A rule’s original problem may disappear while the people inconvenienced by its solution remain.

Rules outlive the situations that produced them. The abuse it was written to stop has ended, the shortage has passed, the risk has been designed out, and the requirement continues to cost people time every day. Because the cost is small and spread widely and the rule is nobody’s responsibility, it can persist indefinitely without ever being defended.

Once a year, take one recurring requirement in your work or life and ask what it was for and whether that is still true. If nobody can answer, that is itself an answer worth acting on. Removing an obsolete rule is one of the highest-value things anybody with authority can do.