Less is more

On a daily basis, I feel like I discover a new paradox or rediscover ones I have heard before. Today’s was less is more. That goes against our nature and our intuition. We tend to think more is more and more is better, but in reality less is more.

Less is more when it comes to our impact. Organizations are discovering that their greatest impact doesn’t come from trying to venture into more and more endeavors, but to do less and do it well. In Good to Great, Jim Collins calls this the Hedgehog concept. The Good to Great companies simplified their efforts and did less than their competitors. They stayed focused on a collision of three important factors: what they could be the best in the world doing, their greatest passion, and what could provide them with the most economic gain. This focus led them to do less, not more. Collins notes in his other book “How the Mighty Fall” that the undisciplined pursuit of more often begins the fall of great companies.

In Seven Practices of Effective Ministry, Andy Stanley notes that to succeed in ministry we need to narrow the focus of our programs. So often we want our programs to hit so many people that they wind up not impacting anyone. Instead, narrow the focus so that a program can really make an impact on the targeted audience.

I have found that less is more when it comes to communicating. At Church we do something called "Endnotes" which is to sum up the weekend with what we wanted people to know and what we wanted them to do. So often we wind up plugging a couple of different activities and it is clear that by announcing more, our messages cancel one another out. Communication excels when we build around one thing instead of trying to communicate more.

Less is more when it implies to our personal impact. To succeed and impact our world, we need to find the few things we can do better than most people and become excellent at them. John Maxwell says, “You are the most valuable where you provide the most value.” Proverbs says, "See a man skilled in his work, he will stand before kings." To become skilled in a certain area requires we focus our energy on less, not more.

Less is more when it comes to stuff. Our homes are filled with so much stuff that we can’t even access the stuff we do have.

I could say more, but I’m thinking I’d be contradicting myself so I’ll stick with the spirit of this idea that less is more.