Two sites dominate online chess: Chess.com and Lichess.org.

Lichess is 100% free, open-source, fully-featured, well-designed... the utopian ideal in nearly every way.

Chess.com is the same, except the part about it being free, or open source, or well designed. However, its marketing is top notch. And to be fair, it's doing great things for the popularity of the game and I really appreciate the YouTube content it sponsors.

Normally I spend my time on Lichess where I can play as many games and puzzles as I want for free. But lately I've been on Chess.com some too, because it turns out that marketing + network effects works.

One thing about online chess is you get a little number next to your username and it goes up or down after every game or puzzle you play. It's extremely addicting, and now that I have a chess.com number I'm VERY concerned about making it go up.

In order to make my number go up from playing puzzles (my favorite form of chess), I have to successfully solve puzzles.

But here's the interesting part.

Because it's Chess.com, I can only do a few puzzles each day before I have to pay. That means every puzzle really counts. I can't afford to miss a single one without killing the whole day's potential to make that little number go up.

On Lichess if I get one wrong, I can always just do a few more. The pressure is off. I try half as hard.

And you know what? I learn half as much, and enjoy it half as much too.

Yeah, yeah. Quality over quantity. We all know that.

I guess my point is that arbitrary restrictions are a great way to subconsciously try (much) harder and enjoy what you're doing so much more.

This works for anything that is primarily mediated by your own motivation for doing it, and I'm getting good at recognizing opportunities for restriction.

If I'm bouldering, I only give myself 3 tries. If I'm practicing my putts, I only bring 1 golf ball. When I'm coding my hobby project I do it in bite-sized chunks.

I'm building freemium back into my life, and I think you should too.