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(mellow guitar music)
Over the course of a couple of days last week
I put together this little song that you're hearing
and watching on the screen right now.
I composed it, I recorded it, I mixed it on my computer,
and then I shot this little music video
which tied together the entire thing,
and I am absolutely stoked
that I actually finished this song,
because even though I've been playing guitar
for more than 10 years, and even though I have wanted to be
a musician for a very long time,
I find it very difficult to actually finish music projects.
I get song ideas all the time.
If you look at my Voice Notes app on my phone,
there are literally hundreds of voice memos
that are me just singing song ideas into my phone.
I am very good at starting music projects.
I'm very good at having ideas.
I'm not so good at finishing those projects
and actually putting them out into the world
and I know that this is not something
that is unique to me
and it is not something that is unique to musicians.
A lot of people, including probably you
if you clicked on this video,
have trouble finishing the projects that they start.
In your case it might be a book that you're trying to write
or an art project you're trying to finish
or maybe even a YouTube channel you're trying
to get off the ground, whatever it is,
if you're anything like me,
you start off with a great idea and a lot of energy
but eventually you get into the project
and you're so inundated with choices that you could make
that you just feel paralyzed.
You fall victim to what's called analysis paralysis
and that leads to you never finishing,
and in many cases, abandoning the project.
And while there may be other factors to blame here,
I truly believe it is the abundance of choice
more than any other factor that causes most of us
to abandon the projects we start,
especially personal projects that don't have real deadlines.
Too much choice can make us unproductive.
It can paralyze us.
There's actually scientific evidence to back this up.
Back in 2000, to just give you one example,
there was a study done where they set up
these two booths for people to sample different types
of jams in supermarkets.
One booth had only six types of jam to sample
and the other booth had 24.
Now, the booth that had 24 jams
had 150% more visitors,
but only 3% of those people actually bought a jar of jam.
Meanwhile, over at the booth that just had six types of jam,
30% of the people who walked up and tried something
ended up buying a jar and going home with it.
And if too much choice
can affect our buying decisions negatively,
then it absolutely affects our tendency to take action
on our projects as well.
So at this point the answer to this problem
should hopefully be obvious.
You have to create limitations for yourself.
Good limitations reduce the number of choices
that you have, which reduces analysis paralysis
and makes it much more likely that you'll actually finish
the projects that you take on.
So here are four different types of limitations
that you can apply to your projects.
The first one is gonna be good ol' time limits
and deadlines.
I find time pressure to be one of the most action-spurring
types of limitations that I can apply to any project
and it necessarily reduces the choices
that you can make because you don't have very much time
in which to make those choices.
And when you're under time pressure,
you often have to go by instincts,
just go with whatever looks best.
Now, this isn't always good to apply to a project.
Some projects really need breathing room,
really need time for you to kinda sit back and think
and cycle between intense work periods
and periods of rest where you can kind of ruminate
on your progress,
but if you find yourself habitually abandoning projects
then it can be worthwhile to go through the exercise
of doing a project under a strict time limit.
A great example of this
is the ubiquitous one our song challenge
that you've probably seen here on YouTube
by YouTubers like Andrew Huang and Jared Dines,
a lot of these people have done this challenge
and while the songs that come out of it
aren't always the best, it's a great exercise
and it proves to them that they can make something
that is a song in under an hour.
And I actually used a deadline
for my little Instagram song as well.
I gave myself two days to finish it and, yeah,
it's 45 seconds, but it's actually done.
And that actually brings us to our second type of limitation
which is the scope limitation.
It can be very useful to take on projects
that have a purposefully limited scope,
even if they don't seem as epic or grand
as you would really like them to be.
I actually made a video about this,
it was called How to Make Progress on Your Goals, I think,
and that video was kind of a case study
of a couple of different people, Neal Stephenson,
who is an author, and Matthew Thornson,
who is a video game developer,
both of whom kind of cut their teeth on smaller projects,
which gave them the ability to tackle much bigger projects
later on in their careers.
And this is exactly what you can do as well.
Oftentimes you're trying to bring together
a ton of different skills that are all necessary
to complete a project, but you haven't mastered any of them,
which again, makes the whole process kind of overwhelming.
So if you take on tiny little projects,
they are sort of like a training ground
for you to develop your skills, make them habitual,
and then apply them to more challenging projects
in the future.
Our third limitation is the limitation of the tools
that you have available to you.
And this can be really, really important,
especially if you're doing something
where you have a ton of tools at your disposal.
