The Third Limitation to Creativity

The moment when you realize what was previously impossible is now trivial

I just wrote a new piece about the two primary limitations to creativity. You should check it out. But after finishing it I realized there was a third limitation, which is not even thinking about some options for creating a new solution, or solving a problem, because it was previously impossible.

Let me give you my example from yesterday, while I was working on this newsletter. I was wishing I could get more from Fathom Analytics, which was my web analytics replacement for Google Analytics since it became total shit, and for Chartbeat since they became hundreds of dollars per month.

Chartbeat has always been my favorite web analytics platform. It’s gorgeous. It’s dynamic. And most importantly—it counts pages that people are reading, not just the initial page load. In other words, it works how it’s supposed to.

So yesterday I was looking at my Fathom interface and I’m like wait…could I just replace Chartbeat myself?

My custom analytics dashboard showing real-time visitor data

Oh, and I made a menu bar visual using Swift, which is way better than what I had with Fathom. That took less than minutes.

The 142 bit

So let me be clear. I replaced Google Analytics and Chartbeat in a couple of hours (just visual tweaking after I had the main functionality in less than 20 minutes), and I have WAY MORE of my desired features than both of them combined. It’s literally better for me in every way.

I now have:

• Historical metrics (which Chartbeat didn’t have)
• Realtime true metrics (which Google Analytics didn’t have)
• A MacOS menubar item (which neither of them had)
• Infinite customization ability

I just replaced two SaaS apps that I’ve used for years. And I just kind of casually made it happen while I was reading stories and writing the newsletter.

It took a good amount of skill to Spec Code the thing via prompting (because I understand how the JS had to work, etc.), but Kai then took that and wrote the whole thing for me once he had that.

So, two things:

1. Holy crap this is nuts
2. We need to completely reframe what’s possible now

I have literally thought about wanting to replace Chartbeat hundreds of times prior to November of 2022. I just didn’t have the time to do all those separate pieces, plus have the UI skills to make it look good. We’re talking about:

• The analytics JavaScript itself
• The listener services
• The database
• The storage of the metrics
• The queries against the endpoints
• And then the GUI

18 minutes.

That’s how long it took to go from:

Hey, I wonder if I could make this?

…to it actually working. 18 minutes. And if I weren’t working on the newsletter that probably would have been half that.

Not only is it fun, but given all the other stuff I’ve been talking about regarding careers and jobs and how companies don’t actually want employees, I think this is actually the main path for a stable career.

Making your own stuff and offering it to others.

The third limitation to creativity isn’t just about losing touch with your inner child or being captured by your audience—it’s about not even considering certain possibilities because they used to be impossible.

But they’re not impossible anymore. Not even close.