KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid
KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid... this is one of the most basic principles that we, as humans, tend to forget quite often. I was reading an awesome article (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/28/keep-it-simple-stupid) that describes this in great detail.
A few years ago, while I was a student in college, I turned in a solution to a computer project. I was very satisfied with my solution. It was long... it was complex... it solved the problem. I got the project back with just one comment: "Keep It Simple". Really?! No "Awesome!" or "Excellent!"? It wasn't until much later that I finally started to see why he put this on my paper. The more simple the solution, the better the solution. I then began making things as simples as possible. Wow. Talk about easy. Once I started making problems as simple as possible the solution was almost always very simple.
I think that far too often we are excited when we get a problem that is complex. Then, to complement that complex problem, we almost want a complex solution. After all, a more complex solution means we are incredibly smart.
I began a kind of game with myself and the problems that I solve. "How simple can I make the solution?" I feel so much better when I have taken an extremely complex problem and solve it with a simple solution.