Editor's note: This was originally sent out in the newsletter on 08/17/18

When you do things a certain way, often you don’t think about how other people do things, and you just assume that the way you do it is how everyone does it. When I look back at my time in school, I wonder, didn’t everyone wait until the last minute to do big projects? While I know a lot of people that did operate this way, I know many of them that didn’t either. I often did a lot of my best work this way, and most of the time it didn’t matter because whatever I had done when it was due was what was going in. Having the constraint of the due date coupled with my procrastination would push me to do the work in bursts.

The other thing it helps me with is avoiding my obsessive perfectionist side. If I am left to my own devices, I will pick at things and do them over and over, analyze all the different parts and aspects and never finish. I think this is perfectly summed up in the quote “Perfect is the enemy of good.” That is a big part of the reason I decided to commit to putting out a newsletter every week. When I just loosely say I think that will happen, I slowly slip into giving myself excuses to put it off or dig into one big topic or not put anything out until I have the perfect design. (As an aside you will notice I am playing with the logo and the design of the newsletter regularly, let me know if you think something does or doesn’t work.)  I think constraints can help push anyone to try things in different ways; sometimes we are constrained by time, other times it might be resources. This will often force us to be more creative with our tasks; it pushes us sometimes to come up with ideas outside the box or to do things we usually wouldn’t try.

I have been thinking about this topic for a while now, and more recently it seems to be popping up everywhere — probably the Baader-Meinhof in action. Dave Grohl just released a new song he wrote called Play. The song is about 23 minutes long, and Dave plays every instrument in it. When he set out to record it he wanted to do all of it in one take, so he played every instrument all the way through, starting over if he made a mistake, one by one, each of them until he got through them all. This is someone who has conquered the music world, but he continues to put constraints on himself to see what else he can do, what challenge he can conquer next.  Sometimes I think if we all just set a few constraints on ourselves it can serve as the catalyst we need to push through to the next level.

Links

• It is always funny to see how technology has changed so much, but when the SNES came out the options for sounds were pretty limited. Within these constraints, some people still made beautiful music.
• In one more video link, Casey Neistat pushed himself to run over 100 miles in one week by putting constraints on himself.

Thanks for making it to the end again, as I said earlier I am playing around with the design as I am going along, let me know if you like something or dislike something. If you know someone that may enjoy this, you can always share it with them or wait for a few issues till it gets better. I am always up to hearing your comments on the issues.

Thanks for reading,
Mike

P.S. I know right, Friday again, but hey, my voice was gone earlier that week, and that totally affects my typing...