The Theory of Constraints for Precious Snowflakes

Temporarily Enlightened

Hinduism and Buddhism have this idea that a truly enlightened person can perceive metaphysical truths that other people cannot. Like, you reach this stage of clear-sightedness, and you become not just a moral saint but you also have privileged access to What Is.

I think that’s pretty obviously bonkers, but on a lesser level, I notice there are moods where some fact about a goal or relationship feels intuitively obvious. Maybe I was blaming someone else for messing with me, and then in that mood I go, wait when am I going to take responsibility for my own reactions? That’s so obvious.

In general, some moods or states of minds make certain facts and relations and concepts feel really obvious. Some work, then, can only be done in certain moods, or at least it’s better done in those moods.

Mood-Based Productivity

Tiago Forte has a whole essay based around this idea. If you judge your mood or mental state accurately and match a project to it wisely, you’ll produce much better work output, you’ll enjoy the work more, and in the process you’ll gain life wisdom and emotional maturity.

The first few times I read that essay, it struck me as kind of trippy, possibly fanciful, and hard to implement. The more it sinks in, and the more I engage with my multiple projects with the essay in the back of my mind, the more I’ve agreed with and implemented it.

One implication of the essay is that you need to organize your work in such a way that you can return to it at different times, when you’ve returned to the right mood to focus on that project or that applicaiton of the project.

And you need to choose goals that excite you in many different moods. If necessary you can let the goal remain a little vague. The goal or project has to be definite enough that you get buy-in from yourself in many different moods, and it can solidify as you go.

Even better, if different aspects of the project excite you in different moods, then you can get multiple outputs from the same project. Maybe you produce essays, and a SAAS product, and a workshop, and so on, related to the same project.

The Theory of Constraints, briefly

Thinking about multiple mood-based selves, sort of working as a team to get something done, prepares us to apply the Theory of Constraints to ourselves as individuals.

Again, Tiago Forte has a whole series of essays here which you should definitely read. Much of the time, management theory adds useless categorizations. But the Theory of Constraints is simple, practical, and has an august history of improving the world.

I’ll summarize the TOC briefly. Every system has one bottleneck tighter than the others, as a chain has a weakest link. This bottleneck limits the performance of the system as a whole. Only by improving the performance of the bottleneck can we improve the performance of the system.

In fact, improving anything else worsens the bottleneck’s performance. If you tell everyone to work harder and communicate better, things will get worse.

Henry Ford adapted this fundamental observation in his Principles of Flow: we should aim to optimize overall flow, the key to doing so is figuring out what to slow down, we do this by slowing down whatever is moving much faster than everything else, and we improve only the worst thing at a time.

In Japan, Ford’s principles were adapted into Lean Manufacturing, and then unleashed to transform the modern world.

In turn, these principles have been adapted for modern knowledge work. You find the rhythm of the bottleneck department (the Drum), you establish a Buffer to shield the bottleneck department from more requests than it can handle, and then you have a signal (a Rope) to add more tasks as the bottleneck department can handle it. Once all that is in place, you can work on increasing the capacity of the bottleneck department.

(There is a final essay which I won’t summarize here, but it’s also helpful)

The Theory of Constraints for Precious Snowflakes

Back to us, the special snowflakes! Suppose we’re working on whatever project best suits our current mood, so that we get the best results possible. We start projects that excite us in many moods. In a sense, we’re coordinating many selves across time, and handing work off from one mood to another.

We are now ready to ask the question: which self is the bottleneck? It’s important to figure that out, because ramping up output in areas other than your personal bottleneck will actually hurt your output.

If translating your products to written essay form is a part of your workflow, and that’s your bottleneck, then starting more new projects may actively harm your writing efforts.

If you just don’t feel highly motivated, an exciting new project might help for a little while. More likely, you’ll end up feeling unmotivated again, and in addition overwhelmed. Your bottleneck is motivation. Adding anything else will harm total output.

Somewhat counterintuitively, the answer probably isn’t to just go get jazzed up. That comes later. First, you need to slow down the new projects, and figure out a rhythm that matches your motivation.

Just as it takes emotional self-awareness to choose worthwhile goals that will engage you over a long period of time, and to match projects to moods to achieve better outputs, so it also takes emotional self-awareness (and trial and error!) to figure out what to slow down.

It takes focus and “finger feeling” to discover the true bottleneck, and patience to slow everything else down.

Radical Candor Starts at Home

I’ll end this essay as I began it, with a Buddhist reference. In meditation, we have this idea of observation without judgment. You’re just experiencing whatever’s there.

This contemplation without judgement allows accurate assessements of shortcomings, without the usual accompanying angst. It’s this attitude which is most helpful in applying the theory of constraints to ourselves.

In great managers, this same quality of great honesty coupled with caring rather than condemnation is often called radical candor.

Perhaps, then as we apply the theory of constraints to ourselves, as managers of our teams of selves, calmly assessing bottlenecks to gradually improve the whole system, we’ll also prepare ourselves to help others with tact and even wisdom.

Here’s hoping.