finish projects
this is your work. no one gets to tell you no.
finish projects
this is your work. no one gets to tell you no.
To finish creative projects, you need a system that works with your creative brain (not against it)
You don't learn this stuff in school.
School is designed around turning people into efficient widget-crankers. Happy time-card punchers. It doesn't teach us how to take responsibility for our own trajectories or how to manage challenging self-generated creative projects...never mind how to manage ourselves.
None of us are given any tools. We all assume that if we just want it badly enough, somehow we'll magically transform into The Person Who Does The Thing.
But that's backwards.
You don't become that person before doing the work. Doing the work makes you that person.
The Creative Engine is my four-phase framework — Collect, Decide, Act, Reflect — for finishing any self-generated project. When you understand the four phases, you can finally see where you're getting stuck, and why, so you can change your patterns.
And yet, since no one ever taught you how to finish self-generated projects, when it comes to getting the work done, most people default to what they did learn in school: crack down on yourself and force yourself into action.
We all know how well that works.
4 Steps to Finish Your Dream Creative Project
Learn the 4-phase Creative Engine framework for finishing projects that are on no one's agenda but your own.
- Why missing even one step can derail your progress
- Get the ingenious “Pre-Decision” protocol for making progress without relying on willpower
- Decode your personal resistance pattern to outsmart creative blocks
Plus: why your creative brain resists cookie-cutter advice and how to work with your unique strengths, instead of against them.
Trying to self-punish your way to productivity is doomed to fail
Lying awake churning over your to do list, wondering when you’ll ever clear the decks to make time for your work.
Moving “work on project” to tomorrow in your Bullet Journal. Again.
Literally avoiding looking at the area where your notes sit to try to avoid the feeling of failure…
Realizing, again, that you actually cannot function on five hours of sleep no matter how many mushroom coffees you’ve had…
People come to me all the time asking for a bigger stick to beat themselves up with. They’re hoping I can hold their feet to the fire and help them develop the endurance to “make up for lost time.”
I get it: they probably have an inner critic working overtime, and they feel like the only way to turn down the volume is to try to appease that voice with, well, perfection. Doing everything everyone else needs you to do, and also doing what you’ve promised yourself.
Obviously, that's not possible. What you need is what I call a Flexible Container.
Your raging inner critic (an echo of teachers and family members who tried to steer you away from your creative direction).
The incredible artists and creatives you would love to emulate, if you could only figure out how to take yourself on a retreat every few months.
Even productivity writers whose system worked great for them (with a neurotypical brain, white privilege, and a wife to chock the gaps at home).
The only container that can work for you is one that fits your life and is built around your idea.
That's what I do. I'll show you how to build it.
what do you need right now?
work with me directly
Build your custom Flexible Container for finishing what matters most
Learn at your own pace
Use the Creative Engine framework to build your own systems
Keep exploring with free articles, podcasts, and trainings.
Start Here
The Creative Engine: the four-phase framework for finishing any self-generated project
The Flexible Container: the planning system that bends without breaking
listen
The Autonomous Creative: behind the scenes with creative pros.
The Out on the Wire Podcast: The show about making stories, step by step.
read
Articles about getting real creative work done through flexible, sustainable systems that work with your creative brain, not against it.
watch
Get help with self-efficacy and creative projects on YouTube