Create constraints

Dr. Seuss was challenged to write a children's book using only 225 words from a first grade vocabulary list of 348 words. Despite this limitation, he produced his best-seller, 'The Cat in the Hat' using 236 words.

Following the success of this book, a publisher bet Dr. Seuss that he couldn't write another hit using less than 100 unique words. Not only was Dr. Seuss up for the challenge, he raised the bar even higher, saying he would only use 50 words. And he did just that – finishing 'Green Eggs and Ham' in a few months using exactly 50 unique words.

If you've ever been asked to design something with no restrictions, you'll know how daunting this can feel. Rather than being paralysed by limitless possibilities, try setting your own limitations.

Constraints can push us to think outside the box. So, embrace constraints as Dr. Seuss did, using them as a way to channel your creativity and come up with unique ways to approach your work.

Online backups with Backblaze

I’ve been using Backblaze to backup my desktop and external hard drive for years, and wanted to share how I’ve been finding it extra useful recently.

I mostly work from my desktop which is at a co-working space in town, but a few times lately, I’ve decided to work from home using my laptop.

When I’ve needed a file, I’ve used Backblaze to browse files saved from my desktop and download what I need. Backblaze continuously does backups every hour, so my folders and files are up to date – but if I need to backup manually I can go ahead and ask it to ‘backup now’.

Some of you may be thinking, why not use Dropbox? I did try Dropbox Backup before moving to Backblaze, but I found some files were missing and wouldn’t backup. Overall Backblaze seemed to play nicer with my Mac, which is explained in more detail in this Backblaze vs. Dropbox comparison article.

Check out Backblaze, and if you’re keen to signup, get a month free here.