Ruthlessly edit projects in progress
Cut content, scope, or steps from anything in progress that doesn’t serve the core goal.
Key takeaways
- What it is: 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.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Applying editing only to polished final drafts — by then, path dependency and time invested make cutting psychologically costly. Edit early and often.
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
- 1For any project or document you’re working on, ask: "What can I remove without losing the core value?"
- 2Cut at least 10% of the content or scope before calling it done.
- 3Apply the same question to meetings, deliverables, and processes — not just documents.
What the evidence says
ObservationalSubtractive 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.
- — 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.
IX Coach prompts a "what can be removed?" question during project reviews, ensuring subtraction gets equal deliberate attention alongside additions.
Practice this with IX Coach →