A Service Design Principle to be more like a minimalist.

Many minimalists (1) have a rule that goes like that for objects they bring into their homes:

If I bring something new to my home, I have to let go of something else.

It's a pretty smart rule that helps us to avoid buying crap because losing something is something that our brain feel is really terrible (2).

What if we had something similar for our services (3)? Instead of jumping on the opportunity to create something new, which often leads to more resources being used, what if we had to let go of something else before we are allowed to do so (4)?

Action question

What could be a good rule of thumb that helps your team to only add new elements to your service that truly add value to the planet and humans?

Footnotes

(1) If you want to discover more about minimalism with humour, I highly recommend you check out the work of Matt D'Avella on his Youtube channel.

(2) That's what psychologists call "Loss aversion". It's the idea that losing something feels twice as bad as gaining the same thing, be it money or an object. The lovely humans behind the Decision Lab have a pretty good free guide about this cognitive bias.

(3) This principle was partially inspired by a conversation I had with Arun Joseph Martin during the book tour of the third volume in this series.

(4) And if you get to add something by removing something that isn't necessary or doesn't bring value to your service, that's a pretty good cleanup and might lead to fewer resources being used.

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.