Research in a range of fields, from organizational behaviour to psychology and management to medicine, tells us that common sense and simple tools often outperform complicated routines. Simplicity does not mean the absence of sophistication. It is about finding clarity amid chaos.Our brains have 10,000 times as many neurons as an ant. Yet, ants organize themselves to build complex structures and provide food for entire colonies. Just as we farm cows for milk, ants rear aphids for their honeydew. They survive floods by making a living raft that remains afloat with the help of air trapped between their bodies.Sherlock Holmes once told his assistant Dr Watson that the world is full of obvious things that we fail to observe.Read about these, and many more anecdotes, in Simple Thinking.