I struggled to write.

Sitting in the office at 11pm, staring at a mess of half-written drafts. I was squeezing four ideas into one post. I achieved nothing but a heavier page.

I need a spine.

That’s the word Twyla Tharp uses for every project she builds. The spine is the single motive behind the work. Lock it in early or the work dissolves into clutter. The spine becomes the filter. It tells you exactly what to cut.

Here’s what I do now.

Write the spine first. Before I start a new project or content block, I write one line. A single sentence naming what this is actually about.

Test the variable. Run every new idea against that line. If it does not serve the spine, cut it. Does not matter how good it looks alone.

Cut what breaks the line. Last week I was building a guide on note processing. I wanted to add a database setup, a fancy AI workflow. It looked sleek. When I checked it against the spine: Lower the friction to start, and it failed. It was noise. I hit delete.

This keeps every decision fast. One line to check, not four ideas fighting for space.

I continue to explore Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. Her note on structural architecture inspires me. Her framework for using a single underlying theme to inject speed into tough creative decisions is legit and worth it.

Just another coffee thought from Gav.