Last week at Flash in the Can John Maeda presented from his book on the Ten Laws of Simplicity and it got me thinking about my own consolidation efforts. The one law that struck most true to me was one that he didn’t cover in his speech, Law #9: Failure.
Some things can never be made simple.
It’s very rare to be told (preemptively, no less) to give up, and for it to be valid advice. In looking back on numerous projects in the last few years I think a number of painful issues would have been easier in the long run if I had just left them as a ball of hair, acknowledged them as such, and worked within that constraint. Certainly many systems can be condensed down to a simple set of easily digestible steps, but I guess I never internally conceded the point that some stuff is just friggin hard and needs to be left alone.
Freshly armed with ‘permission’ to fold, I think the first question out of my mouth (for a while at least - I’m a realist), won’t be “How can this be simplified?” but “Should this be tinkered with, or does it work well enough to leave as is and avoid a week of chasing down bizarre issues?”.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to remove steps, processes and ingredients where possible.
