Blog
Articles on finishing self-generated work and building expertise-based creative businesses, with the Creative Engine, Ground Truth, and Capacity frameworks.
Finish Projects
What is a Flexible Container? A methodology for finishing creative work tailored to your real life
The Flexible Container A methodology for finishing creative work built to fit to your real life Hofstadter vs Parkinson I’d like to introduce you to two fake laws of nature. Hofstadter’s Law (not a law!) was invented as a joke by the writer Douglas Hofstadter. It states that everything always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law. That means, whatever you’re setting out to do, imagine you make a best-case and worst-case estimate for how long it’ll take. Take into account Hofstadter’s Law, and you’ll see that your worst case isn’t even close. But then the actual time it takes is even longer than the “Worst Case Taking Into Account Hofstadter’s Law.” If you’ve…
The Creative Engine: The framework for finishing your most important work
The Creative Engine THE FRAMEWORK FOR FINISHING YOUR MOST IMPORTANT WORK The productivity industry has a massive blind spot built into it: everything it teaches assumes your work has a deadline and someone waiting on it. When that’s not the case, the standard advice is to recreate that punishment-reward system: find an accountability partner, set artificial deadlines, treat yourself like an employee. And that’s where it falls apart. That simply doesn’t work for self-generated, deadline-free projects, and even less so when they’re the kind of creative work that requires thought and white space to come into being. We’re all trained into dependence on external accountability with deadlines, consequences, and gold stars. No wonder that once we’re out on our own…
The Should Monster: Your inner critic is trying to protect you (it’s just bad at it)
Trying to silence your inner critic is literally why it won’t shut up. But you can stop the inner critic from stealing your creative time when you know how to figure out what it’s actually trying to tell you, so you can finally calm it down.
What is Idea Debt? (And why it keeps your creative projects from getting finished)
If you have too many creative projects and can’t finish any, you’re living with Idea Debt. Find out what it is, why it happens, and what to do about it.
The power of conscious decision: “Yes, I will actually do it.”
Do you have Idea Debt that you fear you ll never get a handle on? May I introduce you to Michi Mathias, proud author of a brand new book, 15 years in the making.
I am a finisher: From 30 years on one quilt to 17 quilts in three years
We’ve all got a project waiting in the wings. Maggie Winnall’s big pink quilt waited 30 years. Then she finished it, and kept going: “Finisher, I am.”
Focused action: The time to act is now
So how does one go from a slow-burn collaborative podcast to putting out a full, cohesive season of a narrative podcast in one year? With a whole lot of extremely focused action, and a laser focus on one goal.