Simpler isn't always better

In the worlds of fashion and art, complexity and even chaos can be used to great effect. (Painting by Aert Pietersz, Rijksmuseum Collection)

Recently, I’ve gotten back into learning French.

My favorite language-learning tool is Clozemaster, a cleverly designed program built on Tatoeba’s database of sentences and translations. You listen to the sentence, try to figure out what it is saying, and fill in the missing word.

Filling in the word may seem to be the focus of the exercise, but it’s not, really. The fun and challenging part is to hear a full sentence spoken at conversational speed and then attempt to grasp its meaning, visualize it completely before seeing it written out, and repeat it with the proper accent and intonation.

Using this approach, I am learning far more quickly than I ever did in school, and far more useful words and phrases, too. It’s all very well to learn the words for household objects and days of the week, but now I’m learning how to say things like, “I don’t know exactly how or why that happened,” and “No matter what he says, don't trust him.”

The vocabulary isn’t complex, but the ideas are, and that’s actually making it easier to grasp colloquialisms and patterns of grammar and use them to express my own ideas. Plus, I’m more engaged and motivated, since the sentences are interesting and challenging. It’s a victory to hear a sentence like, “Je n'ai pas peur de la mort [I don’t fear death],” out of context and get it.

I had a similar experience years ago when I was first learning music. The intensity of my desire to learn certain songs and pieces strengthened my performance even when I was working on something that should have been too hard.

However, it was more than increased motivation. I noticed that the complex fingerings, where your hand has to stretch and move and crab walk to cover a wandering melody, were easier to memorize than simple ones. It was almost as though there were more mental hooks with which to hang such a specific sequence.

I have seen this show up in school, business, and life. Sometimes, more information and a broader perspective can overwhelm us, but it’s good to be alert for the moments when it doesn’t. We can set the bar absurdly high, just for fun.

We can contravene our teacher’s directive and read ahead to the next chapter, or even skip a bunch of chapters to get to the good stuff.

We can try a recipe that requires a precision we’ve never had the opportunity to demonstrate, just to see how close we get.

We can choose to seek clients from a tiny group (“ex-lawyers who love K-Pop”) instead of trying to appeal to a broad audience.

Embracing complexity or difficulty instead of the simple, straightforward thing we were supposed to do can make our work more playful. We might feel that we have less to prove, silencing the voice in our heads that tells us that we should know this or be able to do this already. Ironically, we may be more effective and perform at a higher level when we are doing something we’re not “supposed” to be able to do.

If you have slowed down and simplified so much that you are struggling to stay committed to the task at hand, you might try adding complexity. At the very least, returning to the simple will come as a relief, but you might find complexity to be a breath of fresh air, too. Play around with it and see what you think.