The Magic of Constraints
Most of us dream of unlimited resources and complete freedom, but more freedom isn’t the solution - it’s the problem. When every option is available, decisions become overwhelming. Even worse, without boundaries, Parkinson’s Law says that work expands infinitely.
I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. Early in my career I could spend weeks tinkering with a single feature, building multiple versions of it to get it just right. Only when the investors of the first startup I worked at started becoming impatient, did I and the rest of the team start making real progress.
That external pressure - the constraint of time and money running out - forced us to focus on what really mattered. Suddenly, we stopped debating the perfect shade of blue for our buttons and started shipping features that users actually needed. Our productivity didn’t just double, it tripled. We accomplished more in the following two months than we had in the previous six.
This tempo was neither sustainable nor healthy, but the power of setting tight constraints was something that has stuck with me. And as I’ll share later, it’s a tool anyone can use to dramatically improve their own productivity. When I went out searching for more information, I found thousands of examples of constraints leading to great things.
For example, Doom II was famously created in just ten months - an impossibly short time for a major game release in 1994. id Software’s lead programmer John Carmack set this aggressive deadline to capitalize on the original Doom’s success. The constraint forced the team to work with existing technology rather than building new engines, resulting in a game that many fans consider superior to the original.
Deadlines, like the one that shaped Doom II’s development, are just one way to create productive constraints. Another tool I’ve picked up from my time studying agile methodologies is WIP limits. WIP stands for Work In Progress, and it’s exactly what it sounds like.
If you have a kanban board, this might mean setting a limit on one or more of the columns. I did exactly that at Baby Journey when too many features got stuck in the Needs Review state. By limiting the amount of work waiting for review I forced the team to focus on helping each other finishing features, rather than starting new work.
This subtle shift from starting to finishing leads to more work getting done faster. Doing fewer things at the same time also means you can do them with higher quality. It’s counterintuitive, but by deliberately limiting ourselves, we actually expand our capabilities.
Another technique to set constraints is a version of Maker’s schedule Manager’s schedule*. By blocking off time, say 8-12, to do the important work you’ve given yourself space to do that thing. But you’ve also constrained the time you have everything else.
This is exactly what I do. What I’ve found remarkable is how, by cutting the time I have for Other Stuff in half, a lot of what previously seemed important suddenly doesn’t feel important at all.
To round this off, I want you to do a little exercise. On your next project, regardless of how long you think it will take, ask yourself “How could I do this in less than half the time?” If your answer is “I can’t”, try harder. I know you can.
Think about what you could cut. Maybe some part of it could be done later? Maybe something isn’t essential? Maybe you can change your process slightly to remove a bottleneck? Maybe there are a few meetings that you can cut?
Even if you don’t reach exactly 50% I promise you that just by doing the exercise you will find something that will at least make you a little bit faster. And the more times you do this exercise, the more you train your mind to set creative constraints and cut the waste.
And if you are brave enough to do this exercise, I would love to hear from you what you found. Just hit reply and let me know what it was.
* Maker’s Schedule refers to longer blocks of deep work, while Manager’s Schedule is a world where more meetings means more value. Read the full article here: https://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
