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1/ A lot’s been written about the theory of constraints and focusing on bottlenecks, but the bottleneck is always presented as a problem to be fixed. There’s another way of looking at it where the bottleneck is an opportunity, and you move it on purpose
2/ The bottleneck is only a problem to the extent you want throughout (really sales) to increase. But if maximizing sales is not the overriding goal, you can strategically PLACE the bottleneck to further all sorts of other goals
3/ You could throttle throughput to maximize quality, satisfaction, craftsmanship, camaraderie, interestingness, predictability, or to minimize risk. This is really what we do as freelancers/solopreneurs. We could produce more, but we’re optimizing for something else
4/ I’ve chosen to make my bottleneck content production, even though that’s not limiting sales by a long shot. It’s because I’m optimizing for the pace of developing my ideas, which is most directly related to volume of content I produce
5/ In other words I’m maximizing idea development throughput, which is related to but not identical to sales throughput. Knowing where my bottleneck is, I subordinate all other activities to it
6/ So content production gets scheduled first, and I spend resources on it lavishly. All other activities have to fit in around it. What are you optimizing for? And where does that suggest your bottleneck is?
