Constraints Innovate

One isn't very clever, nor is one creative. The only reason one could do lots of things, is sensible constraints. To brainstorm ideas from nothingness, almost all of one's idea are crazy, if not impossible. Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? Nah, Maximum Viable Product, without constraints. It's therefore important to set sufficient constraints on a project, but not more.

By "project", one do not just means working project, but other things as well. It could just be an activity, brainstorming for a solution; or it could do with life problems, and how to solve them.

Let's look from work perspective. When you participate in hackathons or competitions, they asks for "do anything related to this topic." That's it! That's the only constraint. It's really difficult to build upon a single topic for oneself, as brainstorming without a solid base means creating something totally new from scratch, or with lots of researches, integrating various ideas into a single perspective. It's not doable, just it requires more time to trigger a light bulb and start working on the project.

With a more constraint project, specifying what you should work on and what shouldn't, it narrows where you could search, and directs you towards a direction that the outcome wants. For the former you could do anything you want, and what you did might not be solving others' problem... while the latter, it's more probable it relates to whatever the competition organizer wants. An existing constraint directs the outcome of the project, to solve a single issue.

You might think, constraint limits the sky, limits our creativity, and limits what we can do. Nope, you're wrong! Constraint innovates! When a plane crashes and sunk beneath the sea, why can rescue forces locate the debris and black boxes within weeks? Because of constraint. They calculated within which boundaries the plane most likely sunk, and do a thorough search in that area. If they cannot find, either because their search aren't inch by inch (searches too quickly and sparsely that it misses) or the waves might wash the debris away (which they'll expand their circles of search). No search party says, "it might be anywhere on Earth" and send out everyone to search through the whole world, do they? The question is:

What can we do given these constraints? How can we make things happen given these limits?

You'll be surprised by the creativity when sufficient constraint is enforced, how people will go around here and there, finding loopholes between constraints, to solve certain problems. Such creativity might lead to even better solution that without a constraint! Furthermore, participants could stay focused with the task at hand rather than trying to innovate something from nothingness.

It's not to say innovate from nothingness is not good. It's just that, groundbreaking innovation mostly happens with constraints than without. Those without constraints mostly leaves their name on history; but how many of these person are there, compared to how many people are alive on the world when they're still alive (or now if they're currently alive)? If only 1 out of a billion people could make such groundbreaking innovation, from nothingness, how do most others make innovation and help the world? Via constraints.

Albeit, innovations with constraints are easier to happen. We see it everyday, from large companies that might lack certain materials to produce certain components re-think how they can use other methods or materials to produce the same effect; to individuals facing an issue, which constraints them from doing certain things, and trying to solve that issue via another way. Innovation with constraints happen more often, and it's not a menu only for the top guys, the cleverest, most genius of them all. Almost anyone with an average mind could innovate with constraints; who says someone never meet a problem (constraint) in their live and solve it somehow?

Constraints to a certain point innovates, but not afterwards. Too narrow a constraint and creativity starts dropping exponentially. It's especially true if the constraint is "this is how much you can do" rather than "this is what you cannot do"; the former restricts you to a few pathways, while the latter only block some paths out of a lot more paths to the destination. Lay out your constraints to lay out your directions, not to act as gatekeepers!

Conclusion

So starting today, provide some constraints on whatever you're working on, your life, etc. If others don't provide you the constraint, giving yourself too much freedom, you starts to feel overwhelmed, that's the time for constraining yourself and what you want to do.

Epilogue

Ok, it's not a perfect ending. It's only 2 sentences, anyhow.

Beware that constraints are not restrictions. There are things that aren't constraint, but restrictions. Restrictions prevent you from doing something, either because you're scared to do, or because you're scared of the truth after doing so, or because your parents are scared (like going parachuting, you might die, so your parents are scared) hence laying restrictions, and these scareness spreads easily, blunt the sharpness in your curiosity to expand your circles of comfort, rather than innovate. Beware of these differences!

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