When Simplicity Is the Solution; From tax forms to medicine bottles to store shelves, we are facing a crisis of complexity. But there’s a way out.
March 30, 2013 Leave a comment
March 29, 2013, 8:22 p.m. ET
When Simplicity Is the Solution
From tax forms to medicine bottles to store shelves, we are facing a crisis of complexity. But there’s a way out.
Alan Siegel, author of “Simple” explains that America and the world are suffering from a crisis of complexity. WSJ’s Ryan Sager asks what this crisis is costing us and how we can achieve more simplicity.
By ALAN SIEGEL and IRENE ETZKORN
At the beginning of “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau makes a concise case against the complexity of modern life. “Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” he writes. “[L]et your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail….Simplify, simplify.”
Every facet of our lives is complicated by an ever-widening array of choices, including dozens of options for jam or mustard or frozen foods.
That was the 19th century, though, and we live in the 21st. In a typical day, we encounter dozens—if not dozens upon dozens—of moments when we are delayed, frustrated or confused by complexity. Our lives are filled with gadgets we can’t use (automatic sprinklers, GPS devices, fancy blenders), instructions we can’t follow (labels on medicine bottles, directions for assembling toys or furniture) and forms we can’t decipher (tax returns, gym membership contracts, wireless phone bills).
Every facet of our lives, even entertainment and recreation, is complicated by an ever-widening array of choices delivered at a frantic pace. Read more of this post
