Two weeks ago, we ran an exercise in small groups.
In the first twenty minutes, we outlined a general practice that we wanted to start. For some, it was creating regular music. For others, it was writing each day. Most of these ideas were tied into their small businesses or ideas.
In the second twenty minutes, people were invited to actually create their first iteration of their work: outline a short story, create a video for instagram… Something to start the action.
Well, turns out, a lot of people enjoyed talking and chatting at the start – which is great, but means that both time slots were cut in half.
In the end, a few people only had five minutes to do the second part.
And still, most got it done.
An entire video, short story, or outline of a song, edited and done in five minutes. Pretty cool.
Three days later, one of the guys messaged me, saying he was stuck on something, five hours in. We went back in time, and looked at how he had previously done his whole video in five minutes using a constraint and positive peer pressure…
He got back into his work, and five minutes later, it went out.
There are a lot of helpful constraints that we can create with our work, and one of them us usually time.
If we have a week, we’ll take a week. If we have a day, we’ll take a day. And the work is often just as good (or better).
Leaving things open is risky. Setting a timeframe, and sticking to it, is powerful.
