How Can We Make Processes More Enjoyable?
There are two main ways we can value-add. The first way is to add things. The second way is to remove things. Often, we’re focused on adding things. In order to make the horse run faster, we tend to seek out new training regimen and exercise routines. We pay little attention to the overweight jockey. The truth is we can get rid of him. Surely, it isn’t as exciting, but there are some serious untapped potential that doesn’t need new inventions. I believe a lot of progress can be made when we reduce friction as compared to piling on more supposedly useful layers. It is similar to reading. Even if there is substance in what we’re reading, we are inclined to skim and skip complex explanation.
We want the process of reading to be enjoyable, and not hauled by the need to distinguish between confusion and obfuscation.
When we add things, chances are it will become more complicated. There are tome-length books with tons of good stuff in it, but we usually don’t get to the critical bits. We’ve expended so much energy getting through the technicalities and less of the ideas. When the friction is high, we pause. Eventually, we stop reading. The goal is for ideas to leap into our heads with us barely noticing the words that got them there. This effect can only be done when we use ordinary words to form simple sentences. We want to say the most in the fewest words. Simple writing allows us to enjoy what we read. We may not retain every single detail. Honestly, I don’t think we’re meant to. But, when we enjoy what we read, there is a higher likelihood to continue reading more which makes the information retain better.
Simple writing lasts longer. It is the reason why we remember more stories, less statistics.
It is easier to make the train journey 20% more enjoyable than it is to make the train journey 20% faster. That is what Uber and Grab did. They did not reduce the waiting time for a taxi, they simply make the waiting process less frustrating. By a glance on our phone, we know where our driver is, when he is gonna reach and what car we’re gonna be seated on. More importantly, we get to plan our routine from one place to another with little to no friction. Uber and Grab removed the anxiety of us waiting for a cab. The technology isn’t new, and same can be said for a lot of content in books and articles. However, the presentation of it is simple.
How things are presented affects what things are used. How words are written affects what words are read.
Uber and Grab did not make us travel faster, they merely made the experience of travelling easier. This is something we can learn when we innovate or write. I believe at least half of what we encounter in life is unnecessary complication masquerading as added value. We want to distill complicated concepts into easy-to-grasp scenes. We want to pen down vague feelings into words. We want clarity more than anything else. When it comes to writing, we value-add by removing, not adding words. It is so easy to overlook how powerful our words can be when we take something small and hammer away at it. A short line of words may mean little, but worth less is not the same as worthless. The slight nuance is when we stack multiple short lines together to form a paragraph that brings value. The world of difference is made when we stack multiple of such paragraphs together to tell a story. We’ll definitely finish an article or a book that is as easily digestible as the timeline of memes on our Facebook feed.
