10 Creative Constraints To Unlock Your Writing

Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham using only 50 words. Amazon limits team size to what two pizzas can feed. Virgil Abloh challenged himself to tweak only 3% of an existing design. Inspired by these examples and by this David Epstein’s YouTube video, here’s my 10-idea list of writing constraints—pair them with these fun blog post challenges: Write a book first draft in one month Share only 10 main ideas, one idea per chapter, in a book Spend no more than one hour writing and editing a post Write a book backwards: start with a cover, sales page, and one-liner Reuse the same material more than once Finish a book in half the time it took your last one Write a book only using your notes Challenge yourself with an impossible deadline, like a book in a weekend Finish your daily writing before lunch Limit your book to under 50 or 100 pages, or maybe just one page Constraints make you more creative—and more productive. Without them, you’ll keep tweaking and perfecting forever.