Exploring the concept of “simple”: There are three elements to the psychology of simple, according to Harvard professor George Whitesides: predictability, accessibility, and serving as a building block.

As Paul Jarvis underlines in the book Company of one, “there are three elements to the psychology of simple, according to Harvard professor George Whitesides: predictability, accessibility, and serving as a building block.”

You reach simplicity when there is nothing left to take away. In writing, simplicity means stripping away sentences that don’t provide value to the whole text (either by reinforcing your point or contrasting it). Simple writing is *predictable *because it follows agreed-upon standards that facilitate the reader’s comprehension of the content (e.g., paragraphs of approximately 100 words, the correct use of punctuation). Writing is *accessible *when it is low-cost and written with simple linguistics (academic writing is non-accessible because it uses a lot of field-specific jargon). Writing serves as a building block for other individuals to contribute to ideas and build on top of them like you could build a castle starting from a rock.

The three key factors of simplicity can be used in any area of life when dealing with a problem or task. You can ask yourself, “what if it was simple?” Then you strip down all that is not essential until you reach total clarity of predictability, accessibility, and serving as a building block.

In the domain of a company of one, simplicity applies in product development. As Jarvis explains, building fast and iterating in tiny steps is essential for a company of one that’s nimble enough to pivot quickly. Simplicity means launching the first version of your product as quickly and simply as possible. No need to include all the unnecessary bells and whistles if you don’t know how the end-user will respond to it. Once you get real-user feedback, you can iterate and remove what’s not essential and add what’s valuable for the user.

Simplicity does make a difference in the current attention economy era of maximalism. It stands out from the crowd by cutting through the noise and hitting the target with precision, just like great feedback.