We love clever solutions.
That one-liner that solves a hard problem. The tool that does five things at once. The container that somehow fits perfectly in the drawer, like it was meant to be there.
Clever feels good. Feels smart. But clever doesn’t always last.
The more I build, write, and organize—at work, at home, in code, on paper—the more I’ve learned:
Clarity beats clever. Every time. No question.
Clever is flashy. Clarity is useful.
Clever makes you feel smart. Clarity makes everyone else feel smart. That’s what people remember. That’s what matters.
Savage
Adam Savage, Mythbuster, maker, and author of Every Tool’s a Hammer, has a segment on his YouTube channel Tested where he answers viewer questions.
In one of these Q&A videos, he talks about organization:
“If I didn’t have it right now, where would I look for it?
I don’t get any cleverer than that.
That first thought is the best thought.”
There’s a brutal honesty in that thought. No ego. No overthinking. Just care. Just clarity. It's stuck with me ever since. And that idea has become a hallmark of my own organization philosophies. (And documentation, too.)
Friction
Cleverness shows up at moments of friction—when something isn’t working, and you want to fix it in a smart, maybe even showy way. But clever solutions are often more about you than the problem.
Now when I feel that friction, I pause. Take a few seconds. Actually understand what’s broken. What’s ineffective, unclear, or missing?
Then: What’s a 10-second thing I can do right now to smooth it out?
Sometimes that means writing a label. Moving something over a few inches. Grouping a few loose pieces into a box.
It’s rarely dramatic. It’s always helpful.
Scrappiness
This is where I got stuck for a while. Because there’s a thin line—razor thin—between being scrappy and being clever.
Both require resourcefulness. Both work with what’s on hand. But the difference? It’s in the intent.
Scrappiness is transparent. You see the duct tape, the hot glue, the zip ties. You know what’s going on.
Cleverness hides things. It distracts. It disguises the fact that maybe… we’re not really sure what the solution is.
Scrappy says: this is what it is. Clever says: look what I made.
Scrappy invites collaboration. Clever awaits for applause.
Magic
In software, this happens all the time.
We talk about “magical” experiences—seamless flows, delightful animations, invisible complexity. And we should. Magic is part of the job!
But behind that magic? The implementation should feel obvious. Transparent. Logical. Clear.
Magic is for the user. Logic is for the team.
Invisible complexity is fine. But incomprehensible complexity? That’s just cleverness trying to cosplay as elegance.
Good
It’s easy to confuse clever with good. They’re not the same. Clever falls apart. Good gets refined into great.
(Adam said those things too.)
Clever is a moment. Good is a process.
Clever gives you a one-liner that technically works. Good gives you a system that gets tested, hardened, shared.
Clever thrives in hackathons. Good shows up on day 3 of debugging, when your teammate needs to fix a thing and isn’t scared to touch your code. Because behind this imperfect and perhaps inelegant solution, is stuff that other people can understand. Can work with. Can refine. And that is what lets the work keep going—without you standing over its shoulder.
I get it
Cleverness has its place. It’s fun. It’s inventive. Sometimes it leads to breakthroughs. But more often than not? It creates more puzzles than it solves.
When something’s clever, people say “Wow!”
When something’s clear, they say “Ahhh…”
And that’s the reaction I’m chasing more and more. Not admiration. Not magic. Just that quiet little nod that means: Yeah. I get it. That makes sense.
So here’s a quiet reminder to my future self— the next time I feel the urge to build something fancy. Something clever.
Instead of designing a real-time, cloud-synced, multi-calendar-aware, Todoist-integrated iOS shortcut with fallback logic and smart reminders across Apple Notes…
Maybe just write it down on a post-it note and stick it on a wall.
Dentist.
July 9th. 10AM.
Got it.