As I mentioned in my very first post on this website, my goal with this site is to codify ideas that stick in my brain. Any thoughts that last for a while in there are bound to have some nuggets of wisdom that may be useful to write down. For me, the idea that has been circling the longest is the concept that complexity (not efficiency or optimization) is the most important heuristic in work and in life.

But what exactly do I mean by complexity…? And why is it so important…?

What is Complexity?

Complexity is a bit of a vague term. By pure dictionary definition it refers to “the state or quality of being intricate or complicated”, but I don’t think that definition goes deep enough for how I think about it in the context of my work and my life.

When I refer to complexity, I generally think of it more through the lens of a “complex system”, where many interdependent components (or “actors”) have autonomy to make decisions without a predictable linear cause and effect. In simpler terms, I think of complexity as the combination of how many actors exist in a given space and how intricate, complicated, or risky each actor is. More actors with more intricacy (aka: more complexity) is what leads to higher systemic risk and a lower probability of achieving desired outcomes from the system.

The emphasis on risk here is important. I think complexity gets to the heart (better than any other heuristic) of how the real world works, and I think risk is the central reason why.

In the real world things break in non-deterministic, unpredictable ways:

  • the insecure engineer trying to get ahead pushes code that takes down production because they wanted to close out their TODO list before the next standup call,
  • the over-ambitious upstream supplier agrees to too many orders not realizing until it’s too late that they can’t fulfill them all and thus will have to delay downstream projects,
  • the reactive government creates new tariff laws overnight that increase the cost of a company’s product offerings putting them in a supply squeeze due to unexpected cost spikes,
  • a rushed IT professional installs a package on the company server to appease his boss not realizing that he introduced a vulnerability that will be exploited at a later date in time,
  • etc… etc…

In all these cases, the problem isn’t poor optimization or lack of effort - it’s too many interdependent actors (and the “human” element at play) all adding risk to the overall environment.

TOO MUCH COMPLEXITY!

Actors operating outside our control is inevitable. We live in an interconnected world, so there is no way to fully avoid the fact that other peoples decisions and actions will impact our lives in some way. By having a framework to increase the awareness of what systems we are a part of, how complex those systems are, and what percentage of that complexity we directly control, we can maximize our agency within it and improve the odds of getting the outcomes we want from it.

Why Simplicity Wins

Focusing on reducing complexity is more important than trying to optimize a process to obtain a goal.

Why?

Because most problems aren’t solved by squeezing out a little more efficiency. Most are solved by removing unnecessary parts and reducing the risk of them occurring in the first place. Simpler systems have less moving parts, less complexity, and thus less risk of failing to achieve desired outcomes.

If I think of my health as a system, instead of focusing on optimizing my nutrition to try to have the “perfect” diet, eliminating junk foods and simplifying how many meals I eat in a day will improve my odds of better health outcomes with much less effort.

If I think about my work as a system, instead of focusing on optimizing every second of my time to leverage myself to maximum output, simplifying my flow to tackle one thing every day to completion will improve the quality and usefulness of my work over time.

Most things are needlessly complex. Simplifying them is the key to improving outcomes. Less actors in a complex system means less risk of any individual actor “failing” on any given day. Less actors in play means less overhead in terms of people or components to manage which frees up more time and focus that can be put towards more impactful work.

One caveat here, “simple” in this context does not mean easy. Sometimes simplifying and removing dependencies is the hard route. It takes discipline and deep focus to put in the effort to remove complexity from the system, but generally it’s worth the investment as it will continue to reap dividends over time.

Time is the Most Important Constraint

The reason focusing on complexity matters is because we are operating within a fixed parameter system (our lives, where the fixed parameter is our time). No matter how efficient we get, or how much we optimize individual tasks, we are still beholden to the fact that we only have so many hours in a day and so much time (and attention) in our lifetimes to dedicate to what we want to do. We need to be more stringent with that tradeoff, given we can never get that time back.

More complexity inherently adds more overhead to our lives. It fractures our attention by having us manage multiple items at once, loading up our plates with administrative tasks that end up taking up a larger portion of our time than we expect. This in turn pulls our focus from more important problems putting us behind the 8 ball for planning for the future.

To prove this point, let’s walk through a scenario.

Imagine I’m a project engineer on a construction site that is tasked with purchasing building equipment from many different suppliers. For each supplier that I have, I have to manage billing, payments, logistics (making sure the goods I bought make it to site on time), and quality control (making sure I get what I ordered). I have a different point of contact with each supplier that I work with, and I have a different fulfillment flow with each supplier as well.

Just by choosing to work with more suppliers, my individual administrative overhead goes way up. More suppliers means more quality checks, more invoices, more relationships to manage, and more logistical nuance to keep track of. Even if it’s technically more “optimized” to use more suppliers, it’s objectively more complex, and thus more risky of a proposition. There are more actors in the system and more opportunities for any of them to drop the ball, increasing the chance that some type of systemic failure will occur.

If instead I simplified my flow to work with less suppliers, I could free up more time to improve my supplier relationships and get better deals via those relationships by bundling orders together. I could free up attention to focus on lowering my costs on the operations side, investing in streamlining the invoicing, payments, logistics, and quality control processes to make them faster and easier to manage. I could use the extra time to get ahead and build new supplier relationships and lay the groundwork for future growth (while building out more optionality in case my existing suppliers try to squeeze me). I could also use that time to train more people on my team how to do my job, so I can take a vacation without worrying that our supplier pipeline will grind to a halt.

In all of these examples, I’m trading off additional complexity and redundancy for simplicity, making a bet that the added freedom (in time, attention, and optionality) is more valuable than the short-term gains I would get from optimizing for cost. At its core, the question here is “are the short term gains worth the added complexity”? Almost always, I believe the answer is no - it’s not worth it. Best case, this tradeoff provides modest gains while adding a time suck on the schedules of the people managing it. Worst case, it acts as a debt that hamstrings us long term and prevents us from focusing on larger, more impactful problems.

