Working with Constraints · Clearahead docs

A Constraint is a condition that is genuinely holding you back. It is not a task list item or a vague frustration. It is the diagnosis you need to understand before deciding what to do next.

Start the session

Use the Explore what’s holding us back button in the launcher. AJ will briefly orient to your active Goal, then help you surface the Constraints that may be limiting progress towards it.

If you need the bigger picture first, see The model for how Constraints sit between the Goal and your Moves.

Start wide before you narrow down

AJ will usually help you generate several candidate Constraints before focusing on any one of them. That matters.

If you rank too early, you often end up polishing the first plausible answer rather than finding the condition that is actually limiting progress.

So the aim at first is to surface credible candidates, not to declare a winner. If one candidate is ruled out, it is kept on record rather than dropped. It may matter next cycle.

How AJ pressure-tests a Constraint

For each candidate under real consideration, AJ will ask versions of these questions:

Is this a cause or just a symptom?
What evidence supports it?
If it disappeared, would progress materially accelerate?
What would prove it wrong?
Are you choosing it because it is genuinely limiting, or because it is more comfortable to discuss?

Those questions are there to stop the team settling too quickly for the neatest-sounding answer.

Write the Constraint as a condition

A Constraint should be written as a condition, not as a task.

Good Constraint wording sounds like this:

“Production capacity is preventing us taking on profitable demand”
“Decision-making latency is slowing enterprise deals”

Poor Constraint wording usually sounds like an action plan:

“Hire more operators”
“Improve our sales process”

The diagnosis comes first. The response comes later.

Keep the title short

In Clearahead, the title should stay short. Just name the limiting thing itself, such as Production capacity.

Put the fuller reasoning in the description. That is where the condition sentence belongs: what is being prevented, and how this Constraint is getting in the way.

Focus Constraints, not one Primary Constraint

Clearahead does not depend on a single Primary Constraint. Instead, it can hold several focus Constraints at once.

These are the deepest unresolved Constraints on the Goal’s causal chain. Keep the list short. If everything is in focus, attention scatters.

Sub-constraints

Sometimes the real issue sits one level deeper. In that case, add a sub-constraint underneath the parent Constraint.

A sub-constraint is still a Constraint in its own right. It just contributes to a parent one through CONTRIBUTES_TO rather than constraining the Goal directly.

For example, Skilled machine operators might contribute to Production capacity. AJ will pressure-test it in the same way before staging it.

Ask AJ

“Help me surface a few candidate Constraints before we rank anything.”

“Does this sound like a real Constraint or just a symptom?”

“Can you help me rewrite this as a condition rather than a task?”

“I think there is a deeper Constraint underneath this one.”

Read next: Working with Moves