Restrictions breed creativity
Restrictions breed creativity. If you’re faced with a thing that isn’t quite what you want it to be, it’s much easier to figure out where and how to start, than if you had just a blank page. Prompts are one way people work around this problem. Through restricting the problem space with a prompt, you subtly cue up new ideas and unexpected solutions. Many people who work in creative areas have a prompt deck they’ll draw from for inspiration if they’re feeling stuck. Much like flipping a coin to make a trivial decision, you don’t even have to follow the prompt that comes up, as long as it successfully gives you a direction to explore.
Give the same talk more than once
You can give the same talk more than once! Most people who give talks give the same talk more than once. It would take much more effort to create a new talk every time you give a talk.
I resisted this insight for years! It felt dishonest somehow, or like cheating. Like I’d learned this stuff already, so it’s unfair to pretend I’d just learned it a second time. But that’s thinking from the speaker’s perspective, not the audience’s. If your audience enjoyed the talk the first time, a completely different audience who’s never seen your talk or heard of you before is likely to enjoy the talk a second time. Even more likely, actually, since you’ll have more practice, know what to emphasize and what to gloss over, and just generally deliver a better talk. And in the unlikely event that the same person is at both events, they can tell from the title of your talk that it’s one they’ve heard before and decide not to go. And they won’t think it’s weird or cringe that you’re giving the same talk again.
I gave my first conference talk earlier this year. It was a talk that I’ve given in smaller venues at least five times before. No one complained.
My personal creed
People are amazing. Every person has inherent worth and deserves a chance to be happy. When people put their minds to it, they can do anything.
Offer three options
The paradox of choice is the very recent (2002!) finding that if you give people too many options, not only is it more difficult for them to pick one, they are also no happier with their selection. This was very counterintuitive before the internet era. For example, Baskin Robbins proudly advertised 31 flavors, and Heinz 57 varieties, in their brand identities. Today, most things have only 3 to 6 varieties, typically aligned with major preference clusters or user personas.
In particular, you’ll often see consumer services advertised with 3 different SKUs, with the middle one emphasized and highlighted as “Best value!” Some people will pick the cheap one and feel good they’re saving money, some people will pick the expensive one and feel good they’re getting the best product, and most people will pick the middle one and feel good they’re getting the best deal by not being too extreme (compared to the other two presented options!)
One way I apply this is whenever I offer options, for example when a friend’s in town and we’re picking a place to eat, I come up with two or three (leaving “and there are other places if none of these sound good” implicit) and only present those. It’s helpful to do the same thing when letting someone choose between possible times to meet up: pick three specific times instead of “I’m free any time this weekend or next weekend, except for Saturday night”.
There's more than you can possibly imagine
The world is impossibly large, and there are so many people in it, making so much amazing stuff. It’s easy to vastly underestimate how much stuff there is, because you can only base your estimate on things you’ve heard of. But the things you’ve heard of are probably either relevant to lots of different people, or things their creators are very good at promoting. I bet broad relevance and creator promotion ability are actually negatively correlated with amazingness.
Seriously! There is so much awesome stuff out there that you never hear about because the people behind them are just quietly making and sharing them in their small, supportive, loving communities that you have to make an effort to learn about.