Advice
Less Really IS More: Why Simplifying Your Life Might Be the Business Strategy You Never Knew You Needed
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Your desk looks like a hurricane hit it, your calendar's more packed than a Brisbane train during peak hour, and you haven't seen the bottom of your inbox since 2019. Sound familiar?
After twenty-two years in business consultancy—from helping startups get their act together to working with ASX-listed companies that should bloody well know better—I've seen it all. And here's what gets me: we've created this bizarre culture where being overwhelmed is worn like a badge of honour.
"I'm so busy!" we announce proudly, as if chaos equals importance.
Bollocks.
The Complexity Trap (And Why We're All Guilty)
Most business professionals I work with have fallen into what I call the "complexity trap." They've convinced themselves that having seventeen different project management tools, forty-three Slack channels, and a filing system that would confuse NASA is somehow... professional.
I was guilty of this too. Back in 2018, I had subscriptions to productivity apps I'd forgotten I owned. My Melbourne office looked like an electronics store had exploded. I was spending more time managing my systems than actually getting work done.
The wake-up call came when my assistant quit. Not because of workload or money—because she couldn't figure out how to book a simple meeting in my "sophisticated" scheduling system.
That's when I discovered that business growth networks often succeed precisely because they focus on core essentials rather than elaborate complexity.
The Real Cost of Clutter (It's Not What You Think)
Here's something most productivity gurus won't tell you: physical clutter is expensive, but mental clutter will bankrupt you.
I've worked with CEOs who could recite their P&L statements from memory but couldn't find their car keys. Finance directors who managed million-dollar budgets but had seventeen different versions of the same spreadsheet.
Research from Princeton University suggests that visual clutter in your workspace competes for your attention, decreasing performance and increasing stress. But I didn't need a study to tell me that—I could see it in my clients' faces every day.
Take Sarah, MD of a successful Perth consulting firm. Brilliant woman, incredible strategic mind. But her office? It looked like a paper recycling centre that had given up on life. She was spending 40% of her day looking for documents. Forty percent! That's like paying someone a six-figure salary to play hide-and-seek with themselves.
The Australian Way: Common Sense Simplification
Australians are natural simplifiers, even if we don't realise it. We say "no worries" instead of elaborate explanations. We call football "footy" because life's too short for extra syllables. We invented the "she'll be right" philosophy—which, despite what perfectionists think, is actually quite sensible.
Yet somehow, in our professional lives, we've forgotten this wisdom.
Simple doesn't mean lazy. It means intelligent. It means focusing on what matters and letting the rest go.
The most successful people I know follow what I call the "surfboard principle"—they can navigate complexity because their foundation is simple and stable. You can't hang ten if you're carrying a backpack full of rocks.
What Simplification Actually Looks Like (Practical Examples)
Email Strategy Most people treat their inbox like a trophy cabinet for every message they've ever received. I have clients with 47,000 unread emails. That's not an inbox—that's a digital landfill.
My approach: Three folders. "Action Required," "Waiting For," and "Archive." Everything else gets deleted or dealt with immediately. This isn't revolutionary—it's just handling office politics applied to technology.
Decision Making Stop overthinking every choice like it's life or death. I use the "10-10-10 rule"—will this matter in 10 minutes, 10 months, or 10 years? Most decisions fall into the first category and deserve about as much analysis as choosing what to have for lunch.
Physical Space Your office should serve you, not the other way around. If you haven't touched something in six months, bin it. If it doesn't have a specific purpose, it's decorative clutter.
I once helped a client in Sydney clear his office. We removed 73% of the items. His productivity increased by 31% within a month, and he stopped working weekends. Coincidence? I think not.
Technology Stack Here's a radical idea: use fewer apps, not more. I see businesses using separate tools for project management, time tracking, invoicing, communication, file sharing, and calendar management. Then they wonder why nothing integrates properly.
Find tools that do multiple things well rather than looking for the perfect specialist for every tiny task.
The Permission to Say No (And Why It's Actually Profitable)
This might be controversial, but saying "no" more often is one of the best business strategies you can adopt.
I learned this the hard way. In 2020, I was saying yes to every opportunity that walked through my door. Coffee meetings with "potential partners," speaking at industry events that barely covered my taxi fare, consulting calls that went nowhere.
My revenue was decent, but my profit margins were terrible because I was spending time on low-value activities.
Now I have a simple test: Does this opportunity align with my core business goals? Will it generate significant revenue or strategic value? If the answer isn't an immediate "yes," it's a no.
This approach has allowed me to focus on key skills development rather than spreading myself too thin across random opportunities.
The result? Higher fees, better clients, more time for strategic thinking. And yes, more time for life outside work.
The Counterintuitive Truth About Simplicity and Success
Here's what nobody tells you about simplification: it makes you more money, not less.
When you strip away the unnecessary, what remains becomes more valuable. When you say no to mediocre opportunities, better ones appear. When you declutter your processes, you serve clients more efficiently.
I've tracked this across dozens of clients. Companies that simplified their operations typically saw:
- 23% improvement in project completion times
- 18% increase in client satisfaction scores
- 31% reduction in employee stress levels
- 15% improvement in profit margins
These aren't made-up statistics—they're from real businesses that decided to stop pretending that complexity equals sophistication.
Getting Started (Without Making It Another Complicated Project)
Don't turn simplification into a complex project requiring a project manager and a Gantt chart. That defeats the purpose entirely.
Start small. Pick one area of your life or business and ask: "What would this look like if it were simple?"
Maybe it's your morning routine. Maybe it's how you handle client onboarding. Maybe it's finally dealing with that desk drawer that hasn't opened properly since the Howard government.
The key is to start somewhere and resist the urge to optimise everything simultaneously.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
We're living in an age of infinite choice and constant distraction. The businesses and individuals who thrive will be those who can cut through the noise and focus on what matters.
Simplicity isn't about having less—it's about having better. It's about creating space for what's important instead of filling every moment with what's merely urgent.
Your future self will thank you. Your bank account will thank you. And if you're lucky, maybe even your assistant won't quit because they can't figure out how to use your booking system.
Because at the end of the day, life's complicated enough without us making it worse.