simplicity = more joy + less work

November 05, 2007

John Maeda talks about simplicity (via information aesthetics). The talk itself is long and rambling, but quite funny and thought-provoking and I enjoyed watching the whole talk. In his book there are ten laws. In this talk he simplifies it and presents a single law. I liked the analogies by which he presented his law of simplicity.

When presented with a big cookie or a small cookie, which cookie will a child choose?

However, when presented with a pile of laundry to fold, surprisingly, the child will not choose the larger pile.

Maeda summarizes this as a law of simplicity: living life with more enjoyment and less pain.

Why do I find it hard to apply this basic principle in my life? I don’t know what’s up with that, but I find it amusing and helpful to say to myself now and then: LESS WORK, BIG COOKIE.

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