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By Rodger Dean Duncan, Contributor.
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Rodger Dean Duncan covers leadership issues important to the workplace.
Follow Author | Aug 06, 2026, 02:00am EDT
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Author David Epstein challenges the conventional wisdom that success comes from removing all obstacles, arguing instead that carefully managed constraints foster innovation and superior outcomes. In his new book, "Inside the Box," he contends that unlimited resources often hinder progress, citing examples from business to art. Epstein's own childhood injury forced him to adapt, leading to academic and athletic achievements by inventing new learning methods. He highlights how excessive choices lead to dissatisfaction and decision paralysis, contrasting the failure of resource-rich General Magic with the focused success of Palm Pilot. Humans often exhibit an "additive bias," preferring to add rather than subtract, even when subtraction is more effective. Creative examples like Pixar, Monet, and Dr. Seuss demonstrate how self-imposed restrictions drive ingenuity. Epstein advises against multitasking, advocating for task batching and prioritizing one key task daily to combat the "mere urgency effect." Ultimately, he suggests that limitations, when thoughtfully embraced, focus potential and enable excellence.
For decades, leaders have been taught that success comes from removing obstacles. Give talented people more freedom. Expand resources. Add more choices. Eliminate constraints.
David Epstein argues that much of that conventional wisdom is backward.
He has spent two decades making that case, first in The Sports Gene, then in the bestseller Range, and now in his latest book Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, which argues that businesses, teams, and creative people routinely mistake unlimited resources for an advantage. Epstein walks through the science, the case studies, and the small daily habits behind that argument—and made a compelling case that "good enough" might be a smarter target than "maximize everything."
In our recent conversation, he suggested that many of our greatest breakthroughs emerge not despite limitations, but because of them. Whether discussing business innovation, artistic creativity, scientific discovery, or everyday decision-making, Epstein repeatedly returned to a surprising conclusion: carefully managed constraints sharpen thinking, encourage experimentation, and often produce better outcomes than unlimited possibilities ever could.
Ironically, the lesson first appeared in Epstein's own life through an accident.
As an eighth grader, he threw a football during a schoolyard game when, without anyone touching him, his arm suddenly snapped.
"My arm snapped in a spiral, completely separating the upper arm bone from the shoulder," he recalled.
For the next year his injured arm was in a sling strapped to his stomach. Unable to write with his dominant hand or participate in sports, Epstein was forced to invent new ways of learning. Instead of filling in blanks during French listening exercises, he memorized entire passages by associating words with sports images.
"I started acing those tests," he said. "I became a straight A student."
The injury also pushed him toward cross-country running, eventually leading him to become a Division I athlete and university record holder.
"I never would have even thought to try if I hadn't been blocked from the things that were familiar to me."
That unexpected theme—being forced away from the familiar—runs throughout Epstein's research.
One of the biggest myths, he believes, is our romantic view of innovation.
"We valorize the individual genius who is set apart from society," he said. In reality, history shows that breakthroughs usually come from "very contained problem solving" rather than mysterious flashes of inspiration. That's one reason many major discoveries occur simultaneously among multiple researchers who are independently working through similar problems.
Leaders often assume more options produce better decisions. Research suggests otherwise.
"Our brains actually don't work" the way classical economic theory assumes, Epstein explained. When people face too many choices, they often become less satisfied—even after making good decisions.
He cited studies showing that people given a single video to watch were happier than those choosing from 20 options. Merely knowing there might be something better available diminishes enjoyment of the present choice.
The same overload affects retirement planning, consumer decisions, and software design. As choices multiply, decision-making slows and people sometimes avoid deciding altogether.
One of the clearest business illustrations came from General Magic, the legendary Silicon Valley startup whose employees envisioned smartphones years before the technology existed.
"They could do anything because they had so much money and so much talent," Epstein said.
That became the company's downfall.
Every new idea was pursued. Every feature was added. Development became increasingly bloated until the eventual product required a 200-page manual and left customers wondering what problem it actually solved.
"They had unlimited money, unlimited talent, seemingly unlimited time," Epstein said. "If someone had an idea, they did it."
Meanwhile, former employees who focused on solving one clearly defined customer problem went on to create the Palm Pilot and companies like eBay.
The contrast highlights a psychological tendency Epstein says affects nearly everyone.
"We have a pair of biases: additive bias and subtraction neglect bias."
Humans instinctively solve problems by adding rather than removing—even when subtraction produces better results. Evolution likely prepared us to deal with scarcity, not abundance.
Pixar, by contrast, became a model of disciplined creativity. Rather than expanding endlessly, filmmakers deliberately simplified stories for years before beginning production. Directors removed unnecessary characters and resisted polishing insignificant details.
At Pixar, an internal practice tackled what the studio called "the beautifully shaded penny problem"—the tendency to obsess over tiny background details while major work remained unfinished. By making resource limits visible, leaders redirected attention toward what mattered most.
Epstein believes entrepreneurs can benefit from similar discipline by documenting assumptions before pursuing ideas. Companies that explicitly wrote down their hypotheses about customers and then tested them were more willing to pivot when evidence contradicted their expectations. "Instead of challenging their assumption, they would always just move the goalposts," he said of entrepreneurs who skipped that step.
The principle extends beyond startups. Introducing a contrary voice—even an artificial one—improves group decision-making by preventing teams from locking onto their first solution. Simply disrupting initial assumptions encourages better thinking.
Creativity itself often flourishes under self-imposed restrictions. Epstein pointed to artists like Claude Monet, who banned himself from using black paint, forcing entirely new approaches to depicting light. He also cited Dr. Seuss, whose publisher challenged him to write Green Eggs and Ham using only fifty different words. "When the easiest solution for us is taken away," Epstein said, "we will do our best work."
The same principle applies in modern offices, where the greatest enemy of productivity may not be workload but fragmentation. People frequently believe multitasking makes them more productive, but research suggests exactly the opposite. Office workers now switch tasks approximately every 45 seconds. "The more switches someone did a day," Epstein said, "that was a negative predictor of their end-of-day productivity." Frequent task-switching also increased measurable stress levels because each interruption leaves what researchers describe as mental residue that lingers into the next activity.
His practical recommendation is simple: batch similar work together rather than constantly toggling between responsibilities.
Throughout our discussion, Epstein emphasized that constraints become harmful only when they dictate both the destination and every step required to reach it. Effective constraints clarify priorities while preserving room for experimentation.
Asked for one practical habit leaders could adopt immediately, he shared his own practice. Rather than ending each workday with an overwhelming to-do list, he writes down only the single most important task to begin the following morning. "If you don't," he warned, "you will drift into social media feeds or your inbox." That small ritual helps overcome what psychologists call the "mere urgency effect"—our tendency to choose activities that feel immediately pressing over work that truly matters.
In an era obsessed with removing every obstacle, David Epstein offers a refreshing reminder that limitations are not always barriers to success. Sometimes they are the very conditions that make excellence possible. Leaders who thoughtfully embrace constraints may discover they are not restricting potential at all—they are focusing it where it matters most.
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