Curated path · Available on iPhone

Three Ways Through a Creative Block

Seven days with three writers who each spent a career on the same problem — the work you mean to start, and don't — and arrived at three answers that don't fit together.

7 lessonsNarrated audioCreative

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Inside this path

A little more understanding.

Everyone who makes things knows the afternoon that was cleared for the work and then wasn't used for it. Steven Pressfield treats that afternoon as a fight. Rick Rubin treats it as weather. Elizabeth Gilbert refuses to treat it as serious at all. This path sets the three of them against each other across seven days, tests each one against the research where research exists, and leaves you with something more useful than a method — the judgement to tell which of the three a given day is actually asking for.

Available now in Catalyst for iPhone. Open the app to see current access and subscription options.

Where the path begins · Lesson 01

Find where the work stops

Locate the actual difficulty in a creative project and meet three perspectives that can help you choose a next move.

The full lesson text and narrated audio are available in the Catalyst app.

One idea at a time.
In sequence.

See the 7-lesson outline

Find where the work stops
Locate the actual difficulty in a creative project and meet three perspectives that can help you choose a next move.
Give the next step a fair chance
Examine a reason for postponing and find an available next action without dismissing real constraints.
Build a practice that produces information
Give a creative session a workable purpose and use its result to make returning easier.
Notice what the work needs
Examine the material in front of you and choose input or distance that serves a specific question.
Turn an idea into a useful experiment
Compare limited alternatives and ask for feedback that can inform a creative decision.
Keep standards without making every attempt a verdict
Separate a standard that serves the project from a demand that the work prevent every possible judgment.
Choose the next move and a place to stop
Bring commitment, attention and curiosity into a decision to continue, revise, finish or set a project aside.

Bring your own curiosity

You can generate your own paths.

A subject, a situation or a question. Shape a sequence of lessons around what you want to understand.

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Three Ways Through a Creative Block

A little more understanding.

Find where the work stops

One idea at a time.In sequence.

Find where the work stops

Give the next step a fair chance

Build a practice that produces information

Notice what the work needs

Turn an idea into a useful experiment

Keep standards without making every attempt a verdict

Choose the next move and a place to stop

Another question to follow.

Introduction to Communication

Introduction to Financial Independence

Introduction to Habits

You can generate your own paths.

One idea at a time.
In sequence.