For new entrepreneurs, there can easily seem to be a more or less infinite number of different things to consider and to get right, when in the pursuit of overall professional success.
In addition to handling things like mailing lists, promotional offers, and market testing, new entrepreneurs will often also want to try and pursue a dozen different projects at a time in order to make their business really stand out from the competition.
This tendency is only fuelled by the fact that there are so many different guides and resources out there, explicitly encouraging entrepreneurs to try a near-infinite number of different “hacks” in order to boost their chances of success.
Here are just a few reasons why keeping things simple can be essential for new entrepreneurs, and can make a major difference.
There’s already bound to be plenty of complexity to contend with — mitigating some of it reduces the risk of burnout
As an entrepreneur, you will naturally have a lot on your plate at the best of times, whether that means searching for deals on the best place to service your generator, or whether it means quickly trying to figure out why your website has gone down before you lose a significant number of sales.
Burnout is a real problem with entrepreneurs as a whole, and new entrepreneurs may be particularly susceptible to it in many cases, as they will often be working entirely solo, and trying to juggle many different aspects of a business simultaneously.
Striving for simplicity can help to make you more resilient and can reduce your risk of burnout.
An emphasis on simplicity can help you to improve efficiency via the 80/20 rule
The 80/20 rule is a maxim that often gets cited in productivity-focused circles, and it essentially states that in any given endeavour, 80% of your results will come from about 20% of your actions. The other 80% of your actions will be largely ineffective and will account for only 20% of your results.
Placing an emphasis on simplicity in your business can help you to strictly prioritise and focus on the core 20% of activities that yield the most significant results, and can therefore significantly boost your productivity and increase your efficiency.
Keeping things simple can remove distractions and unhelpful tangents
In today’s world, distraction is pretty much ubiquitous, whether you’re an entrepreneur or not.
In the case of entrepreneurs, in particular, avoiding distractions and unhelpful tangents — whether in the form of having to try and constantly switch back and forward between projects and tasks, or whether in the form of avoiding the temptation to mindlessly surf the web during the work day — can be very important and can make a real impact.
By striving to keep things simple as much as you can, you can avoid a lot of the potential distractions and tangents that can cause you to veer off course.