Welcome to Verstreuen, meaning “to scatter.” Each week I share highlights from my Workframe system, the process I use to turn books and notes into structured insights. Here, scattered ideas find connection and become something worth sharing.

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🗃️ This Week’s Highlights

This week's notes come from 28 new additions to the Zettelkasten - here’s the three that stood out most to share with you:

🟨 Scarcity isn’t the problem - what replaces it is

🟦 The hidden move behind effective persuasion

🟥 How much of your work exists only because no one questioned it

Most people treat scarcity as something to fix.

We want more time, more money, more tools. The assumption is simple: remove the constraint and the problem goes away.

But real systems aren’t that simple.

Scarcity doesn’t disappear - the constraint just moves.

For a long time, information was scarce. Learning required access to books, experts, or institutions. Finding knowledge was the bottleneck.

The internet changed that.

Information became cheap and abundant. Articles, videos, tutorials, and opinions were everywhere. The original problem - how do I get access to knowledge? - was largely solved.

But the system didn’t become frictionless.

Instead, the constraint shifted. When information stopped being scarce, attention did.

If you only look at the first-order effect, abundance looks like a solution. If you look one step further, you see that abundance creates a new limit. Attention scarcity isn’t a failure - it’s a predictable result of information abundance.

This is the value of second-order thinking.

When you remove one constraint, the question isn’t “Are we done?”
It’s “What became scarce next?”

The mistake is stopping the analysis too early. The useful move is to track where the pressure goes and design around that reality.

As a thinking tool, scarcity is less about what’s missing now and more about predicting what will matter after the system adjusts.

 📎 Takeaway: Abundance shifts constraints; second-order thinking is thinking through that shift.

—🗃️—

It’s easy to assume persuasion works by accumulation.

More features.
More facts.
More benefits.

If we keep adding reasons, eventually the balance should tip.

But when you look at examples that actually work, something else is happening.

Good marketing rarely introduces entirely new ideas. Most of the time, the audience already has a list forming in their head - reasons to say yes, and reasons to object.

Persuasion doesn’t erase that list.
It rearranges it.

I’m reminded of the infomercials I used to see on TV as a kid.

I never bought a ShamWow myself, but my parents had one - and it felt like everyone else did too. The product was everywhere.

Looking back, what’s interesting isn’t the product. It’s the pitch.

The host didn’t argue directly with the obvious objections. He didn’t insist it wasn’t gimmicky or cheap. Instead, he kept pulling different reasons to the front.

Spill after spill disappeared in one motion. The towel was wrung out, reused, dragged across messes. Ease, speed, and visual proof stayed in focus long enough that other concerns faded into the background.

The objections didn’t disappear.
They just stopped leading.

Price, durability, and skepticism were pushed down the list - not through rebuttal, but through attention. Meanwhile, convenience and effectiveness were quietly promoted to the top.

Nothing new was added.
The reasons were already there.

They were simply reordered.

That’s the work of persuasion. not creating belief from nothing but guiding which reasons matter most in the moment of decision.

 📎 Takeaway: Persuasion works by changing which reasons lead, not by adding more of them.

—🗃️—

Some constraints are real.

Physics, budgets, and time impose hard limits. Ignoring them leads to failure.

But many of the constraints we work around every day aren’t limits at all. They’re requirements that were added once and never questioned again.

Lately at work, I’ve noticed how much energy we spend trying to solve problems created by assumptions that don’t really apply anymore. Processes, approvals, and rules get treated as fixed - not because they’re necessary, but because they exist.

I’ve been pushing back on as many requirements as I can, asking a simple question: Is this a real constraint, or just a paper wall?

Steven Bartlett uses the term “paper walls” to describe limits that feel solid until you test them. They’re not enforced by physics or reality - just by habit, precedent, or fear of pushing back.

What’s surprising is how often nothing breaks when you do.

Once you start separating true constraints from assumed ones, the nature of the problem changes. Many issues don’t need better solutions - they disappear entirely when the requirement creating them is removed.

This is where simplicity actually comes from - not from working harder within the system, but from questioning which parts of the system are real.

 📎 Takeaway: Before solving a problem, check whether the constraint behind it actually exists.

—🗃️—

Closing Thoughts

Leverage rarely comes from adding effort.
It comes from changing what the system considers important.

When one constraint is removed, another takes its place.
Persuasion works by reordering reasons, not creating new ones.
Many “limits” are just assumptions left unexamined.

So when progress stalls, don’t push harder inside the system.
Change what matters first.

Thanks for reading Verstreuen! 👋 

Until next week
-GH

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