Dr Seuss And The Power Of Constraints

How often have you thought; “if only we had more money, more time, a bigger team then think what we could deliver?”

Plans quickly become complex and grandiose. People feel smart around complexity, or at least they think they do. The reality is that there is real power in constraints and simplicity, it makes for an honesty about what you’re delivering.

Constraint in writing is certainly a ‘thing’. Whether it’s a six word memoir (of which Hemingway’s famous tale is a great example: For sale: baby shoes, never worn”), a Haiku or even a 140 word tweet.

And it was constraints that finally brought Dr Seuss his fame. Success didn’t come easily to Dr. Seuss, his first book was rejected 27 times before being published and even then it didn’t make much money. But later he was challenged to write a book for beginning readers with a list of just 350 words and a restriction that the book could contain no more than 250 different words.

Rhyming ‘Cat’ and ‘hat’ led to the popular The Cat in the Hat book, and he went on to write Green Eggs and Ham using only 50 words as part of a $50 bet.

So the next time you think you need more time, money or people think again. Can the problem be ‘re-framed’ and more successfully re-worked with the constraints you currently have? Often the need for ‘more’ is brought on by undisciplined thinking when resources are in abundance.

When I meet with the founders of a new company, my advice is almost always, ‘Do fewer things.’ It’s true of partnerships, marketing opportunities, anything that’s taking up your time. The vast majority of things are distractions, and very few really matter to your success.

Ev Williams

Learn to love constraints for they offer structure, faster feedback loops, focus and clear goals for a team to rally around. Stop thinking about what you don’t have and work with what you do…. it can be the best route to success.