Using Constraints to Foster Creativity

It seems counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to loosen up your creativity is by forcing constraints upon yourself. By limiting certain elements of a project, you actually free up mental resources to be more creative and imaginative.The blank page or canvas (or screen) is a classic symbol of writer's block. It haunts writers, composers and artists of all kinds. One of the primary reasons for the panic and terror creating by a blank page is the absolutely infinite number of possibilities ahead of you. When you can literally create anything, you can become paralyzed into creating nothing!Let's say you decide you want to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Seems simple enough, so you go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients. When you get to the bread aisle you stop short. Do you want white or whole wheat? Multigrain? Full loaf, or just a half? The bread aisle is 6 rows high and 20 feet long. You decide to get the peanut butter while you try to make sense of your bread options but the situation isn't any better. Crunchy, smooth, pint size or wholesale, organic or unsalted, etc. And of course the situation is the same when you try to pick out jelly. The thousands of combinations can be so overwhelming you might change your mind and go get a pizza!But of course in real life you probably wont give up. You know you prefer smooth peanut butter, so you can constrain your options to only those types. You don't want to spend a fortune on a gourmet brand, so you use price to constrain your choices once again. Eventually, without all that much effort, you can limit your options from hundreds down to a handful.The idea of using constraints for creativity is (sort of) similar. By reducing the amount of options from overwhelming to manageable, you free up anxiety and have less to worry about, which results in actually being able to move forward with the work.In music the options for constraint are endless: you could force yourself to use a certain time signature (3/4, 7/8) , a specific instrument (only marimba), only the key of G minor or only the Lydian mode. Perhaps you aren't allowed any drum loops or repeating patterns, or conversely you have to repeat everything at least once in a varied way.Whatever methods you actually use for the constraints the principle is straightforward; when you limit your options you can overcome procrastination because the work becomes manageable and actually doable.