Occam’s Razor — Simple Is Better

One of the mental frameworks discussed in the first volume of the Great Mental Models by Shane Parrish and the Farnam Street team is Occam’s razor. The essence of Occam’s razor is that simpler explanations are more likely to be true than complicated ones.

This classic approach of logic and problem solving can come in handy, especially in our daily lives — both professionally and personally. While it is tempting to overcomplicate our explanations in various instances, the principle of Occam’s razor reminds us that good decisions can derive from the explanation with fewest moving parts, thus saving us time and sanity. Occam’s razor enables us to avoid unnecessary complexity by helping you identify and commit to the simplest explanation possible.

Occam’s razor originated from the medieval logician William of Ockham. According the book (Great Mental Models), Ockham wrote that “a plurality is not to be posited without necessity”—essentially that we should prefer the simplest explanation with the fewest moving parts.

“Anybody can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.”  — Charles Mingus