Remove the dumb stuff. What’s left usually works fine
Back in my college days, I ran into a little issue with parking.
Being broke, I didn’t want to pay for a parking pass. So I parked at meters — which cost more over time but less up front. (There’s a lesson in that, too.)
The problem? The meters only sold one hour at a time. Classes were an hour long. If you parked 10 minutes before class, and left 10–15 minutes after, you were pushing it with just an hour on the meter.
Could I have just bought two hours? Sure. But I was broke… and stubborn.
At a big-city campus, maybe this wouldn’t matter. At mine? Parking enforcement made hawks look lazy. And the tickets started piling up.
So did I fix it by putting more money in the meters? Or paying for a pass?
No. I just quit driving and started walking.
I lived about a mile from campus. Not a great walk in bad weather, but usually fine. And it had a lot of benefits:
- I quit getting parking tickets.
- I got some exercise.
- I stayed on campus between classes and actually studied instead of driving home.
In other words, I got a lot of benefit just by not doing something instead of adding more.
In his Incerto series, Nassim Taleb calls this idea Via Negativa — The Negative Way.
Translation: You usually get better results by removing what’s harmful instead of adding what might help.
In health:
- Persistent heartburn? Stop eating the garbage that causes it instead of carrying around a pharmacy.
- Headache every morning? Cut the booze before you double your Advil budget.
In finance:
- Before hustling harder, cancel the subscriptions you forgot you had. Free money in three clicks.
In life:
- Turn off the phone notifications. Way cheaper than the next productivity fad.
In my business:
- I’m listing a property for a widow whose husband’s name is still on the title. Can’t sell it until we fix that. Easy fix. Big result.
- Another property? Great spot for a convenience store… except the zoning requires an SUP, and the city says “no thanks.” Knowing that early lets us focus marketing elsewhere instead of wasting time — ours or theirs.
Bottom line: Remove the roadblocks. Cut the noise. Subtract the problems.
That’s Via Negativa — and it usually works a lot better than duct-taping “improvements” on top of a mess.
Stop spraying perfume, just get rid of whatever stinks.
If you want to find the problems before your buyers do, just reach out when you’re ready.
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