Addition by subtraction.

My dad has built and remodeled over 50 homes in his lifetime. He is an incredible builder and has a good eye for design. When we were looking for my home nearly 9 years ago, we toured a lot of homes. A comment he made in every house we went in was, “this house needs more subtraction than addition.” At the time, the comment didn’t mean a lot to me, but as I’ve looked at more houses over the years, I’ve found myself repeating his adage. And, the adage doesn’t just apply to homes. 

Interestingly, research sheds light on this concept that my dad has been onto for years. Humans have a bias for addition rather than subtraction. When we’re faced with a problem, our tendency is to think about how to solve it by adding something, rather than removing something. In one trial of this research, participants were asked to take an uneven bridge, made of Legos, and make it even. The bridge was uneven by one additional Lego on one side of the bridge. The participants were given a bowl of additional Lego pieces and were instructed to make the bridge even. Most participants leveled the bridge by adding more pieces. Only once prompted that removing a piece was a possibility did participants remove the offending Lego piece. Subtraction is available to us, but sometimes, we need prompting, just as the study bore out. 

I’ve recognized that as a new parent, I have a bias towards addition. When my son showed interest in bubbles, I bought a dozen packages of bubbles. When my son was struggling with walking, a bought a bunch of pairs of shoes. When he didn’t like one particular sippy cup, I bought half a dozen others to try. I’ve tried to solve a lot of the challenges I’ve encountered in parenting by spending money. The idea of subtracting, or not adding, hasn’t been at the front of my brain as an option for some of my parenting challenges.

Within our personal lives, we often fail to see solutions to problems available by subtracting something because of our default to only think of solutions available by adding. Perhaps you’ll notice this as you look to your calendar full of appointments; or maybe, you see it with your closet full of clothes; it may even appear in the vehicles or homes you purchase or remain in. In our budgets, we can often remove things that are not bringing us joy or closer to the lives we wish to be living. 

My dad had the ability to think of subtracting when it came to homes – he could see solutions for homes that needed love and knew those solutions were available by removing features previous homeowners had included.

Because we all have this bias towards adding, here is a gentle reminder: Next time you encounter a problem, remember the possibility of thinking in terms of subtracting. Think through all the possible solutions and when thinking through these possible solutions, notice if you can come up with any solutions that involve subtracting rather than adding. Sometimes, subtracting is a superior option, even though not always at the forefront of our minds.