“It’s so easy to think about what are the things I’m going to do to make my life better — what are the TO DOs I have to accomplish today — and it’s less natural to think about what are the things I have been doing that I should stop doing.” ~ Leidy Klotz
What if the best answer to a curious, generative question like, “What are all the ways we could…?” is actually just “Do less“?
UVA Engineering professor Leidy Klotz, author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less makes the case to consider subtraction as a viable, reliable, and all-too-oftenoverlooked strategy in a world that is biased to always add more.
And in a twist I definitely didn’t see coming, Leidy takes analogous thinking to a whole new level of subtraction. “Analogies,” he says, “are one of the only ways to remove wrong ideas.”
Analogies work because…the new [belief] partners up with some deeply entrenched thing that you already believe, to fight against another deeply entrenched thing that you believe. So now you’ve got a more fair fight, because the analogy is drawing a connection between what you already know and the new information.
Listen to Choose to be Curious #204: Curiosity, Analogies & the Power of Less, with Leidy Klotz
Check out Leidy Klotz, Subtract and UVA’s Convergent Behavioral Science Initiative.
Many thanks to Larry Robertson at Lighthouse Consulting for introducing me to Leidy and his work.
I think you’ll enjoy Robert Smartwood‘s anthology Hint Fiction — and, I promise, it’s a quick read!
Theme music by Sean Balick. “Hash Out” by Sunday at Slims, via Blue Dot Sessions.
You can subscribe to Choose to be Curious on Apple Podcasts and now on Spotify.
Wear your curiosity on your sleeve. Check out the Choose to be Curious shop!
Listening to the Universe 