I have invented a unique art form – the Barf-Bag Haiku. To kill time on a plane, especially when my devices must be in Airplane Mode, I will write a haiku poem on the barf bag. The subject of my first haiku was a barf bag (meta, I know), but I have since branched out into other travel topics. Here’s a sample:
If you can’t read my handwriting, here is the haiku:
Neither earplugs nor
noise-canceling headphones can
stop the baby’s cry
This haiku was based on a true story. The baby on the plane was so loud I could hear it despite wearing earplugs and noise-canceling headphones. Note: I must have used the British spelling of “canceling” (two l’s vs. one) because we were traveling overseas. Also, I forgot the hyphen in “noise-canceling headphones.” Unfortunately, barf bags don’t come with grammar checkers. For tips on how to avoid these mistakes, see my article, Get Behind Me Titivillus: How to Avoid Mistakes in Your Work.
I like to think that my poetry will help cheer up someone in distress on a future flight. On one flight, a flight attendant saw me working on a poem and asked if she could read it. After laughing, she asked if she could show the captain, which is the highest praise a barf-bag poet can achieve!
So, what does this have to do with creativity? I was working with a client recently who was thinking about using a haiku-writing exercise for team building. It got me thinking about how constraints can both help and hurt the creative process.
How Constraints Help the Creative Process
- Constraints keep you from trying to boil the ocean. The haiku has a simple set of constraints. Each poem must have three lines with five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. One driver of writer’s block is the swirl in your brain of all the things you could cover. When you could write about anything, you may be tempted to write about everything. The constraint prevents that swirl and helps you focus. I’m writing a book, and I originally planned to write the presentation bible – everything you need to know to design, develop, and deliver effective presentations. Well, that’s daunting. How long will it take me to write everything I know? What if I forget to include a topic? What about all the topics outside of my areas of expertise? Instead, I shifted my thinking and developed a 10-chapter framework that did not require the book to be comprehensive. Time constraints, word count constraints, and slide # constraints all have this benefit. Just make sure you don’t try putting 10 pounds of flour in a 5-pound sack! I regularly see authors who have a slide constraint jam 20 pages of content into a 10-page presentation.
- Constraints force you to think creatively. The thesaurus is the haiku poet’s best friend. Because of the syllable constraints, you’ll often find yourself searching for a one-syllable word to replace your two-syllable word. Word-dieting a presentation is a similar process. If you can replace a longer word or phrase with a shorter word or phrase, you should. Word dieting is part science (e.g., avoid passive voice) and part art (e.g., creatively choose more efficient words and phrases). The Forced Analogy Technique is another example where a constraint can help you think creatively. In product design, you can use this technique to generate improvement ideas by comparing your product to an unrelated product. For example, God might have designed a camel by asking, “what if I combined a horse with a water tank?”
How Constraints Hurt the Creative Process
- Constraints introduce judgment too early in the process. In the brainstorming process, a good facilitator will tell you, “There are no bad ideas.” But you know better! There are many bad ideas; for most leaders, our job is to separate good ideas from bad ones. When we judge an idea, we are applying constraints. It’ll never work. It’s too expensive. Our customers would hate that. But in a brainstorming session, judging ideas hurts the process. We risk killing a good idea or a bad idea that we could modify to be a good idea. Imagine we are brainstorming ideas for how to make a million dollars. If someone had the idea “ask one million people for one dollar,” your instinct might be to dismiss that idea as impractical. And pre-internet, you would be right. But that idea is exactly how crowdfunding works today. Many people will give you money if you have a compelling story. Eventually, you must judge the ideas from a brainstorming session, just not too soon.
- Artificial constraints limit genius. The phrases “think outside the box” and “push the envelope” are about not letting constraints get in the way of creative thinking. The Beatles’ first US #1 song, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” was 2 minutes and 25 seconds. In 1964, singles were released on 7-inch vinyl that spins at 45 rpm. In those days, the vinyl and groove size limited singles to about 3 minutes. Even if you could produce a longer single, radio stations didn’t want to play them. So, if you wanted a hit, you had to fit the constraint. In 1965, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” smashed the 3-minute constraint, clocking in at 6:09. After first rejecting the single, the record company split the song over the two sides of the single. You might call this a creative solution, but it’s not a great customer experience to require a record flip in the middle of a song. Radio DJs lobbied the record company for a version with the complete song on one side. That led the record company to use narrower grooves to fit the song on one side. The Beatles continued the trend with their seven-minute opus, “Hey Jude,” which remains the longest single to ever hit #1 on the US charts. Here’s the link to my intense Wikipedia research on “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Know When to Break Constraints
It’s pretty simple. Use constraints when they help your creativity. Try adding constraints, like forced analogies, during problem-solving. Then abandon constraints when they limit your creativity or force you to abandon a simpler solution. Either way, be sure to question the constraints you face. The original haiku poems were about nature, and each line is a complete thought. In my sample poem above, I’ve broken both of those constraints. I’m sure the haiku purists already noticed that. Now that I’m no longer a secret haiku poet, I’d love for the barf-bag haiku medium to take off (pun intended). Feel free to post your barf-bag haiku in the comments.