Main idea

Setting yourself a short delay between idea and publication passes for a constraint on rhythm. It is also one of selection: the delay determines which subjects are reachable.

A subject that requires building a documentary base, running interviews or checking external sources does not fit in a two-day window. What fits is whatever material is already available — a recent experience, a problem you ran into, a conversation, a change of mind.

The delay therefore doesn't only speed up a given piece of work. It steers you towards a class of subjects where the material precedes the decision to write.

Why it matters

This makes the rhythm constraint debatable instead of letting it pass for simple discipline. Committing to a short delay means committing to a corpus made of direct experience rather than investigation — which is an editorial choice, not a question of organization.

And it gives a non-psychological explanation for the subjects that never come out: they aren't harder, they are out of window.

Nuances and limits

A short delay doesn't forbid heavy subjects, it excludes them from the ordinary regime. Nothing prevents running two regimes in parallel, provided you don't judge one by the other's criteria.

And a short delay doesn't guarantee actual publication within it: it bears on getting the material out, not on finishing the text.

Open questions

• Past what duration does the delay stop selecting and become simple discipline again?