While subtracting might appear to always be the easier process over adding, that’s not true. Often, subtracting is the heavier lift task.

The problem is that we neglect subtraction. Compared to changes that add, those that subtract are harder to think of (quite literally, as we’ll see in the next chapter). 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.

After explaining studies the author and his team conducted on whether people really do ignore the subtraction option in favor of addition, the evidence showed that indeed people do tend to opt for adding over subtracting more often than not.

We overlook less, whether we’re building or cooking, thinking or composing. When we’re organizing our companies, days, and ideas. Whenever we try to change how things are to how we want them to be. And until we do something about it, we’re missing ways to make our lives more fulfilling, our institutions more effective, and our planet more livable.

As I reflect on opportunities in my own life to subtract versus add, I realize I fall prey to the same dysfunctional tendency to avoid subtraction.

Right now, I’m contemplating a move to another city. As part of preparations for that move, I am attempting to reduce the number of possessions (stuff) in my life. I’m not a hoarder. I’ve always valued living amid less. Yet, the truth is I have far more stuff than I could possibly need, much of it stored deep in the bowels of my garage sight unseen for a decade.

When I’m tasked with creating a process or job aid or a new set of deliverables in my workplace, I realize now I’m likely to ignore subtraction. The 10-step business process becomes 12 and I might not even give much thought to what steps I can outright eliminate. If I create a new job aid, do I go through the old job aids and see what can be eliminated? Sadly, rarely. When I create a new deliverable, have I given adequate thought to whether it supersedes the need for other deliverables? Not often enough.

I could go through every aspect of my life and point to my own tendency to avoid subtraction. Perhaps now that I’m more aware of this default I can better address reduction. I sure hope so.

In the chapter on the biological forces that nudge us toward the tendency to add, the section below jumped out at me. We live in stressful times. Our national and world politics is now an ongoing battle between progressivism and right-wing populism. Economic pressure among the middle and low wage earners increases with little relief in sight. Media and advertising continue to pummel us with messaging that if we add this or that to our lives, we’ll be more beautiful, rich, or adequately keeping up with the Joneses. This is all incredibly stressful and that such stress increases our tendency to add made sense immediately upon reading it.

Just as stress is linked to overeating, Preston has found that stress correlates with adding objects. In extreme cases, neglecting subtraction in the object decision task can be a sign of devastating anxiety and depression.

While there are several biological and cultural reasons why we tend to add, Klotz makes the case that we humans should be able to rise above such pressures and create processes by which we individually and collectively move through the world with intent to acknowledge that often less is more.

Biology does not excuse our modern subtraction neglect. We need to respect the evolutionary inertia that stymies less. Our instincts to eat, to show competence, and even our innate sense for relative quantity can pull us toward more. But whereas evolution relies on random mutations as its mode of change; we humans can be more intentional.

Civilizations throughout time since the hunter gatherer era have been built upon a foundation of addition.

A cultural tendency to build would be enough to help explain why we neglect subtraction. But as civilizations appeared, so did another time-honored kind of more: our material culture. Apparently, the fourteen different styles of sneaker in my closet are an extension of practical variety that let people navigate their new social lives.

When I read that I was sure the author had peeked at my overflowing t-shirt drawers. I might not have a sneaker fetish but evidently I accumulate t-shirts like a starving squirrel collects nuts.

With all the contemporary talk about minimalism, less is more, tiny houses, a simpler life, and so on, I wonder if perhaps we’re at a tipping point. Might we finally be realizing that adding isn’t always beneficial and may rather often be detrimental? I can hope.

Klotz coins the term “more-ality” and I sort of love it. Much as many spiritual traditions espouse the supremacy of morality, much of modern culture places the gospel of more on a public altar for worship. We are fed a continual stream of encouragements to add, to adopt a more-ality mindset if we’re to be considered one of the cool kids.

Once the author lays the groundwork that we humans tend to add, and why, he tackles the topic of how we go about fostering an awareness of when addition is taking place and how subtraction might instead be the better option.

Here’s where I recognized myself instantly. The author offers examples of writers who write more because writing less is more difficult. That sounds counterintuitive, I know. But anyone who writes for a living in any way knows that often first drafts are lengthy in part because it’s easier to keeping adding words than pare them down to their most effective and concise form. I am monumentally guilty of this fault. I keep trying to be more concise but with limited success.

One thing in my own life has gotten significantly better, my email communications. A consistent note my manager at work gave me was that often my emails were far too long and detailed. For a few years I kept getting this note during my annual performance review until a few years ago the advice finally stuck. More often than not now my work emails are one or two sentences. My boss was correct. Responses are quicker and more frequent. There are fewer missed information situations that a lengthy email might have created. I’m now a short email fan, but it took a while for that subtraction way of thinking to take hold.

If you’d like to shorten your emails to their most effective length, there is a multitude of articles like this one on the topic. Do an online search for the phrase “shorter emails” and you’ll see an abundance of advice and tips. Trust me. Undertaking this personal development project will serve you well.

As a writer, the following passage stood out for me. I recall as a student adding length to essays and answers assuming more was better, and sadly many teachers will grade a lengthy answer better than a short one that gets to the point with no fluff. Same for people who drone on in meetings making their argument at length when they could have stood upon, spoken succinctly for a few seconds, sat down, and made their point without blathering endlessly around a single point.

Research has shown that an argument’s length is often used as a proxy for its quality.

When discussing strategies for embracing subtraction, inevitably these days the work of Marie Kondo is mentioned, either in derision or exultation. Klotz is a fan.

Kondo does not pretend that there is. Her tone, observations, and advice are spiritual. And yet, through trial and error in one specific context, Kondo has derived tips also suggested by the science. With witticisms like “The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t,” Kondo cues her disciples to think of keeping and getting rid of stuff as complementary ways to improve.

I read Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and while I do not practice her particular form of tidying up (subtracting), I have taken her message to heart and agree with it conceptually. I try to minimize where I can. It’s a work in progress. For much of my life I lived rather minimally. For my entire adult life from my late teens in Chicago to my years in New York City to my first years in Los Angeles, I lived with the totality of my possessions easily fitting into a modestly sized studio apartment. Somewhere along the way things changed and I now find myself with far more stuff than I need, and it emotionally and physically weighs me down. I need to adopt Kondo’s message more robustly if not her specific strategies. I know less makes me happier.

This post is already rather long. Thanks for sticking with it. It would take another post this length to do full justice to the rest of what Klotz offers his readers. So, I’m going to conclude by strongly suggesting you read the book. Applying subtraction to your life will improve it. I’m confident in that assertion both from the research presented and my own experience.

By proposing new ways to frame our behaviors, Klotz offers his readers various examples and anecdotes that bolster his own research in support of techniques and perspectives to foster subtraction in your life. Not only might things improve in your immediate sphere, but subtraction can improve the entire world situation. Climate change is but one such example.

Klotz ends his superb book with a few key takeaways. Invert the usual tendency to add by trying less before more. When you do add, always consider accompanying subtraction. Addition should prompt considering subtraction, not rule it out. Distill things to their essence. Persist in your subtractions.

It turns out the “less is more” adage has a lot of weight behind it. When you navigate through life, ask yourself if you can subtract to make whatever you’re doing or whatever it is better. The answer is probably yes.