“My goal isn’t to win the hours. I want to be present.” — Shelley Evans

When a “good career” starts to feel like a bad relationship, walking away is just the start. After you escape the grind, you realize the grind is YOU, and the work has just begun. Shelley and Matt share how crisis-mode and productivity hacks kept them reactive—and what changed when they chose a self‑sustaining creative practice over the fool’s gold of trying to do it all, all at once.

In this open, honest discussion, we look at why mainstream productivity culture fails creative people—and what actually works instead.

Shelley describes realizing her Hollywood career was akin to an “abusive spouse”. After she chose to step away to write her novel, her biggest achievement wasn’t logging more hours, it was moving from punishing deadlines to presence, using “marbles in a jar” to measure engaged time and pulling the Creative Focus Workshop “ripcord” to recenter herself when she got off track.

Matt shares how 100-hour weeks in tech and spinning in endless “preparation” felt productive but in fact kept him from writing. When he (finally!) chose a single project, he created steadiness and progress he could trust.

We talk about “finish and ship” as the foundation of art as communication, why the Motion AI calendar that postponed lunch until April is the clearest sign yet that productivity hacking is a dead end, and how short, ten‑minute sessions beat perfectionism because you discover better questions once you’re in motion.

If you’re stuck in reactive mode, or drowning in “optimizing,” this conversation gives you simple, human practices to return to your work and keep going.

• Why “crisis‑competence” isn’t a creative practice
• The exact moment Shelley realized the Hollywood grind was “an abusive spouse,”
• How “marbles in a jar” beats self‑punishment when you’re stuck
• When to pull the ripcord and return to Creative Focus
• “Finish and ship” as the completion of an act of creative communication
• The fine line between useful tooling/worldbuilding and sophisticated procrastination
• “I teach productivity, but I hate ‘productivity’” — e.g. the Motion AI calendar that tried to schedule lunch in April.
• The value of ten‑minute sessions over painstaking perfection

If you’re ready to swap punishment for presence with your creative work, and actually finish, watch the free Creative Engine workshop. Master the 4 simple steps to finishing your dream creative projects!

Shelley Evans is a screenwriter and teacher (Harvard Extension School) whose credits include ABC, CBS, Showtime, USA, Hallmark, and Lifetime. She’s now focused on her novel and on building a sustainable, presence‑based creative practice.

Matt Griffin is a writer, adjunct professor (NYU IDM/ITP), conference producer (NarraScope 2025), consultant, 3D printing and biofabrication expert (MakerBot/Ultimaker). He’s currently writing an interactive novel for Choice of Games.

• The Creative Focus Workshop (CFW)
• The Creative Engine class: 4 Simple Steps to Finish Your Dream Creative Projects (Live Oct 9; replay after)
• Choice of Games