"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
This quote perfectly encapsulates how we work and build products at Routinery.
When people think of a "growing company," they often imagine addition: more meetings, more layers of reporting, more flashy features. But at Routinery, we walk the opposite path.
We remove complexity "ruthlessly."Because we believe our focus should not be on filling the space, but on emptying it to reveal what truly matters.
Stop the "Busywork"
If you’ve worked in an office, you know the fatigue that comes from hollow tasks.Endless meetings where everyone gathers just to share updates, approvals for the sake of approvals, and late nights spent polishing slide decks rather than improving the content.
At Routinery, we don't consider this "work." We call it "clutter."
Ian, our CPO and PM, always emphasizes this point:"Our time is finite. We must spend this precious resource solving users' problems, not maintaining internal procedures."
So, we constantly ask ourselves:"Is this meeting absolutely necessary to solve the problem?""What would actually break in our product if we removed this step?"
If the goal is simply to share information, we replace the meeting with a 10-minute written update. We gather face-to-face only when we need to make critical decisions.
The 10% Restoration Rule: The Aesthetic of Subtraction
Our standard for subtraction is bold. We cut away until it feels almost uncomfortable. We have a saying at Routinery: "If you don't need to restore at least 10% of what you removed, you haven't removed enough."
Think of a gardener pruning a tree. If you leave the lush leaves out of pity, the sunlight cannot penetrate, and the tree eventually withers. You must fearlessly cut away the branches for the trunk to grow thick and for nutrients to reach the highest points.
Work is the same. Only when you strip away the inertia of habit and unnecessary formalities does the "real problem" we need to solve become clearly visible.
Our Product Needs "Subtraction," Too
This spirit of "Less is More" is not just about how we work; it is deeply embedded in our product philosophy.
Many apps plaster features everywhere to keep users engaged flashy badges, complex social feeds, endless notifications. But we thought differently:"Our users are already overwhelmed by the complexity of daily life. Should we really add more complexity to their day?"
That’s why Routinery’s UX is surprisingly simple.We have removed every element that might distract a user in that brief moment of opening the app and starting a routine. Even if a feature is "Nice-to-have," if it is not "Must-have," we boldly let it go.
Our simplicity is not a lack of features. It is a carefully engineered courtesy, designed to let users focus solely on "themselves."
Simplicity is Not Laziness
Please don't misunderstand. "Less is More" is not an excuse to be lazy or do less. It is quite the opposite.
A sculptor does not create a statue by adding clay, but by chipping away the stone to reveal the form hidden within. That process requires far more thought and an obsessive attention to detail than simply adding more.
Obsessively pouring the time and energy saved from eliminating formalities into creating the most value for our users—that is the weight of simplicity we pursue.
If you are tired of hiding behind complex procedures and want to confront the essence of problems head-on;If you want to stop doing "busywork" and start doing "real work" that changes the world, Routinery is the place for you.
✒️Editor's Note
Routinery chooses 'Less' to achieve 'More.' We prune not just our meetings, but our product features to protect our users' focus. We are looking for colleagues who understand the depth of this simplicity.