I love a blank sheet of paper sitting on my desk in front of me.  It has so much possibility.  But as soon as I start to draw, I have begun to limit the potential of the paper.

Is this a bad thing?

No, in fact I believe the constraints are an important part of creating something remarkable.  If you are working on a project or even on your life, you would be wise to occasionally put rigid constraints in place.  I think you will find, counter intuitively, that your creativity will actually expand.

Two stories from the world of business that illustrate how constraints based innovation leads to breakthrough products.

Sony Walkman - born from a block of wood.

In its day, the Sony Walkman was a cool, must have electronic gadget.  Basically it was a very compact tape player that was portable and could be clipped to your shorts when you were skating.  (see the pic, it wasn't that small by todays standards but it was quite revolutionary at the time).

The story of how the Walkman came to be is a fascinating study in constraints based innovation.  The founder of Sony was visiting California and observed all the people skating along the beach (pre-rollerblade days) and noticed how they were clutching some rather bulky radios and tapes players.  He imagined that a smaller tape player would be more convenient for the skaters so he carved a block of wood the size and shape of the player he had in mind.

When he returned to Japan, he handed this block of wood to his engineers and asked them to make a tape player that size.  In essence, he handed them a constraint, which in this case was a block of wood much smaller than any tape player on the market.  And, within the confines of this space, the Sony Walkman was born and became a huge consumer hit.

Apple - buttons?, no thank you -

Steve Jobs hates buttons.  Buttons on his shirt, buttons on devices, buttons period.  His belief is that buttons are aesthetically displeasing.  So his constraint on design is to eliminate as many buttons as possible.  The Apple mouse is legendary in that it only has one button and the newest Apple mouse has none.  The Ipod is such a success because the engineers at Apple had to figure out how to make the player work with as few buttons (the goal being zero) as possible.  This is an artificial constraint, imposed by Steve Jobs, that has lent itself to the success of the Ipod and other Apple products.

In your current project or in your life today, what constraints can you add that will lead to a higher order of thinking?  An easy one is time limits.  Just limit the time you have to do something and while it may stress you out, it can lead to some breakthrough thinking.  Or if you are building or designing something, think about how you could eliminate 50% of the fasteners in the device.   Or driving to work, what route could get you there with the fewest left turns? 

We think we want freedom from constraints.  But constraints can lead to breakthrough ideas and products.  Go ahead, limit yourself today!

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