Decomplication: How to Solve Problems by Thinking from First Principles
Cut through artificial complexity and use first principles thinking to uncover simple, practical solutions to everyday challenges.
Introduction
Life often feels more complicated than it needs to be. Whether it's improving your health, managing your time, or building better habits, we tend to believe the answers lie in hacks, apps, and expensive services. But this belief is a trap. In reality, many of our most frustrating problems have simple, if difficult, solutions. Understanding and undoing the forces that add unnecessary complexity is the first step toward clarity. This is the essence of "decomplication."
Artificial Complexity Is Everywhere
The first obstacle is recognizing artificial complexity—the sensation that solving a problem requires more knowledge, tools, or effort than it actually does. This feeling is familiar: you decide to lose weight or improve your sleep, and suddenly you feel compelled to research dozens of products, methods, and expert opinions.
Artificial complexity convinces us we need specialized equipment to exercise, miracle pills to lose weight, and costly institutions to gain skills. It wastes time, money, and energy. But once you see it for what it is, you can begin to cut through the noise.
The Three Forces Behind Artificial Complexity
1. The Challenge Itself
Every instance of artificial complexity begins with a challenge. Imagine being dropped in a wilderness lodge with no modern distractions: you'd likely sleep better, move more, and stress less. But in modern life, these simple things become hard. The problem isn't the task (like sleeping eight hours); it's the environment we've built around it.
2. Cognitive Dissonance
When we fail at a simple task, we face an uncomfortable truth: either admit the task is hard because of our choices, or convince ourselves it's inherently complex. We often choose the latter. If losing weight is just about eating less processed food and moving more, then failure is on us. But if it requires a proprietary diet plan or special supplements, we have an excuse. Cognitive dissonance turns "simple and hard" into "complex and hard."
3. Marketing
Businesses thrive on our need for complex solutions. The health, fitness, and productivity industries flourish by selling you tools that promise to simplify what you've been led to believe is complicated. A sleep mask, a meal plan, a coaching app—these all exploit our reluctance to face the simple, difficult truths. Complexity sells.
The Path to Clarity: Decomplication
What Is Decomplication?
Decomplication is not about simplifying something inherently complex. It's about stripping away the unnecessary layers of complication added by outside forces. Unlike simplification, which may gloss over real details, decomplication returns you to the essential truths.
The Law of Decomplication
The more common a problem is, the simpler its core solution probably is. But the more money that can be made from the problem, the more complexity will be added to it.
How to Assess Complexity
1. Does Anyone Profit from This Being Complex?
If there's a financial incentive to make something seem harder than it is, you can bet complexity has been added. No one's selling quantum physics boot camps—it's truly complex. But health advice? That's a monetized maze.
2. Do I Know the Simple Solution?
Most of us already know the real answer. Smokers know they should quit. Overweight people know they should eat better. The problem isn't knowledge; it's action.
3. Am I Assigning Value to Complexity?
We often equate complexity with worth. A trainer who gives a simple plan might be dismissed as unprofessional, even if the plan works. We've been trained to distrust the simple.
4. Have I Failed at This Before?
Past failures can lead us to reframe a simple problem as complex. Instead of accepting that we didn’t try hard enough or were unlucky, we build narratives around complexity to protect our egos.
How to Assess Difficulty
1. Do I Control the Variables?
Many problems seem hard because of choices we make. If you go out drinking late, of course sleep will be difficult. If you buy junk food, of course you'll eat it. These problems are self-imposed.
2. Am I Using Difficulty to Avoid Discomfort?
Sometimes, admitting something is easy would create guilt. So we label it as difficult to avoid cognitive dissonance.
3. Have I Failed at This Before?
Like complexity, perceived difficulty can be a legacy of past failure. Once you decide something is "not for you," that belief can persist indefinitely.
First Principles Reasoning
To decomplicate a problem, use first principles thinking. Start from known truths and reason up from there. For example:
Sleep: Humans are designed to sleep. So remove modern distractions and replicate natural conditions.
Weight loss: Hunter-gatherers aren’t obese. Eat like they did—real food, no processed junk.
Language learning: You learned your first language by immersion and practice, not apps or flashcards.
Treating common problems as engineering problems only adds unnecessary weight. First principles let you work with reality, not marketing.
Conclusion
We live in a world that profits from making our lives seem harder than they are. But the truth is, many common struggles have simple solutions. The problem is not complexity but our unwillingness to face what’s simple and hard. Decomplication helps us unlearn the marketing myths, psychological defense mechanisms, and social narratives that make simple things feel impossible.
Returning to first principles isn’t just a mental exercise; it’s an act of moral courage. It means accepting responsibility for our choices and rejecting the comforting lie that we need someone else’s product to live better. Most of what we need, we already know. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise.
Takeaways
Artificial complexity stems from challenges, cognitive dissonance, and marketing.
Many problems are simple but hard—not complex.
Decomplication is about removing unnecessary layers of complexity.
First principles reasoning helps us find core truths and act on them.
Admitting simplicity requires courage and personal accountability.
Source
Nat Eliason | Decomplication: The Art of First Principles Thinking