It’s easy to think about constraints as something negative, when in fact it might unlock a whole new level of productivity. But not just productivity, for any behavior to be healthy we need to establish constraints.
Keep good things good
All good things in life require proper constraints ex: work, people, exercise. It is very strange to me to see people just go all in with any of the above, and not understand that anything you go all in will not be sustainable, burnout is imminent. But people do it all the time. I recently joined a boxing gym, they go so hard every session, that almost no one is coming regularly to the sessions due to injury, including me.
Consistency above intensity
The reason constraints are needed with all things in life has to do with consistency. Staying consistent is the number 1 priority in life, nothing trumps consistency due to a compound effect that is associated with consistency. Five minutes of something every day beats a single 35-minute session per week because it is very difficult to keep a 35-minute session per week for years. Keeping 5 minutes per day session of something is very easy across many years. That will accumulate to something far bigger than trying to power through a 35-minute session every week for years. I can guarantee that that 35-minute block is not gonna survive a couple of years
Constraints help with consistency
The way constraints can help with consistency is when we establish good limits on how much time we invest, or consume, in things. The bigger the constraint the easier is it to maintain, if we only meet with friends for one coffee per week, it’s not gonna be difficult to keep up. Every time we want to be doing more of something, we should establish a tighter constraint on it.
Small but consistent work sessions are strange, it is very difficult to see how this 5-minute session will lead to anything tangible, but once you stick to it and see how after a couple of weeks all of a sudden, all puzzle pieces will fall into place and there will be a concrete unit of work done.