Jail as a Service (JaaS) — How Going To Jail Can Make You Successful?

“I’m starting to learn Spanish.” said my friend John to me.

me: “That’s really cool man! Spanish is a nice language! It is easy to learn, and spoken by many people.”

me: “But wait. Did you already finish the programming course you started last week?”

John: “Not yet. I paused it for now. I thought I would start learning Spanish now, then continue programming later.”

me: “But you wanted to change careers to become a developer. How will learning Spanish help you here?”

Awkward silence…

Shiny Object Syndrome

In this day and age, we suffer from having too much of everything.

Too many services to choose from. Too many choices. Too many right answers to our questions.

We have notifications popping up on our phones urging us to check things out, ads everywhere screaming for our attention, social media platforms doing all what they can to keep us stuck as long as possible on their platforms.

The result is: you get exposed to hundreds of ideas every day, most of them are very beautiful and shiny.

That’s is a good thing to have for somebody who knows how to manage their time and will power.

But what if your Willpower has no power?

The answer is: you will simply start doing the pendulum dance.

In the morning you will be that guy who wants to start a business and change the world. By noon you will have ideas to travel the world, and by night you will think of starting that course to improve your skills only to realize that the day is gone and you’ve neither started on something nor even came up with a plan.

And it goes on.

But what if we can break this cycle? What if at your peak motivation you can lock yourself in, hold yourself accountable, and start executing on your dream without looking back?

Success vs. failure

The biggest differentiator between successful people and average people is the ability to start on something, and persist on doing it until they achieve good results.

But how can you do that when you are flooded with all these distractions every day?

Willpower should be your friend.

If you have the strong willpower to start executing on your dream and follow-through, you will reach your goals.

The good thing about willpower is that it is a muscle, you can train to make it bigger. But some people come built-in with adequate willpower to persist on their pursuits. This might be related to the way they were raised and/or their life experiences.

But the sad part is; there are others who start their careers with little to no willpower. These poor people are loyal customers to the shiny object syndrome.

They will start on something, feel excited about it, but once the shine of the new thing fades away, they will look around to find another shiny thing to start on. In fact, they don’t even need to look around. The mere fact that they live in this age is a warrant that they will keep being bombarded with new trends, new ideas, etc.

And that is the shortest path to failure.

Shiny object syndrome patients need urgent help. And one way we can support them is …

Jail as a Service (JaaS)

Going to a real jail is no good idea. But if we would mention one good thing about being in jail it would be: having zero distractions.

In jail, there are no friends, no family, no spouse, no kids, no expectations from you, no social media, no phones, no screens, no nothing.

All what you have is you.

Imagine how efficient you would be if you enter your cell, with no distractions, and you are given the book that you have to study for your exam!

You, alone, in a cell, with one mission, and only what you need to achieve it. Imagine that…

So why don’t we start building jails for normal good citizens, so that they can focus and become successful?

If you put yourself in the shoes of John (my friend from above), you would do that:

• You figure out you want to learn programming.
• You put a plan and determine when you want to start.
• You buy a book or some DVDs that have the programming course on.
• You shop around for a nice jail to spend the next 2 months.
• You book your jail.
• You inform everyone that you are going to jail for the next 2 months.

In jail you will only be allowed to read that programming book and watch the DVDs as much as you like.

Once you sign the contract with a jail, you have to start at the designated date and obey the rules inside, otherwise, you will pay big fines.

You will be given a pen and paper, and that’s it.

The typical day in jail goes like:

• You wake up at 7 am.
• You have breakfast & coffee.
• You sit from 8 to 12 in your cell. With your book and DVDs. You are allowed to go out for fresh air breaks at certain times.
• Then lunch break from 12 to 1 pm.
• You start in the second half of the day from 1 pm to 6 pm.
• Again you spend it at your cell with some fresh air breaks in between.
• After 6 pm, everybody can go out and have dinner together and do whatever they want afterward.
• Everybody goes to sleep at 11 pm.
• and repeat.

The idea might sound scary at first, but if you examine it closely, it is just like a normal day that is focused on one goal.

Besides helping shiny object syndrome patients to focus, jails will give their in-mates the chance to make great life friends with other inmates who also came there to improve their lives and achieve success.

Custom JaaS(es)

You don’t need to go to jail full-time. Innovative jails should offer different plans that suit different customer needs.

For example, if you have a day job, you can apply for a part-time jail, where you are obliged to start at 6 pm every day and spend 5 hours daily focused on your target, sleep, then go to work in the morning.

This idea is not new. Athletes do this all the time when they prepare for a competition. They “camp” somewhere away from their homes, family and friends, and focus only on the job that needs to be done.

What I’m suggesting is to democratize that. To make it available to everybody.

Version 2.0 of that would be niche jails, where there will be different jails focusing on different niches.

So jails for software development, for language learning, for business bootstrapping, etc.

You might find the word “Camp” more friendly than “Jail”, but to me, the word Jail depicts the picture and sets the expectations very clearly.

You go to the “jail”, you follow the rules. You will have very limited choices, and it is up to you whether you spend your cell time sleeping or finishing the jobs that need to be done, but you will not have other distractions.

You might call that a “concentration camp”.

A positive one that lets you concentrate on things that matter, avoid distractions and become a better you.

To me, this is the best way for ambitious people who struggle with distractions to force themselves to do the work.

In this age, distractions will only increase. Things will keep getting shinier.

And the best way to avoid shiny things is to move away from them.

So would you go to jail?