Are you useful?

15 Mar 2023 — 1 min read

I preach about the miracle of constraints and their ability to boost creativity in anyone. But I see un-useful constraints being used all the time by creators, so I wanted to make a small list of examples to clarify what a useful constraint looks like.

There’s only two real constraints when publishing anything online:

What is useful to your audience?

Useful:

Getting to the point
Finding obscure ideas, people, and resources for solving specific challenges
Finding entertaining ideas, people, and resources
Providing more value than you ask for in return
Having a consistent publishing schedule

Not useful:

Over-designing to seem professional rather than human
Over-formatting for topic: Podcasting like you’re on the radio in the 90s (you don’t need segments)
Over-formatting for style: Emailing or blogging with sections for links versus essays (readers don’t care)

What is useful for you?

Useful:

Time blocking your work
Having a consistent publishing schedule
Limiting word counts
Limiting when or how your work is published
Using process-based templates and automation
Being imperfect and humanizing your publishing (versus “personalizing”)
Ridding yourself of any work unrelated to your objective (like stressing over photos when consistent writing is your goal)

Not useful:

Using templates and automation that detract from your publishing voice
Being overly acceptable to everyone
Limiting or expanding your publishing based on SEO or trends

As you can see, there’s some overlap in those examples. When you find a constraint that works for you and your audience – like publishing a one-paragraph newsletter every day or creating visual essays on the backs of business cards – you’ve found a set of successful constraints. Congrats!