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panda_incognito's review
3.0
People in engineering or social science fields would benefit from reading this book in its entirety, but I skimmed through it, because I didn't need the level of scientific or experiential detail shared here. I would have been satisfied with a long-form article on the topic, but am glad that I skimmed through this to pick up on big ideas.
shrey_sinh's review
3.0
Lao Tzu said, “To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.” This is the crux of the message the book intends to deliver. In “Four Thousand Weeks,” Oliver Burkeman delivers the message of finitude of human lives and legacies. The intent of this piece by Leidy Klotz can be coupled with that of Oliver Burkeman’s to bring home the point that lives are finite and unnecessary things or ideas need to be subtracted often as well.
Leidy Klotz, in the first section of the book, explores the reasons for our affinities towards addition. He explores evolutionary, societal, civilizational, and spiritual angles towards our love for addition. In the later section of the book, the author discusses examples where subtraction can be easily found and implemented, benefits of subtraction, scaling subtraction, and wisdom of subtraction.
Leidy introduces the idea of subtraction at the very beginning with the example of a bridge in one of the US states, which is not a familiar example to the world beyond the United States, and a better example would have served the purpose better. Leidy also devotes a huge section of the book to exploring the reasons why we add more often and that could have been the subject of some other book for the better. Leidy discusses a number of examples to underscore the benefits of subtraction, but the fundamentals could have been explored more. For example, the author could have brought to the general public what design fundamentals suggest about minimal design or what renowned scientists suggests about the ‘science of few’. Also, the author could have devoted more sections to explaining how the skill of subtraction can be learnt apart from conscious decision making. The author could have studied how great artists choose subtraction over addition, how scientists try to break complicated scientific advancements into basic fundamentals, how designers design a minimalist design, and how corporates prosper with few.
‘Subtract’ aims to deliver an important message and that message should be incorporated as it is an alternative thinking mechanism as well but the entire skill-set cannot be sufficiently learnt from this book alone, and the readers might have to wander to learn more about subtraction. For the message, the book can be given a read.
Leidy Klotz, in the first section of the book, explores the reasons for our affinities towards addition. He explores evolutionary, societal, civilizational, and spiritual angles towards our love for addition. In the later section of the book, the author discusses examples where subtraction can be easily found and implemented, benefits of subtraction, scaling subtraction, and wisdom of subtraction.
Leidy introduces the idea of subtraction at the very beginning with the example of a bridge in one of the US states, which is not a familiar example to the world beyond the United States, and a better example would have served the purpose better. Leidy also devotes a huge section of the book to exploring the reasons why we add more often and that could have been the subject of some other book for the better. Leidy discusses a number of examples to underscore the benefits of subtraction, but the fundamentals could have been explored more. For example, the author could have brought to the general public what design fundamentals suggest about minimal design or what renowned scientists suggests about the ‘science of few’. Also, the author could have devoted more sections to explaining how the skill of subtraction can be learnt apart from conscious decision making. The author could have studied how great artists choose subtraction over addition, how scientists try to break complicated scientific advancements into basic fundamentals, how designers design a minimalist design, and how corporates prosper with few.
‘Subtract’ aims to deliver an important message and that message should be incorporated as it is an alternative thinking mechanism as well but the entire skill-set cannot be sufficiently learnt from this book alone, and the readers might have to wander to learn more about subtraction. For the message, the book can be given a read.
kelatta's review
1.0
Interesting premise, that humans, for a number of reasons, consistently neglect subtraction in favor of addition as a path to positive change and innovation. But he fails entirely to deliver on the potential. Keeps repeating the same "lessons" without good illustrations of how these can be applied. And then he completely lost me when he went on for what felt like endless pages about the Lorax and his preschool-aged son. Big disappointment. This would have been better as an article or essay.
lucialater's review
informative
reflective
4.0
Pretty interesting research and the examples were cool. I am a big math nerd so this was fun even though it was more philosophical/design oriented- and I will definitely consider subtraction more following this!!
rstegema's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.5
I genuinely appreciate the idea of a "stop-doing" list and I hope I can use the information from this book to simplify my life a bit through the art of subtraction. At the very least I will be more aware that subtraction is an option!