No, constraint will not bore you to death - if you apply it in the right way.

Hey smart human!

Let’s talk about constraint.

You know you need it to do your best work.

But…your brain may think it is the most boring, suffocating thing in the world.

That you will die of ennui if you have to give up the multitude of things that you want to pursue.

That it will kill your creativity.

That constraint is for the ‘beige’ amongst us.

This way of looking at constraint involves a category error.

You do not need to constrain your entire being. That would be insane.

You want to apply constraint to a very specific area of your life and/or work - and in a specific dimension.

You can constrain yourself in your drinking - so you can run a marathon.

You can constrain the amount of hours you work - so you can spend more time playing games with your kids.

You can constrain yourself to one field or topic for a while - so you can enjoy diving deeper and deeper.

Well thought-out, locally applied constraint is a thing of beauty.

It’s a place to play in, a shrinking that paradoxically creates expansion.

Artists have known this for centuries - the poet William Wordsworth cleverly dedicated the constraint of a sonnet to constraint itself:

“Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;

And hermits are contented with their cells;

And students with their pensive citadels;

Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,

Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,

High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,

Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:

In truth the prison, into which we doom

Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,

In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound

Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;

Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)

Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

Should find brief solace there, as I have found.”

So this weekend, if you feel the weight of too much liberty, consider constraint.

You can apply it in lots of different dimensions.

Place.

Time.

Focus.

Matter.

As in: where you are, how much time you spend doing a thing, where your time/attention goes, and the amount and type of physical things that get to be in your life.

Think about it.

In which area of your life could constraint be extremely beneficial?

And what type of constraint do you want to start with?

Here are some examples to get your creative juices flowing.

Place: consider trying to stay put in one spot for 20 minutes - without your phone.

Time: break up boring tasks, creative work or anything else that feels intimidating into smaller blocks that you can easily finish. Instead planning 2 hours of writing and never even starting, how about 15 mins? How would you approach your writing if you only had those 15 mins every day? And how much easier would it be to actually get it done?

Focus: how many tabs are open in your brain right now? As in, books you’re reading, projects you’ve got going, and so on? How about putting a cap on the tabs and parking some of them so you can better focus on the rest?

Matter: do your things comfort, soothe, inspire, excite you? Or are they more of a distraction or even an energy drain? If it’s the latter, consider constraining the amount of things you allow into your (work)spaces.

Again - consider constraint creatively.

This is all about you creating the perfect place to play.