EDITOR’S NOTE:

When Apple designed the beautifully simple iPod, with its minimalist interface, they must have faced a conundrum: How do you keep things simple when there are always other important features you want to add, new buttons that add so much more functionality?

In the software world, this is known as “feature creep” — new features are added and added until things are no longer simple, but complex.

In the world of simplicity, things are never as simple as they seem. Things tend to grow more complex over time — simplicity takes hard work to maintain.

How does Apple keep its minimalist interface if it wants to keep adding new features? How does the designer of a simple WordPress theme keep things simple if he wants to add new features for his users?

How do you declutter a room and keep it from getting cluttered again? How do you simplify your work routine — and keep it simple?

The short answer is thoughtful reduction, and routine editing. The long answer is below, in six steps:

1. Be very clear about your mission. This is crucial — without it, simplicity for simplicity’s sake is worthless. What are you trying to deliver to the customer? What are you trying to accomplish for yourself? Apple could keep its interface simple because it knew what user experience it was trying to deliver: A simple way for people to listen to their music. Know your mission, and the rest is details.

2. Figure out what matters most. This is really the logical progression of Step 1 — what is most important to delivering on your mission? If your mission is to have a simple room for sleeping and dressing, what items do you need? A bed, a dresser, maybe a simple closet for hanging clothes, and perhaps a mirror. That’s all you need in a simple bedroom with those two purposes. Not tons of storage space or chairs or bookshelves or anything else.

3. Thoughtful reduction. This is taken from John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity — after you’ve figured out what’s important, reduce the rest thoughtfully. It doesn’t really need more explanation than that.

4. Set limits. Once you’ve gotten down to simplicity, setting limits is a great way to force yourself to stay simple. Basically, you set limits on whatever you’re trying to keep simple: the number of buttons on a device, the number of features in a program, the number of pieces of furniture or clothing or emails you answer or tasks you set out to do each day. With a limit, you force yourself to choose, and force yourself to eliminate the non-essential rather than allowing things to grow more complex.

5. Organize. As Maeda said, “Organization makes a system of few appear simpler.” Group similar things together intelligently, and aim for a small number of groups. If you have 20 things, and you organize them well, you now might have only 4 groups — which makes things simpler. Be sure the grouping, however, doesn’t make things more complicated.

6. Edit routinely. Set a regular interval for what I call “editing” (I’m a writer — it’s how I see things). So if you want to keep your to-do list simple, you could set a reminder in your calendar to prune your to-do list down to 10 things (an example of a limit) each Monday (for example). If you want to keep a room decluttered, set a calendar reminder to declutter it every two months. If you’re designing software or a WordPress theme, edit before each release.

Read more about simplicity and productivity in Leo’s best-selling book, The Power of Less, or follow him on Twitter.