A library for people who make things.
Every creative discipline teaches craft. None of them teach thinking. One model a week closes that gap: a real person, a concrete moment, the rule, and the first move for tomorrow. Free.
Start with these three.
Three Beginner models, about half an hour in total. Each one changes a decision you will make this week.
First Principles Thinking
Wilbur Wright stood in a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, twisting a cardboard box. 8 min readEisenhower Matrix
Charles Dickens sat at his desk in Devonshire Terrace on an October evening in 1843, reading sales figures for a novel that was bleeding readers. 8 min readFour Stages of Creativity
Henri Poincaré stepped onto an omnibus at Coutances in 1880. 8 min readRecent entries
Satisficing
Isaac Asimov sat at his electric typewriter by seven-thirty each morning, a backup machine in the closet for the day the first one died.
Emergence
John Conway placed a black Go stone on a board in the mathematics common room at Cambridge.
Activation Energy
Twyla Tharp stepped out of her Manhattan apartment at 5:30 in the morning, wearing leg warmers, sweatshirts, and a hat.
G.I. Joe Fallacy
Samuel Taylor Coleridge knew exactly what was killing him.
Boden's Three Types of Creativity
On September 26, 1944, a Black woman walked into Decca Records’ New York studio with an electric guitar.
Semmelweis Reflex
In September 2004, Anne Rice logged onto Amazon and read the reviews of her latest novel, Blood Canticle.
165 thinking frameworks for creatives.
The cognitive architecture behind every creative career that works. 800+ pages of decision-making tools adapted for artists, writers, designers, and musicians.