Welcome to the Action Digest, the only newsletter that brings you more action than a Waffle House on a Saturday night.

🚨📈 New trend alert! 📈🚨

Over the past few months, we’ve seen an increasing number of professionals using a new approach to take action and make their ideas happen.

For the first time we’re seeing people figure out how to build their own custom apps just by prompting AI (zero coding), specifically to achieve some pretty serious business/productivity outcomes.

So far, three main use cases have popped up: 

1. Automating tedious workflows 
(many individuals saving 10+ hours per week)

2. Replacing expensive software 
(one CEO saved $50k on a software bill by building his own tool in 3 hours!)

3. Launching new ideas faster 
(someone built a simple prototype that quickly attracted users and millions of dollars of investment)

We just finished putting together a “playbook” of 10 case studies that we’ve collected over the past few months across these three categories to shed some light on what’s possible.

If you’d like a free copy and have a moment to help us with some research then just fill out this short survey (avg completion time 1.8 mins - no typing required) and you’ll find a link to the playbook on the last page.

Would love to hear any ideas that these case studies spark for you if you decide them out!

Now let’s take a look at what a Hollywood director, acclaimed chef, Isaac Newton, and half of the Fortune 500 have in common…

P.s. More action awaits you in our archives, including how Steve Jobs cultivated great taste, the personality trait shared by 1381 millionaires, and 40 principles relied on by the world’s greatest creatives. 

Constraints are not stop signs

In 2021, award winning Hollywood filmmaker Robert Rodriguez set a challenge for a small group of aspiring artists in the film industry.

Their mission was to create a short film in two weeks on a budget of just $7,000. Oh, and one more catch: each contestant had to do everything—write it, shoot it, direct it, edit it—all by themselves with the help of just one other person.

Most filmmakers would scoff at those constraints because, well, they’re absurd. While the tight budget is not unheard of for a short film, even low budget short film productions tend to at least have 5-15 people on set.

But those were the same constraints that Rodriguez himself worked with when he made El Mariachi, the short film that launched his career when he was just twenty three. So to put his money where his mouth is, Rodriguez also joined in on the challenge, roping in his son as his second crew member.

“I thought, he's going to hate this,” Rodriguez admitted, “he's got his own interests. He doesn't want to work on a movie. But I need him.”

But by the end of their first day on set, during which the father-son production quickly fell apart, Rodriguez jr had already learned a powerful lesson.

“And so he comes to me at the end of the day with his brother,” remembers Rodriguez, “and [he] goes, ‘Dad, the actor didn't show up. The location didn't match the script at all. Everything was falling apart. We asked you how we're going to finish the day, and you said, “Well, I don't know. We'll see what happens.” And we thought, “Oh my God, is this the movie that he finally can't figure out.” But by the end of the day… we figured it out!’ Their eyes were all wide.”

Rodriguez was reminded of a principle for creative success that had long been obvious to him, but one that does not come naturally to most: “you're going to figure it out as you go.”

By the time his son sat down for an interview at the end of the two weeks, Rodriguez was surprised to hear him “waxing philosophical about the creative process, like he's been doing it for years.” Rodriguez laughs. “He goes, ‘I never knew how my Dad did Mariachi. And now I know because I just did this project. He didn't know either. He just started and he figured it out day by day.’”

“Most people never start,” Rodriguez shrugs, “I mean, he [my son] succinctly encapsulated everything I tried to say in my book, which was you just got to go.”

As for the other filmmakers in the challenge?

“By the week they started shooting, they're already talking about their next three films. Like they changed, their idea of what was impossible has just dropped out.”

The first lesson here is obvious: constraints are not an excuse to hesitate. The trick is to get started despite your constraints and figure out how to succeed in defiance of them along the way.

But what if it goes even deeper than that?

What if constraints aren’t just an inconvenience to be overcome, but the very thing that makes you strong enough to succeed…?

