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Hello Reader

What if you upped the stakes?

At Author Nation, Andrew Davis gave a talk on the Cube of Creativity. The core of his message was: constraints breed creativity. I can’t go into all of it here… It was an hour long talk. But at the end I have a link to a podcast where he talks about this concept.

Here’s what I took from it. When our brain have too much freedom it doesn’t know what to do first. There are too many options. Then if there isn’t anything like a deadline reining us in, there’s no reason to make something a priority. Which is why there are so many people out there who have been working on a book for 10 years and never seem to get it done.

So when Andrew said that constraints breed creativity, it made a lot of sense to me and explained why I appreciate deadlines and can get so much more done when I am under a time-crunch.

He talked about the Cube of Creativity and how important it is because our creative energy for writing/marketing is finite. This model can help us focus and get things done without burning out.

These are the basic components of this cube:

• Define the outcome
• Limit the options
• Eliminate the unnecessary (don’t just add more to your plate, eliminate 2 things; one easy and one hard)
• Raise the stakes

A friend of mine was at Author Nation as well and we had lunch after Andrew’s talk. She has been working on the last book in her series for over a year and can’t seem to find the motivation to get it done.

We decided to use this model to come up with a plan for her. Here’s what we came up with:
​Outcome: Finish the book by December 31.
​Limit the options: The amount of time she has to finish it
​Eliminate the unnecessary: Instead of an outside editor for an initial edit, use Chat.gpt to streamline the process
​Raise the stakes (this was my favorite one): Pay her copy editor $200 in advance. If she turns in the manuscript by the 31st, that $200 goes toward the cost of the final edit. If she doesn’t turn it in by then, the editor gets to keep the $200.

She got excited about this. It created definite constraints and because of this she doesn’t have time to over think it, she just needs to focus and get it done.

I checked in with her yesterday and so far she is on track to finish the book by Dec. 31st.

I haven’t come up with one for me to do yet, but I am getting close to an idea. I’ll keep you posted.

Marketing podcast with Andrew where he explains the concept even more (I highly recommend you listen to it): https://geni.us/CubeofCreativity​
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What is one thing you could do if you applied these constraints? I’d love to hear what it is.

Happy Marketing!

Kerrie

Kerrie
Booklinker Author Liaison
​Kerrie Flanagan​

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