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Defining Sludge
Sludge consists of frictions that separate us from something that we want. If you find yourself dealing with red tape, whether it’s having to go somewhere and wait an hour, or fill out a 30-page form, or to try to understand small print, it feels not like red tape. That term doesn’t refer to anything evocative. And it might not even be in any way like red tape.
It’s like a kind of gooey viscous substance in which your feet are stuck and you can’t get out. So the term sludge kind of connects both because of how it sounds and because of what it means with the experience of these frictions, that prevent people often from getting access to something that could change their lives.
So it might be that in order to get a loan, you need to fill out paperwork and it might be 14 pages. And each of the pages might have really small font. And we might, three pages in, give up and think I can’t handle this, or I’ll handle this tomorrow and tomorrow never comes. So think of the 11 billion hours in paperwork requirements that the US government, according to a recent count, imposes on the American people, 11 billion hours of paperwork burdens — that’s sludge.
When you fill out your tax forms, you are encountering sludge. Sometimes it’s intolerable and sometimes it’s not so bad, but in any case, it’s sludge. If you need to get a driver’s license, you will encounter some sludge. It’s justified. You shouldn’t get a driver’s license just because you want one, but in some places and at some times the sludge is relatively modest. There isn’t a lot of it. And in other cases, there is a ton.
To get healthcare, sometimes you need to navigate sludge. You might have to wait for weeks or months to get a test for your child, for example, who might have a problem. Or it might be that in order to cancel a subscription to something you have to deal with sludge, meaning wait on the phone for half an hour. Oh, an hour. Oh, an hour and a half.
Sometimes getting someone’s attention to complain about a product or some kind of maltreatment by maybe your state or local government — the real problem isn’t the problem, it’s fixing the problem, which is a world of sludge.
Reducing Sludge: A Case Study from COVID-19
COVID-19 created a sense of urgency about sludge reduction. Once the pandemic hit, people in companies and people in governments started thinking, can we reduce the sludge? By this I mean, people need medical help. Can we reduce the barriers that patients often face in getting medical help?
Meaning, can we say you don’t have to come into the office? You can make a phone call. Or saying, we’ll do it by televideo, telemedicine, rather than coming in. Or by saying, do you really have to fill out all these forms that we normally require, or can we make it easier for you by saying, you don’t have to fill out any form at all or you have to fill out a form that’s really short and online and simple. That has been done by many governments.
Other governments have said, things that normally would require a printed-out form and something to be mailed in now will require an online form. And while this seems tiny, it often can be hugely important to people’s lives because for them to click, click, click is easy amidst a pandemic or easy-ish. Whereas for them to print, print, print, and go, go, go is not so easy amidst a pandemic.
And both companies and governments have seen that many of the sludge requirements that they’ve imposed for years actually definitely don’t make sense in the context of a pandemic. And I hope what they’re starting to learn is they don’t make sense even outside of a pandemic.
And a lot of the pandemic-induced sludge reduction, let’s call it, has had a beautifully bottom-up character where a lot of it hasn’t been the leader of a country saying let’s cut sludge or let’s make it easier for people. But ordinary people in private companies, in banks, in hospitals, in schools, in governments, people who are bureaucrats, not at a high level saying, do we really have to require this sludge? And frequently the answer has been, no.