Complexity kills performance, it slows you down, it frustrates, demotivates and discourages. If you want to make fast progress, then you need to keep things simple. But this can be hard to do when you don’t make the desired progress you look to work harder, be busier, but if you’re not being effective, then you’re just wasting your time.

Even me, who is constantly looking for ways to simplify, to increase efficiency and effectiveness can get caught up in the cycle of complexity. It’s so easy to become too involved, and then not see the forest because of the trees, and then we just compound things by trying to do more and more.

To make more progress you need to work smarter, and the best way to do that is to increase the simplicity, find the right things to focus on, and to do that you have to step back and look at whats going on, see if where you are failing or why you are not getting the results you want.

There are many myths that we have to overcome too, in order to find simplicity. One of which is that complex problems require complex solutions. This is not true. But too often people overlook the simple because of this belief.

The better we understand the situation, the facts and how our proposed solution is going to deliver the results we’re looking for, the easier it is to know if we have taken the simple approach or not.

Simplicity helps increase our efficiency which means we get more results for our efforts, but more importantly, it gives you the belief which will encourage you to put in more effort as you know you will be rewarded for it.

So whatever your goal, if you’re struggling with making progress. Stop. Step back. And ask yourself how can I make things simpler, easier, for yourself. You can also others too, as they are not involved maybe they will see something you are missing.

The simpler you keep things the better your results will be.