I would struggle saying nothing the whole time

My mentor once told me over breakfast, stop thinking and just write.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got.

Don’t over engineer it. Let your ideas come pouring out. They’ll tell you what they need from you. Organization comes later.

Same goes for team projects. There’s a tendency to add complexity because it feels like you’re contributing to the group.

But it might just be noise. One boss I had at a tech company was a zen master when it came to avoiding over engineering. Ash was notoriously silent during meetings. I used to think he was being rude, but then he told me one day, I only speak if I believe I can add value to the conversation.

That was a light bulb moment for me. The fact that he had such confidence in his contributions, that he could stay silent for twenty minutes before speaking, was incredible. Ash didn’t feel the need to over engineer anything. If he knew his words wouldn’t be an improvement on the silence, he stayed quiet.

Hell, in some meetings he didn’t say a word.

That would be hard for me. I’m not someone who needs to dominate the conversation, but I would struggle saying nothing the whole time, out of a fear of feeling useless and invisible.

Where are you most guilty of over engineering? Do you introduce complexity beyond necessity?