Resourcefulness > resources

This post from Scott a few weeks ago has stuck in my mind ever since I read it…

It seems that after years of making successful investments (Uber, Pinterest, Reddit, and many, many, more), Scott has found that too much money can be a hindrance, not a help.

This is especially true prior to “Product Market Fit”—the point at which you have proven there is meaningful demand for your product.

It seems counterintuitive but there is longstanding data to backup Scott’s hard earned wisdom.

As I wrote in an article for Every three years ago:

“As per a 2009 study, businesses founded in a recession or bear market disproportionately made up more than half of the Fortune 500, including Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, FedEx, and Trader Joe’s. One benefit of launching a business during a tough time is that you’re forced to be more resourceful and to innovative to survive from the get-go. The skills you learn during this time are embedded into your organizational DNA, which then serves as a competitive advantage long after the crisis is over.”

Resourcefulness is the ultimate resource—and with too much of the latter you may never develop the former. 

In this way, a lack of resources can result in a more direct line of communication with reality, forcing you to think strategically, prioritize ruthlessly, and act on only the highest impact initiatives.

Remember: when you’re resource constrained, it’s time to practice resourcefulness, and to take comfort in knowing that your practice may result in a powerful and longstanding strength.

Constraints aren’t just strength training for resilience, mind you…

Restrictions are the father of invention

For four of the past fourteen years, Copenhagen was home to the “Best Restaurant in the World,” Noma.

Noma’s head chef, René Redzepi, earned this accolade under a restrictive constraint: the restaurant served only locally sourced, in-season, ingredients.

This is harder than it sounds!

The meat was provided by local hunters, crops came from local farms, and many of the ingredients were foraged by hand from the shores, forests, and fields of Copenhagen.

As Redzepi explains, “all of the people who work in the kitchen with me go out into the forests and on to the beach. It's a part of their job. If you work with me you will often be starting your day in the forest or on the shore because I believe foraging will shape you as a chef. I know it has shaped me. If you see how a plant grows and you taste it in situ you have a perfect example of how it should taste on the plate. But it's more than that. When you get close to the raw materials and taste them at the moment they let go of the soil, you learn to respect them. We never alter the raw material to such an extent that, when they reach the plate, they no longer have any connection with their origins.”

The restaurant industry is brutal enough without this extra hassle of foraging your own ingredients, never mind while you’re trying to become the best restaurant in the entire world, but Redzepi insists that even though “the restrictions could be frustrating,” [they] also forced us to be more inventive.”

Sometimes our constraints are what ultimately set us apart from everyone else.

Constraints have a funny way of nourishing creativity and revealing possibilities that no one else has considered.

New project who dis

Shoutout to Louise who recently kicked off a new project with a fresh Dot Grid book.

While the right constraints can be a gift, tackling your creative goals without a steady supply of Action Method tools is like trying to run a marathon in flip-flops, a limitation with only downside!

Show your ideas some respect and replenish your stash today.

Keep It Constrained Stupid

As the apocryphal story goes, the great writer Ernest Hemingway once made a bet over lunch that he could write an entire story in just six words, after which he promptly penned:

For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

While the consensus is that this bet never actually happened, the story reveals another benefit of constraints nonetheless: they can encourage us to condense our work (and lives) down to their purest and most effectual essence.

Assess your limits, then leverage them

During the plague of 1665, Isaac Newton was forced to leave Cambridge University and return to his childhood home to live under lockdown. 

While Newton was newly constrained by the quarantine, he was freed from the constraints of his Cambridge curriculum.

The alleviation of intellectual restrictions combined with the imposition of physical restrictions gave way to what historians call Newton’s “Year of Wonders,” in which he did some of the most important and impactful work of his life.

Each constraint you face comes with its own unique opportunities and tradeoffs.

We don’t always get to control which constraints we work with but we always have the ability to reflect on the costs and benefits of each constraint we are subjected to and then make the most of whatever hand we are dealt.

Thanks for subscribing, and sharing anything you’ve learned with your teams and networks (let us know what you think and share ideas: @ActionDigest).