Simple is not the same as easy. Easy is doing the first thing that works. Simple is doing the right thing — which usually requires removing everything that isn’t essential.
The trap
The instinct when building something is to add. More features, more options, more flexibility. Adding feels like progress. But every addition is also a surface area: more to explain, more to break, more to maintain.
The hard question isn’t “should we add this?” It’s “what does removing this cost us?”
A useful heuristic
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough yet. Complexity is often a sign that the model underneath is wrong.
Start by understanding the problem deeply. Simplicity follows.