Simplifying

There seems to have been quite an influx of "ship or die" mentality across the tech industry, even just around my own circles — or the circle that do similar things to me. Feature after feature, after... feature — and not to mention ruthless feature copying because "why not" — another thing to put on your homepage — so easy.

I've been having some back and forth conversations with a few people on this topic throughout the last months, and also a lot of internal dialog on the matter. A recent exchange had made me think about this even more.

The rush to cram in something new, without thought, is easier than ever if you're a programmer now — just describe it in plain English and the predictive text engine will do it for you. This has been a net positive in terms of productivity for sure, although I believe it's a double edged sword.

It's great being able to prototype and iterate quickly with the results mostly good enough to ship — and why not, no one ever asked me to do it, just an itch and a quick turnaround.

I don't think this phenomena is unique though and has been part of society for a long time — the missing out syndrome.

This has affected my own work and my own contributions to my projects — iterating quickly to get in features, giving it a test, more or less happy with the results and shipping. However, I noticed also that it takes away some of that care to attention and detail.

When I look at my own Tinylytics, it seems a bit of a mess and a divergence of the original project — even though I am following the plan that I had envisioned for it. The interface seems full and crammed, and not well organised anymore — although I might be staring at it for too long.

A simple system now getting overly complex, full of features that probably only a handful of people use.

Don't get me wrong, I love the fact I can add new things, however I think it's worth also taking a step back now.

Because I can do more in less time, doesn't mean I need to. Simple as that. What used to take a day, now takes just mere hours (if even that).

I came to this conclusion yesterday as I was tidying the kitchen and listening to this YouTube video (just the sounds — it's a fantastic channel exploring Japan that I've been following for some time). I found it so calming and peaceful. So much so that it's really affecting me.

Where does this bring me? I really don't know.

For now, I am going to take a look at all my projects and see where I can simplify — especially Scribbles and Tinylytics. Scribbles has been largely minimal and I want to hone in on that even more. Right now I am actually thinking of removing unnecessary things. Tinylytics could do with a much cleaner interface, whilst keeping the powerful features.

Now that I have more free time, I can concentrate on this more — be more thoughtful and simplify.

Less is more.