#104
Every time my night sleep is disturbed by mosquitoes, thanks to the fumigation folks spraying it right outside the building and into the drain so that all the mosquitoes come inside the house, I wake up angry. Outraged. Furious. It’s good in a way because then I get a lot of things done before 9am. But the downside is that I get tired soon enough after that. Well, power of constraints have its pros and cons. Doesn’t pretty much everything?
I always used to spend time learning lyrics of songs that I liked. That doesn’t always help though. I have been binge listening to T-Swift’s Folklore and Evermore albums for the past 5 days. Not knowing the lyrics to even a single song helped me finish my work faster and more efficiently. The lyrics didn’t interfere with my coding and brainstorming sessions. I’ll admit, it was nice. Somehow, it’s easier to implement this with English and a few languages I’m not fluent in, such as Kannada. It doesn’t work well with Hindi songs because even if I don’t know the lyrics, I can still understand what’s being sung. Maybe it's because in whatever songs I listen to, the singers sing coherently and/or slow enough for me to comprehend. Not so much with English songs. Besides, my volume is at an optimum level that I can just about hear the tune but not so loud that it disturbs me.
Technically, power of constraints is used in the context wherein limitations bring about more creativity than if you had complete freedom. For instance, composing a generic poem versus composing a limerick or a haiku. Haiku places limits on syllables to 5-7-5 while limerick limits your rhyming scheme to AABBA. It also restricts your ability to weave a story that starts with 'There once was a ...' Although the power of constraints has greater applications and implications in the corporate world, you can use it in myriad aspects of your day and life. For instance, I had a meeting scheduled at 8:30 in the morning one day where I had to finish preparing breakfast within 20 minutes. I was able to improvise as well as realize that I can work much faster than usual to get things done. Boy, that breakfast tasted even more delicious than regular days! :)
While all this is hunky-dory, sometimes freedom is good. And necessary. Constraints inhibit your ability to come up with all possible solutions if the given time frame is short. For instance, I have my upcoming Toastmasters speech on Saturday and I haven’t even started working on my script yet. The constraint is that the project is about 'Understanding your Leadership Style.' It’s restrictive for me at this stage because my examples aren’t that many. They aren’t varied either. I perhaps have a couple of 'older sister' examples of leadership and a few mentoring opportunities at work that I can knit into anecdotes with lessons learnt at the end.
But then again, power of constraints helped me with this blog post, so what am I complaining about? I told myself I’d write a post on anything that just came to my mind at that moment on a fresh Monday morning at 7am. What I wrote wouldn't be as important as the fact that I wrote. For 10 minutes, undisturbed, with a Pomodoro timer, and that’s it! Write and publish. No edits. No reviews.
Fin.
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