#6 - The power of spring cleaning

Much of our language around problem-solving is additive in nature: we offer help, we build consensus, and we make plans. It implicitly assumes something is missing. That we're always just one addition away from a solution. Intuitively this makes sense, but as a 2021 study in the publication Nature points out, we're systemically forgetting subtraction as a viable option for problem solving.

This has broad implications everywhere. In processes and policies that no longer make sense, but persist. In orphan product functionality and feature creep. In systems that only ever grow more complex over time. All while we know that subtraction, by definition, is the better path. Because the decision not to add, but to take something away creates room. It invites clarity. It reintroduces a basic principle of systems: simplicity drives quality.

But if we know this, then why is subtraction so hard? For one, incentive structures rarely reward what is omitted or removed. They reward what is added. Subtraction feels lazy, not like real work. But more deeply, I think it has to do with an innate part of being. Humans are ultimately wired to be. Not to not be.

So how might we fight our bias for addition and start structuring for subtraction?

Tactically, you might embrace the concept of spring cleaning, periods where teams may only subtract. Structurally, you might embed 'editors' in workflows to normalise the act of removal as a mark of quality, not failure (ask any writer about the power of editing).

But systemically, subtraction must be rewarded to shift our mindset to subtraction-first. To continuously remind ourselves of the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, that perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.