As a musician who has a computer right over there
with lots of virtual instruments
and a bunch of real instruments sitting
in this room with me, I have a ton of choice
when it comes to composing a song,
and that can be a bad thing sometimes.
When I'm creating a song,
I can kind of just get overwhelmed
with the number of instruments I have at my disposal.
So with my little Instagram song
I used my acoustic guitar, which is my favorite instrument
and then I told myself I am only allowed to use
one virtual instrument to kind of flush out the song.
So I chose a little virtual piano, called Noire,
and I doubled the chords that I used
and just kind of added a little bit of low end
and that was it.
In addition with the music video,
I could have used all the cameras,
all the gear I have in the studio,
but for me music videos are something completely new
and as somebody who makes mainly educational videos,
everything I've seen in the music videos I've watched
has, again, been a little bit overwhelming
as somebody who wants to get into it.
So for this song I told myself I can only use
that one wall over there and I can only use
one single camera, that was it.
And the interesting thing is when you reduce
the amount of tools you have available, well, as they say,
"Necessity is the mother of all invention."
When you have a very limited tool set,
you tend to use it a little bit more creatively,
so that's another side benefit.
Finally we have a limitation
that you may not have thought of before,
which is to restrict your ability to undo.
Now, being able to undo your mistakes
can be great for many reasons,
but it can also have a downside,
because when you can easily just hit Control + Z
on any mistake that you make,
then it becomes very easy to let perfectionism take over.
Additionally, because you know you can always hit undo,
it basically becomes impossible to get yourself
into that slightly high-pressure state
where you know that there are stakes.
And I think it's really important to spend
at least some of your time in that state,
to feel like everything is on the line right now
and that you can't hit undo.
I mean, right now I'm filming this in my studio
with nobody around, which means that I can flub line
after line and it doesn't really matter.
My editor is just gonna cut out the crap.
And, well, sometimes it's actually a bad thing.
When I speak on stage at conferences, I don't screw up,
because people are watching me.
I can't just edit things out,
I have to get it right, which means that I honestly feel
a little bit more eloquent.
And there is something to be said
for the analog methods that we used to use to create art.
Back in the day musicians had to record onto tape,
which meant that they had to play their part right
the first time.
There was no such thing as overdubbing,
there was no such thing as comping.
And artists and authors had to do the exact same thing.
An author had to commit to typing
what was going to go on that piece of paper
when they used a typewriter,
unless they wanted to retype an entire page
or use whiteout, I guess.
And artists had to commit to the brushstrokes
they were putting onto their canvas,
either it was right the first time,
or as Bob Ross would say,
"It became a happy little accident."
But when you use a computer to create,
you introduce the choice to undo literally
every single action you take,
and those choices can, again, overwhelm you.
So if you really wanna push your creativity
and ensure that you finish,
try restricting your ability to undo.
Either do a project in a completely analog format
or temporarily set your undo key binding
to a keyboard shortcut that you're not used to.
Now, you don't have to go overboard
and use these limits on every project that you start,
but again, if you find yourself abandoning a lot of projects
and you wanna see yourself finish them more often,
then try introducing some limits.
Not only will this help you
get rid of the analysis paralysis
that is caused by too much choice, but many times
it'll also help you think more creatively as well.
And if you wanna further improve
that creative thinking ability,
which can not only help you in your own projects,
but in your career as well,
then spend time regularly solving tough problems
that require creative thinking.
Brilliant is a great source of problems like these,
especially if you also wanna improve your mastery
of math, science, or computer science.
They have a library of more than 60 in-depth courses
that guide you through these subjects
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In their library you're gonna full math suite
with courses ranging from algebra to number theory
to more advanced things like probability and statistics,
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like Python programming and the basics of computer memory
and even search engines and science courses
like classical mechanics and gravitational physics.
So if you wanna start learning today
and improving your ability
to creatively solve tough problems,
head over to brilliant.org/thomasfrank and sign up.
And if you're one of the first 200 people to use that link,
which you will find down in the description below,
you're even gonna get 20% off
their annual premium subscription.
Thanks so much for watching.
Hopefully you found this video helpful.
I know that this idea of using limitations
has really helped me in my own work
and in my ability to finish my own creative projects,
so hopefully it is useful to you as well.
And if you did find it useful
then maybe consider gently fist bumping that Like button
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'cause that's what I use to talk, but you know,
maybe right over here, or right over here.
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as always, go do whatever you want,
'cause I'm not your dad.