It’s spring, and my wife and I have been decluttering our apartment. We do this more often than most, and get more ruthless each time, but there’s one thing that I keep hanging on to: assignments and term papers from my Physics undergrad program.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I can’t just get rid of them, like we did with so much of our old clothes.

After all, they don’t mean anything to anybody besides me, and I keep them stuffed in a trunk, and never see or show them to anyone unless it’s to decide “should I throw this away?”

But I know showing off runs counter to my nature*, so I shouldn’t be surprised they’re not showcased. Also, who frames their assignments?

*(which can cause problems, since I’m currently the one in charge of Gingko’s marketing…)

What is surprising is that I feel the quality of that work is sometimes far better than some of the work I’ve been putting out there recently with Gingko and other projects that are far more important than some Quantum Field Theory assignment.

For quite a while I assumed the answer was “lack of time”. I’m the founder of a startup and father of a one year old boy, sharing all childcare and household duties* with my wife (who also runs a vegan skincare business). I don’t have a lot of uninterrupted time.

*I believe equally, but I should note my wife disagrees.

But two weeks ago, my wife went with our son to go visit his grandmother for 5 days. The apartment was eerily quiet, and I had all the time in the world.

Now was my chance to produce something that I would be proud of, but nothing came of it. I did find an interesting problem to work on, and went on a sort of “math binge” to tackle it. But the end product was just a bunch of scattered notes.

So, time is not the main issue.

But in looking over these assignments, I was once again reminded of a simple truth via an exceptionally indirect path:

The truth is that constraints lead to simpler solutions. And the reminder comes from Quantum Mechanics.

Quantum Mechanics, in a few words, is how we study the motion of particles at very small scales, where everything is blurry (including the particle itself). And not blurry as in “we can’t see it” but blurry as in, “it has no definite position”; the particle itself is literally spread across space in a weird kind of cloud.

Some of the types of questions you can answer with QM is, “if you throw this particle at a wall that’s this thick and this high, what’s the probability that it’ll just suddenly appear on the other side?”.

And no, the answer is not “zero”, which is what makes QM weird.

To figure stuff like this out, in the simplest of cases, requires solving Schrodinger’s equation:

One of the first exercises in an introductory QM course is to answer “Ok, so you have this one particle constrained to be within this box. What are the ways it can move?”

And here’s the thing:

1. If the constraining walls are infinite and truly impenetrable constraints, the solution you find is extremely simple: just a bunch of sine waves.
2. If the walls are anything less than infinite, the solution isn’t just hard, it becomes absolutely impossible to find exactly.

The reason is that, with only weak constraints, the particle “leaks” out into the world, and though it’s “most likely” in the box, there is some very small chance it could be a long ways outside of it.

And though these chances are small, we are forced to include the entirety of space in our calculations.

A Generative Analogy

I am sure you’ve heard that “constraints lead to creativity”. I have heard this as well, and said it myself several times.

But nothing brings an idea home as much as the combination of a learning experience combined with a deep generative analogy that resonates with me.

And while it might seem silly that I’m evoking Quantum Mechanics to explain common sense (clearly an odd situation), to me it provides a model for this idea in a way that allows me to understand why constraints lead to creativity. And why it only works if the constraints are truly rigid.

Without rigid constraints to your problem, the possible solution “leaks” out into the entirety of space, meaning that you’re forced to imagine the entire solution space, no matter how unlikely those outcomes are.

Next time I’m working on a project, besides the usual steps of identifying a clear purpose, and envisioning a clear outcome, I need to make sure to expressly state the impenetrable constraints of the project.

With that said, my 90 minute timer for this post is running out, so I have to bring this to a close.

Aleksey and I are both avid fans of productivity systems here at Gingko, and I might be borderline obsessed with building the “perfect” system (dangerous word, by the way).

Yet, in all my years of obsession, I’ve never once tried or read extensively about the Getting Things Done (GTD) system. Which is a little like being a supposed wine connoisseur, and admitting to never having tried a Cabernet!

Then three weeks ago I received a call from a good friend of mine, raving about the transformation he saw in his brother, thanks to GTD.

Continue reading Nothing Beats Word of Mouth →

If you search for “Alternatives to Goal-setting”, you’ll find a growing list of resources. It seems to be the trend now to bash goal-setting as detrimental and soul-crushing.

But the proposed alternatives, are full of “soft” ideas that don’t resonate with me.
“Follow your heart, not your head” is an example. It’s this kind of language that has turned me away from even considering alternatives to goal-setting.

However, I’ve come up with a different understanding of what goal-setting is, and the valid alternatives to it. And it’s based on mathematics, with a touch of psychology.
Continue reading The Multi-step, Bottom-up Alternative to Goal-setting →

When I visited the Louvre, the thing I remember the most (besides the Mona Lisa mosh pit), was the secluded and dimly-lit room where renaissance sketches were kept.

Master painters would prepare to paint by drawing dozens of sketches. The sketches were rough, and contained only the essential element being studied. The overall composition. A facial expression. An eye. Only when the painter was satisfied, would he sketch directly on the canvas.

How else could they have produced their masterpieces?

We would never expect a painter to just start without a plan, and proceed like an inkjet printer: use a tiny brush, start at the top, and scan left-to-right until reaching the bottom. They would very quickly run into problems. Perspective would be off, composition cliched, and postures awkward. Unless the painter were extremely experienced, the piece would fall apart and be impossible to finish.

This is obviously a terrible way to paint.
But we do this all the time, when writing. Continue reading Sketching with Words →