Is it possible to be a rule follower and a creative person? 

Some days, I wonder. The two concepts certainly seem a bit at odds. On one hand, you have the buttoned-up, straight-as-an-arrow approach to doing exactly as you’re told; on the other hand is the free-wheeling, pie-in-the-sky dreamworld of creating new and unusual things. And never the twain shall meet. 

Erm actually, there is more synergy than it seems. Much more. Not only do these two styles overlap, but the structure of rules might actually make the creative work even better. 

I identify with both camps. I love a good rule. And I love to create things. And often, I find myself creating things inspired by the rules I must adhere to—whether that creative output is an act of rebellion, an act of focus, or the product of the relief I feel from not having to think about anything and everything under the sun that I could be creating.

We don’t have to look far at Bonfire to see the fruits of these creative containers. In fact, we don’t even have to look beyond this newsletter! Our featured images—the surreal camping-meets-desk job mashups at the top of every newsletter—are byproducts of Substack’s image dimensions and our design resources, and they adhere to our made-up rules of always being either pictures of the business world in nature or nature in the business world. The newsletter content that I’m writing is shaped by a content strategy and a general word length, not to mention the time I have to write it. 

Containers are everywhere. 

And rather than see them as oppressive roadblocks to our creative expression, we can embrace them as shortcuts to getting creative work done. 

~ Paul Jun, Collins

How containers limit our choice, and why that’s a good thing!

The above quote comes from an interview that Paul Jun conducted with Kevin Huynh, a partner at People & Company, an agency that helps companies build online communities. People & Company, like many agencies, receives constraints and boundaries from their clients all the time: “Build this!” “Make that!” 

But instead of building a community any which way from client to client—which is daunting and makes me sweat just thinking of the infinite possibilities—People & Company took constraints one step further and published a book about community, which crystallized the guardrails for what community means to them. These guardrails focus their work with clients, allowing them to be creative within a discrete definition of community. 

Creative constraints help us get past the first hurdle of “where do I begin?” It’s a feeling that goes by many names. 

The paradox of choice. 

Analysis paralysis. 

The tyranny of the blank page. 

All of these ideas lead to the same result: a failure to get started. Not only that, the limitless possibilities can make creative work feel daunting and exhausting because each new project could conceivably pull our attention in a million different directions.

Coleman McCormick, a fellow newsletter writer, puts it like this: 

Constraints create a starting line, and they give us a lane to run in—one lane, not 100.

By leaning into the boundaries of time and resources, not to mention the boundary of rules (self-imposed or others-imposed), you can reduce the aperture of your project and focus your creative powers on what’s right in front of you. Sometimes it’s great that the sky’s the limit. Other times, you might prefer an aviary.

When boundaries become inspiration

In addition to helping you kick off a new project and stay focused on what you’re making, constraints can also be fertile ground for coming up with something new, unusual, and—despite the perception of fuddy-duddy rules—really exciting. 

Look no further than a place like social media. 

Social networks like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Tumblr allow for certain types of content, expressed in certain ways, and displayed within certain parameters. Twitter famously limited users to 140 characters, which did not deter creative individuals one bit: they wrote novels and promoted horse ebooks and reminded you it’s the weekend. Some of the most engaging content on TikTok, a video platform, is static images with a bunch of words on them. Tumblr users, not to be outdone, can lay claim to a myriad of creative reactions, including the time they took a Tumblr design change and invented a new photo style in which they made it look like Benedict Cumberbatch (among other things) was floating in your feed.

The rule makers of these platforms may not have intended any of this creative outpouring. They certainly couldn’t have predicted it. 

And just as it works on this macro level of social media user bases, it also works on the micro scale of you and me and our everyday creative work. Not to bring everything back to me, but I’m going to bring this back to me for a second: when I’m writing newsletters for Bonfire, I operate within creative constraints: 1) the newsletter medium itself and 2) our Bonfire content strategy. Thank goodness (see above) I don’t have unlimited possibilities; I have boundaries. And with these boundaries, I’ve still found the freedom to write all sorts of different things: 

• A listicle of 100 things

• A video of me brainstorming newsletter subject lines

• A collection of my favorite quotes and silly pictures

• Personal stories 

• Academic research

When I’m feeling my most rascally, I no longer see rules for what they are, I see them for what they aren’t. Rules simply expose all the things that are not rules. Naming something, anything, gives shape to all the unnamed stuff. If my constraint is that I need to send a newsletter, I need only to create something that can be emailed. You could open your email to find a 1,000-word essay from me or a childhood photo album of the creative work I did as a five-year-old. Both fit within the rules. There is a ton of creativity waiting within the margins. 

Over to you

How do you respond to creative constraints? What types of containers do you create for yourself so that you can do more creative work? Let us know in the comments or by hitting reply!

For more…

Follow us on LinkedIn and on Instagram. Stay tuned to our Substack space for new community features and ways to meet your fellow subscribers.

And let us know if you’d like to go deeper with us to talk about you and creativity. We do:

• 1:1 coaching and mentorship

• Team workshops and consulting for marketing and leadership

• Speaking and appearances on podcasts and at events

Say hi anytime.

Kumbaya,Shannon & Kevan