We have all been told to "think outside the box". What if I said that I prefer "thinking inside the box"? You may ask why? After all, what do I know that great thinkers supposedly don't know? Simply put, let's contextualize "thinking inside the box". Putting an issue inside a box has helped me zero in on the problem and hopefully deliver more concise results.

When we are given a blank sheet and freedom to create anything we want, our mind gets drowned in the sea of possibilities and frustrations of unreachable expectations. In the end, it sometimes result in something less precise, less original than what we were aiming for. I'm sure that was not the desired outcome of thinking outside the box.

There is a strategy that I learned recently which concisely states the idea. It's called the Box Strategy. It's based on the concept that the best creative ideas come when we are working with constraints and limitations; thinking inside the box.

For me, this explains why having a design brief and requirements helps to orient creativity and helps in delivering better results, rather than having a blank sheet.

Let's talk about an example in the wild.

On Twitter, We are allowed to express our thoughts, ideas, opinions in only 140 characters. So in this limited space, people are expressing themselves in new ways. Twitter has forced users to be creative in their tweets as they have limited them to that space.

And I am sure you may see more examples in the wild on a daily basis where a limitation has made people to think and do things more creatively. In India we have a term for it "Jugaad".

Remember Structure sets you free.