The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types and 2 molecules
Validate simplified systems by running them for at least two full cycles before declaring success, as one cycle cannot distinguish between successful simplification and lucky conditions.
When a system's operational debt register grows despite consistent repayment, shift from maintenance to simplification rather than increasing maintenance effort.
Follow the automation hierarchy of eliminate-simplify-automate in strict order, because automating waste entrenches it and automating complexity makes it brittle.
Start automation at the lowest-tech level that solves the problem (checklists, templates, calendar events) before considering platforms or scripts, because simplicity reduces maintenance burden.
Execute all identified cuts during the audit session itself rather than creating a deferral list, as audit outputs are decisions implemented immediately not intentions documented for later.
Document the purpose each category serves by completing the sentence 'this category exists to [do what] for [whom]' to distinguish functional infrastructure from inherited furniture.
For each intermediate level in a hierarchy, test whether removing it and promoting its children one level up would lose meaningful organization—if not, flatten it, because unnecessary levels are pure navigational tax.
Distinguish structural hierarchy depth (encoding real containment or inheritance) from bureaucratic depth (added for perceived tidiness) by asking what would break if you removed each level—keep only levels whose removal would destroy actual functional boundaries.
Before adding another level of nesting, first attempt to flatten the hierarchy one level and use tags or links to preserve relationships, as deep hierarchies are more expensive to maintain than flat hierarchies with rich cross-references.
When navigation to any item requires remembering a path more than three levels deep, audit whether each nesting level provides unique decision-making value—if you cannot explain what decision a level enables, eliminate that level as noise.
When building knowledge graphs, limit relationship type taxonomies to 5-7 types rather than attempting comprehensive ontological coverage, because classification overhead beyond this threshold produces diminishing informational returns while increasing maintenance cost.
When an agent fires below 80% of expected opportunities over 30 days, reduce it to the simplest executable version before adding any complexity, because unreliable agents cannot be improved through sophistication.
Design minimal viable agents to execute in under two minutes with zero preparation before attempting multi-step sequences, because automaticity requires low activation energy and activation energy must be minimized before sophistication is added.
Treat simplification to one or two priorities as an emergency protocol to execute during overwhelm, not as a permanent lifestyle—scale back up to your full three-to-five item stack once capacity recovers.
Cut recurring low-stakes decision domains to 3-7 options maximum, because this range matches working memory capacity for effective comparison without overload.