“Making the simple
complicated is commonplace;
making the complicated
simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity” (Charles Mingus)
To create complicated
thing is not the same thing as creating complexity. For example, even though
internal software and electronic stuffs in the phone are complex (at least for
me), the use of phones like iPhone is insanely simple. iPhone is a complicated
product made easy to use. Making our
ideas take shape does not necessarily have to be so complicated. Have you
ever get annoyed by a difficult-hard-to-use tool or get bored by a
looooonnnnggg elaborate project presentation or browsing website with too many options
or answering that full-of-never-ending questions of your friend survey paper
for his research project? What a waste of time!
One day after I shared in
a Bible Study, a student came to me and said, “Wow, thank you brother. All this while I find it’s hard for me to
understand this part of the Scriptures, now you make it so simple that I just
can’t missed it!” Of course I thank God for his response. But behind the
scene, it took me hours to reread, understand, prayed, asked God for wisdom and
studied the text to present it in such a way that it will be easy for people to
understand. Sometime I’m amazed (negative kind of) that people are making the
simple complicated rather than simplify it. Common people tend to love
complicating stuff; creative people however will think and ask: What does people want or need? Can I make it
simpler? How can I remove ‘clutter’? Highly
creative people understand that simplicity is not necessary the absent of
complexity but the removal of unnecessary distractors and clutters.
Marty Neumeier author of The 46 Rules of Genius writes, “People tend to view simplicity and complexity as opposites. But this
isn’t strictly true. The enemy of simplicity isn’t complexity, but disorder. And
the enemy of complexity is also disorder. While complexity seeks order through
addition, simplicity seeks it through subtraction. A goal of design is to drive
out disorder by maximizing both simplicity and complexity. In most designed
products, what we respond to best is a rich, layered experience (complexity)
combined with ease of use, ease of understanding, or ease of purchase
(simplicity).” He continues, “Most people have
a build-in bias toward addition instead of subtraction. For some reason, the
concept of ‘more’ comes naturally to us. Yet the innovator knows that the value
of any design doesn’t lie in how much is piled on, but how much is discarded. More
is more, but less is better.” Spot on!
We have reached the peak in creativity not when we have
nothing more to add, but when there is nothing to subtract. Like many habits, simplicity is a hard thing to do initially.
But in the long-run, it is worth the fight. “Simple can be harder than complex,” said Steve Jobs, “You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move
mountains.” How to be creatively simple? Buy books on the subject
or/and start to think and live simple. In the meanwhile, do this: look around
you. What are the project, presentation, work and ideas that you can make it simpler
today? How can they be improved? What can you do to reduce it to bare
essentials? Could some of them be removed? Is there something missing?
Keep it simple.
God, Give Us
Today Our Daily Idea(s)
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