#3 Value of Simplicity

Recently, one of the highlights of my life has been making things simpler and easier to manage. When things start piling up, the ones at the bottom start disappearing. At this point, it seems important to remove the clutter.

Something I have noticed is that we live in a world full of procrastinators. We don’t do the things that we don’t have to. This week, I had been hunting to find the most basic note-taking app that’s straightforward and just does the job of taking notes. No unnecessary features, just a simple app where I can write drafts and meeting notes. I found the one called Simplenote (it’s named appropriately).

While writing using this software, you can’t make things bold, italic or underline them. You can’t add photos, videos or tables. It’s interactive and syncs across all my devices. I don’t always use the several features Microsoft Word offers. In fact, many people never use most of those features. Steve Jobs, the late CEO of Apple, once said that –

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex. 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.” 

The one takeaway from this issue is to remove clutter and keep what you need. It saves time and increases the clarity of mind. Otherwise, the brain has fifty tabs open and you don’t know where the music is coming from.