October 27, 2016
Interview with Matthew May, author of the book The Laws Of Subtraction
Mike Carruthers:
Sometimes the solution to a problem is not to add more things to solve the problem but to take away something – to do less.
Matthew May:
And the thought is that when you remove just the right things in just the right way really good things happen.
Matthew May, author of the book The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything…
And whether you’re talking about a strategy or a process, any kind of idea like that (sometimes) what isn’t there can be more powerful than what is.
By doing less you can make life easier and more productive and Matthew says a good way to start to do less is to make a stop doing list.
To come up with a stop doing list, which most people don’t do, we’re really good at to do lists. But the way you create a stop doing list is to come up with all of your goals and objectives and prioritize them as you normally would, but then knock out the bottom 20% forever. If you’ve got 5 things on your to do list knock that bottom one out forever and don’t revisit it. And it’s a very difficult thing for most people to do.
So how do you choose what to stop doing?
Anything that is excessive, confusing, hard to use, unnatural, hazardous or ugly – those are sort of the things to remove or the restraint to refrain from adding those things in the first place. And the things that we love most in life generally are void from those things.
