Constraint Theory
Growth stalls somewhere. You add clients and work 55 hours. You hire someone and spend 10 hours a week in syncs. You're not sure what's actually limiting you. Constraint theory says every system has one primary bottleneck limiting growth. Find it. Fix it. Then find the next one. This is how you scale systematically instead of pushing everywhere at once.
One constraint at a time. A bookkeeper doing every return herself is capped at $15k/month—she is the constraint. She adds an associate and trains them on 60% of returns; now the constraint might be sales or client onboarding. She fixes that next. A consultant whose bottleneck is "only I can deliver" productizes and delegates; the new constraint might be pipeline or capacity of the team. You don't fix everything at once. You break one ceiling, then the next.
Find the one thing limiting growth. Fix it. Then find the next one.
How to use it
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Name the constraint. Where does work pile up? Where do you spend the most time? Where does the client wait on you? Common bottlenecks for domain experts: delivery (you're in every session), operations (you're in every decision), sales (only you can close). Once named, you can design around it.
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Fix it without adding more of your time. The goal is to move the constraint off you, not to work harder. If delivery is the bottleneck, productization and delegation shift capacity to others. If operations is the bottleneck, documentation and workflow automation reduce the decisions that need you.
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Find the next one. After you've freed 10 hours, the next constraint appears. Maybe it's "only I can sell." So you document how you sell—scope document, offer, discovery script—and someone else runs the first conversation; you do the close. Sequential focus beats scattered effort.
What breaks
Fixing the wrong thing. If you hire before you have systems, you become the bottleneck for managing the hire. If you automate before you've defined the process, you automate chaos. Build repeatable processes first, then add people or tools.
Trying to fix everything. Constraint theory works because you focus. One constraint, one fix, then reassess. Spread your effort across five "priorities" and nothing moves.