Ruthlessly edit projects in progress

Cut content, scope, or steps from anything in progress that doesn’t serve the core goal.

Why it works

Scope creep is driven by the same commitment bias that fills calendars: once work is underway, each added feature or step seems marginal but the accumulated additions consume the majority of the time. Essentialism applies the elimination principle inside projects: the editor’s job is to cut anything that isn’t earning its place. The mechanism is that subtractive editing improves quality while reducing cost — the inverse of the usual assumption that adding improves.

How to do it

1. For any project or document you’re working on, ask: "What can I remove without losing the core value?"
2. Cut at least 10% of the content or scope before calling it done.
3. Apply the same question to meetings, deliverables, and processes — not just documents.

Evidence

Subtractive change is systematically neglected: people default to adding rather than removing when improving something, even when subtraction is objectively better. Making subtraction a deliberate step counteracts this default. (observational)

Sources

• Adams et al. (2021), "People Systematically Overlook Subtractive Changes," Nature

Common mistake

Applying editing only to polished final drafts — by then, path dependency and time invested make cutting psychologically costly. Edit early and often.