Boost Creativity through Constraints

In the writing world, many writers talk about, brag about, and state how many words they are writing per day.

I'm one of those writers that the word count method doesn't work. I found that if I write to word count, my quality of writing dramatically goes down because I am tired (or lazy) and rush to get those words on the page to finish the task.

Instead, what I do to keep my work at its best is track the time, not words. This way, I am held accountable for producing, but I'm not rushing the work to get a certain number of words on a page.

Playing with Self-Imposed Constraints

Did you get what I did? I played with my self-imposed constraint in an effort to increase my productivity. First, I tried what everyone else was doing, realize the pitfalls in it (for me) then tweaked the process until it worked for my personality.

Constraints Increases Productivity, Creativity, and Possibility in Business

Playing with the concept of constraints can dramatically increase your productivity, your creativity, and the possibilities in your business. For example, have you ever found that the days that you're about ready to go on a vacation, you're able to magically get tons more things done? That's the magic of having a constraint—this time a hard deadline.

In the Fast Company article, "Proof That Constraints Can Actually Make You More Creative," by Bella Beth Cooper, she highlights various business stories of people using constraints. Each story highlights how a business was helped by the constraints, and having that container forced them to think out of the box.

One of the reasons constraints can be helpful is that when there are too many choices, it is easy to become paralyzed.

One way to get out of being paralyzed is jumping into a deadline where you have to make a choice. This will more likely force you to pull into instinct.

When you dive into instinct, then you're using the concept that Malcolm Gladwell made famous in his book, Blink. The main thesis of this book was based on his research that when you first assess something, you actually have a lot more wisdom, more knowledge, you can harness.

By creating constraints that require you to harness more of the wisdom of your instinct, you are without realizing it becoming more productive. It gets you out of the land of indecision and into the land of jumping in, trying things out, and tweaking your process.

If you want to have more productivity, creativity, and the possibility of what you can do in your business start looking at how to play with constraints and what can help move you forward.