Lockdown in Nairobi is (shock) restrictive. We have to be home by 8 pm, and we can’t leave the five counties around the city. Restaurants and bars are closed, and cafés do take-away only. Within these constraints, Nairobi life lives on: The street food restaurants have stayed open (I frequently risk dysentery to dine-out in them), the parks are full of preachers who are locked out of their churches, and the traffic is bad.
Like Nairobi, I live within constraints. However, mine are not in the interest of public health. I moved house this week and, in doing so, jettisoned a couple more belongings. Now I own almost nothing. My black t-shirts are turning grey, and my black cords are frayed. My low-cost Lenovo runs either Chrome or Word, but never both together (it can’t).
I don’t know much about minimalism, but there is a sense of freedom from imposed constraints. To me, it’s an almost game-like obsession (that remains, for the time being, on the right side of healthy). It aligns with Orwell’s thoughts in Down and Out in Paris and London: “For when you are approaching poverty, you make one discovery which outweighs all of the others … the fact that it annihilates the future. Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have the less you worry.” The same is true of personal belongings.
It’s hard to recognise that doing, or having, fewer things in life means we can do more. Applying constraints to one’s life allows us to focus on what’s left. In this vein, the best thing I have done this year is committing to a ‘Don’t-Do’ list: A long list of constraints.
Here they are, as a reminder to us both.
From my look-back on 2020.
The funny thing is, despite the list, I’ve spent too much time thinking about angel investing, growing my twitter following (I did a course), and researching masters degrees.
Even when strangely pre-meditated, it’s difficult to stick to constraints. However, every moment spent off-topic, and not focussed, creates drag that has unseen but dramatic consequences on our actual priorities. We never see what ‘might have been’, and it would be terrifying if we did.
Constraints are important because they keep us on track. My main thing is Yokeru, and writing, and keeping fit. You probably have a couple of main things, too. I still get hung-up about not being good at drawing, but learning would be a distraction. I’m about to start Swahili lessons. Does that make me undisciplined? Being frank, it does. There is a unseen, and unknowable, consequence to my actions.
I recently enjoyed Working Backwards about Amazon’s internal processes. I’m not the first to say Amazon has absolutely crushed it (this week it’s reported earnings outperformed projections by 44%!). Amazon has dominated many sectors, and have brought us Prime, the Kindle, AWS, and autonomous warehousing. Now, I hear, their food delivery is flooding London. The book argues that Amazon is successful because it operates within rigorous constraints.
At Amazon, every project is run by someone who’s only job is that project. It’s never someone’s part-time job. Moreover, every decision is taken after analysis by way of a six-page memo (it’s never longer). Every product starts life as a two-page press release that might go through ten revisions, but will never inch on to the third page. Blaise Pascal wrote: ‘I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.’ It’s totally relevant: A constraint imposes focus, forces hard questions to be answered, reduces distractions and consequently enables progress. It’s not complicated, it’s simple disciple that the rest of the world (including me) is so bad at.
In light of Pascal’s comments, I’m going to keep this brief and end here.
Stay focused this week. I’d love to hear about what you’re *not* going to do.