Why It’s Worth It │ What if the thing standing between us and our best work is not a shortage of freedom but too much of it? What would we actually make if someone took away our usual options? And why does a blank page feel so much harder than one that already has rules written on it?

In this episode of ReThinking, Adam Grant explores why limits tend to make us more creative rather than less with science writer David Epstein. Drawing from his new book Inside the Box, David traces that argument through Pixar’s pitch rules, a NASA mission that lost half its budget, and the vocabulary list that produced The Cat in the Hat. The conversation ends somewhere more personal than where it starts.

David wrote his new book on one sheet of paper. Not the book itself, but the entire outline, compressed onto a single page in handwriting he admits was an attempt to cheat his own system. If an idea was not on that page, it did not make the book. Historically, his approach was to write about 150% of a book to get 100%, which cost him, among other things, a trip to Arctic Sweden. Inside the Box came out twenty percent shorter and took far less time. 

That experiment sits underneath the larger argument. David points to subtractive neglect bias, our habit of overlooking solutions that involve taking something away, and suggests the reason is historical. For most of human existence, the problem was too little, not too much, so we never adapted to abundance. He adds a line from cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham that reframes the whole thing: our brains are not evolutionarily optimized for thinking, because thinking is metabolically expensive. So when handed total freedom to create, we drift toward whatever is already familiar.

Adam draws out the distinction that makes this more than the paradox of choice, which posits that too many options leave us unhappy with our choices. David’s version is stranger. To make something genuinely new, he believes we should opt for being hemmed in.

The examples carry the weight. Pixar required directors to arrive with three story ideas, not one, because a single idea becomes something we defend rather than test. Notably, they did not ask for twenty. NASA’s LCROSS mission, handed half the expected time and budget, complained briefly and then bolted imaging equipment from army tanks and engine sensors from NASCAR onto a probe that confirmed water on the moon.Then there is Dr. Seuss, given a two-hundred-word vocabulary list and told to write a children’s book. He complained to his wife that there were no adjectives, that it was like trying to make a strudel without any strudels, and then took the first two rhyming words on the list: cat and hat. When a publisher later bet he could not manage it in fifty words, we got Green Eggs and Ham.

Background │ In this episode, Adam speaks with David Epstein, a science journalist who specializes in understanding success and the author of Range and Inside the Box. Highlights include:

• Subtractive neglect bias: We reliably overlook solutions that involve removing something. Our instinct is to add, which is why the option to cut, limit, or subtract rarely surfaces on its own.
• The three pitches rule: Pixar directors had to bring three story ideas, never one, because one idea becomes an idea we defend. Three is tight enough to force work and loose enough to leave room.
• The green eggs and ham effect: Named for what happened when Dr. Seuss was held to fifty words. Boxing someone in tends to produce more inventive solutions, not fewer.
• Preclude constraints: Patricia Stokes’s term for blocking the solution we always reach for. When an NBA star is injured and can’t play, teammates spread the ball, discover better patterns, and stay better long after he returns.
• Training our focus: Gloria Mark found that we absorb a cadence of interruptions and then internalize self-interruption at that rhythm, even with the phone away. Keeping a pad nearby to offload intrusive thoughts helps.
• Defining beats solving: Hilbert set the agenda for twentieth-century mathematics by carefully framing two dozen problems. We rarely spend enough time defining the problem, partly because the problem definer gets far less credit.
• Good-enough rules: We burn the most energy on decisions where the options are closest, and the stakes are lowest. Setting a good enough bar and moving on is, as David puts it, consolidating our caring.

About |Adam Grant is a well-known organizational psychologist and wildly popular Wharton professor. He is an accomplished writer, a profound thinker, and a thorough researcher, covering various subjects to help people discover purpose and motivation and lead more creative and generous lives. Adam’s content includes New York Times bestsellers, TED podcasts and talks, columns in various publications, and GRANTED, a free email newsletter (sign up on his website!). Adam encourages us to constantly question our ideas and rethink our beliefs.

Source | ReThinking: The power of constraints with David Epstein (May 5, 2026)