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Hi Reader,

Last weekend I stayed in a tiny home for the very first time. It was small, cozy, and charming, yet had everything I needed. Life felt wonderfully simple.

My friends and I have been challenging each other lately to cut out unnecessary clutter and live with a little more lightness. None of us plan on moving into a tiny home full time, but the experience gave me a glimpse of minimalism. It was both grounding and powerful.

A day later, as I was looking out over Lake Huron surrounded by people I care about, I noticed how calm everything felt in our weekend simplicity. In that quiet moment, I asked myself a question: How can I bring more of this same simplicity into my project work?

Overcomplication

The timing could not have been better because I’ve been navigating a couple of complicated initiatives and trying to figure out how to make things easier for my project teams.

One of them is with a non-profit, where keeping costs low makes simplicity even more essential. The real question becomes: what can we settle on right now that gets the job done without overcomplicating it?

Projects are a lot like houses. They have a sneaky way of collecting “stuff.” Before you know it, the basement is stacked with boxes of kitchen gadgets you forgot you owned, including that fancy avocado slicer you never figured out how to use (true story).

Projects work the same way. Do we really need every shiny bell and whistle, or are we just tripping over them on the way to the finish line?

Striving to simplify

By keeping our initiatives clear and straightforward, we not only make them easier to manage, we also increase the chances of stakeholder buy-in. And in today’s world, where people are more distracted than ever, clarity and simplicity are not just nice to have, they’re essential.

Here are a few tips to keep your project deliverables simple:

• Break down large deliverables into smaller, more manageable parts.
• Streamline approvals by involving approvers early. If they review drafts along the way, the final sign-off will be much smoother since they are already familiar with the content.
• Use clear, simple language in all communications and make sure information flows consistently across every group involved.
• When stakeholders ask for extra bells and whistles, don’t say no. Instead, document their requests, then work with them to separate wants from needs. Collect time and cost estimates for both categories. Once everything is laid out, stakeholders will often help scale the list back to essentials.
• Think beyond written reports. Reimagine parts of your deliverables in more engaging formats. A graphic, a short video, or even a physical model can often communicate ideas far more effectively.

Keeping things simple brings clarity, efficiency, and better decision making to everything we do. And if we can practice that kind of simplicity in our projects and our lives, then one day, if any of my friends ever decide to build their own tiny home, they will know exactly what they need. No cluttered basements required.

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