The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 77 Degrees
It probably comes as no surprise that I’m what you might call a “free spirit.” I spent decades happily allowing others to control me. At some point, I pretty much hit the wall and started to rebel.
So being told what to do at this point in my life kind of creates an automatic allergic reaction.
I probably wouldn’t make it more than a day in the normal corporate world without getting shown the door. My guess is that I’d probably reach my yearly quota for asking questions about why things are done a certain way before the first coffee break on the first day.
This “free spiritedness” does not come without a cost.
And the cost, over the years, has been productivity.
I was so allergic to anything I felt would be a constraint, that I completely walked by the idea of using constraint as a source of increased productivity.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been working my way towards the 4 hour work day. I have time for client work, time for my work, time for lead generation. 4 hours is allotted.
I started off well, then I completely lost it, then I got it back. It takes a little bit of effort to install a new habit.
If you’ve never tried this, it’s pretty challenging. It’s not hard to get the work done, it’s hard to be OK with being DONE with work!
So what does this completely artificial constraint of working for 4 hours a day do? It forces me to make better decisions.
And now I’m seeing what others have been preaching for years. Constraints do not limit freedom in this context, they allow freedom.