There are times where this tradeoff is worth it (like if the supplier network is unreliable and thus forces us to work with a large number of suppliers to ensure we have at least one provider that will deliver on budget and on time), but generally I think the bigger risk is taking on too much complexity and losing optionality. Time is the only finite resource, so ensuring it’s weighed properly in tradeoff decisions is of high importance. Unless you are trading complexity for an asymmetric barbell growth scenario (not just financially, but in time/effort/cost/etc…) the tradeoff just isn’t worth it.

The Human Element

A major part of this theory that we haven’t touched on yet is the human element and human nature. The main crux of my thesis is that complexity often adds more risk to the equation than it provides on the other end in potential reward. A large portion of this risk is due to the human element. Humans are fallible. We make mistakes. We forget things or purposely don’t do them due to emotional reactions or negligence. We aren’t perfect even when we try to be. Knowing this, relying on humans to be perfect in a system is a recipe for failure. Instead, we should plan for human fallibility as a part of the equation and buffer in potential outcomes through more simplicity and optionality to mitigate human-introduced risk.

Why do humans make bad decisions?

Because at our core we are emotional creatures, not logical ones.

Not that we can’t be logical, but we all have emotional complexions that drive our decision making first whether we are consciously aware of it or not. Before people learn how to break down problems in school, they learn how to socially communicate with others in their tribe and how to react to potentially risky situations that come up. Babies know how to cry in reaction to unexpected situations before they can reason about what exactly is going on in the scenario that just unfolded. Kids often lash out in reaction to emotions they are feeling rather than logically thinking through the long-tail of possible outcomes that stem from their reaction. Even as adults with fully formed prefrontal cortexes, millions of us go to therapy every year to work through emotional blocks that are impacting the decisions we make in our everyday lives. Emotions drive our individual realities, color our perspective, and thus impact our decisions. It is a core part of who we are and what it means to be human.

This emotional lens can sometimes cloud our judgment. Looking at the examples from the start of this blog post, if I’m an engineer that is insecure that missing an upcoming deadline will cause me to lose my job, my emotional state is creating an internal incentive that makes me more likely to tradeoff more complexity for freedom from the current situation. In the supplier example, the suppliers excitement at having so much demand has clouded their judgment and prevented them from seeing the bigger picture and calculating if they can truly fulfill all the orders they have promised. In the government example, if an elected official feels slighted by another country they are more likely to leverage that emotion to try to impose tariffs on the enemy of the day. And lastly, in the IT professional example, if an employee is feeling annoyed at their boss they are more likely to appease their ask even if it holistically adds risk to the situation.

Across the board, our emotional state impacts our decision making. Given this reality, I’d argue that leaving decisions to other people outside of your control (or even to a future version of yourself, where you don’t know what your emotional state will be) is inherently more risky. Simplifying the number of decisions you have to make and simplifying the system you are operating within (to the best of your abilities) will lead to a higher chance of getting the outcomes you want.

Reframing Fear-based Mindsets

How do I simplify the systems I’m operating within?

In short, by changing your mindset to be less fear-based.

Our mindset drives our decision making. Most of us operate in a survival fear-based headspace, where we constantly look for potential problems and let our fear of action (or inaction) color our perspective. Fear is a useful tool. It tells us when to be on alert for potential danger and is a great motivator to get us to act. But it’s not logical. Fear is generally something we are predisposed to based on our genetics and our lived experience. We get afraid before we can logically understand why, and often times we use our prior narratives about how the world works and what reality is to heighten our predisposed state.

In the modern age most fear is probabilistic and ephemeral in nature…

  • Will I lose my job?
  • Will I find the right partner?
  • Will my family member get cancer?
  • Will WWIII break out in my lifetime?

None of these questions have clear answers. They are all based on our perception of ourselves and of the world around us. If fear is the primary emotion driving these thoughts, then actions taken as a result of that fear will inherently be “fear-based”. They will be centered around absolving your fear in the short-term, not around simplifying your life and improving your situation long-term.

Given the fact that fear isn’t logical, often times fear-based perception is not grounded in the reality of the current moment. If I’ve lost a job before, I will have more fear from my lived experience that I will lose my current job too (even if there is no real risk of that happening given company funding and my work performance being high). My prior experience and narratives drive my perception of reality, which in turn drives my actions within it, which impact those interconnected to me within the same system (in this example that could be coworkers or family and friends, etc).

Awareness that our emotional state drives our perception of reality opens the door to reframing our current situation and focusing on creating an environment to operate in where we can be less “fear-based” overall. Simplifying our environment so we have less decisions to make and more time to be thoughtful about those decisions improves the likelihood that we can operate objectively without bias and achieve the outcomes we want. Additionally, reducing complexity naturally reduces the risk that other people’s narratives, mental states, and decisions pull your life, time, and attention in directions you don’t want to go. Rather that being exposed to the whims of a non-deterministic actor, putting that time and effort into solidifying the ground you stand on is a better holistic investment that leads to better outcomes most of the time.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, we’re all navigating systems, in work and in life, that are more complex than we realize. The more moving parts, the more risk we invite, and the more our limited time and attention get stretched thin. By focusing on clarity, reducing unnecessary complexity, and designing with our human nature in mind, we give ourselves the best shot at meaningful progress and peace of mind. It’s not about squeezing every drop of efficiency out of life, but about making sure the game we’re playing is actually winnable, and that we are optimizing for the right things.

In a world full of noise, the real advantage comes from cutting through it.

Simplicity is king đź‘‘.

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