# [[Principle of Atomicity]]
![[Principle of Atomicity.svg]]
Most products and services focus on giving us _more_: more money, more time, more success, more knowledge. The irony is that what makes us happy is _less_. This is the Principle of Atomicity: the idea that having _less_ is what is hard, but also what is valuable.
The real stroke of brilliance is being able to simplify complex ideas or services down to the most basic possible interface. [[Apple]] products aren't popular because they're the most technologically advanced. What Apple is good at is iterating on existing technologies again and again and again until they come up with a foolproof implementation that make them actually accessible for the masses.
In multicultural [[Strength Finder Theme: Communication]], saying fewer words means fewer chances for miscommunication.
## In writing
^fc8ffd
Atomicity in writing primarily means simplicity. Particularly in technical writing, documentation should contain the minimum possible text to get a point across. [^01]
It takes less skill to write than it does to edit. [[Writing]] is an extension of thought, but if it were someone's unfiltered thoughts that we wanted, it would be a never-ending stream of text. Writing a book or an article or even a tweet adds a finite end to the ideas, which in itself requires _removing_ ideas rather than adding to them. Good editors shape writing into the shape of insight.
## In tech
In tech, this is called [[Decoupling]] or having a [[Separation of Concerns]]. To some extent, the principle of atomicity is at the heart of [[Microservices|microservices-based architecture]]. Atomicity is related to Composability.
## In philosophy
[[Essentialism]] is a branch of [[Minimalism]] that advocates for simplifying something down to what is *essential*, with the goal of clarity about what we really need in life to be happy.
## See also
- [[When in doubt, spell it out.]]
- [[Overcommunicate to your future self.]]
- [[Clarifying a project as a series of Next Actions makes it less daunting.]]
- [[Having a mind like water is a flow state where the mind is free from the anxiety in needing to remember.]]
- [[Bottom-up approach]]
- [[Restate an idea in your own words to truly learn it.]]
- [[Slow Burn vs Heavy Lift: Gradually collecting ideas over time and then tying them together is easier than starting from nothing.]]
- [[Creativity isn't about coming up with entirely new ideas; it's about seeing connections between existing ideas or using them for a new purpose.]]
- [[Recycle ideas you've used before to create new work.]]
## Related
- [[Happiness]]
- [[Software Development]]
- [[Productivity]]
- [[Min-Maxing]]
## References
[^01]: [[Modern Technical Writing]]
[[Decoupling]]
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