You don't lose time to laziness. You lose it to a series of small, completely defensible decisions... and if you're a creative person, you feel every minute of it.

Every morning I do Wordle. Then I make an espresso and watch one Colbert monologue. Totally reasonable. But then Colbert went on break, YouTube suggested Kimmel, and I noticed something genuinely interesting: three different comedians, same news story, completely different angles. Almost like research.

So I started watching all three. Every day. And then I'd wonder why I never had time for my creative work.

This episode is about how time disappears: not in one dramatic theft, but in a series of small, completely defensible decisions. It's also about something stranger: what happens when you actually run out of time, and what that tells you about the conditions you've convinced yourself you need.

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The more experience I got as a jazz drummer, the worse my instincts became – and figuring out why changed how I think about every creative decision.

There's a moment in almost every creative project where the variables multiply past what you can reasonably think through – and the harder you try to decide, the less clear it gets. I know this feeling from the bandstand: I'm a jazz drummer, and for a stretch of my 30s I lost access to the one thing I'd always been able to rely on – my improvisational instincts.

I couldn't explain it, and reaching for more information made it worse. In this episode I talk about an essay by an anesthesiologist who went through the same thing, what his experience revealed about how creative intuition actually works, and the simple technique I developed to get my instincts back – one that turns out to apply far beyond drumming.

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I've been reading Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke – a book about addiction, not creativity... but I couldn't stop reading it like it was about creativity. 

Dopamine Nation: https://amzn.to/4tPSkCg 

Turns out there's a reason for that. Neuroscientist David Linden found that creative people often have low-functioning dopamine systems, meaning we feel less baseline pleasure than average. Which means the dopamine economy we're living in right now (the phones, the scroll, the endless cheap hits) is particularly hard for people like us. 

In this episode I get into the pain-pleasure seesaw, the marshmallow test, and the temptation nobody talks about.

The only marshmallow worth waiting for is the work itself. 

But you have to earn it.

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I used to only reach for writing when I was already stuck, which meant I was always playing catch-up. What I've learned — slowly, and not always consistently – is that writing isn't really about being a writer. It's about finding the story underneath whatever you're trying to make: where you are, where you want to go, and what you actually care about saying. 

In this episode I get into the science behind why it works (James Pennebaker's expressive writing research and Angus Fletcher's argument that our brains are literally wired to think in narrative), share how writing my way through confusion is what eventually led to this show, and leave you with a simple four-day practice you can try this week – no craft required.

/// Hey, my podcast has a newsletter that goes deeper. https://ktfpod.com

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If you've ever snuck away from a family vacation to work on an idea... or spent a board game mentally somewhere else entirely – this episode is for you.

I left my laptop at home on a ski trip. Took the iPad "just for movies." By day two, I was writing this episode on it. That moment of self-awareness... putting it down, choosing the board game, then spending the next 20 minutes pushing the podcast out of my head... is exactly what I want to talk about.

Why is it so hard for creative people to actually switch off? Not just physically step away, but mentally be somewhere else?

It turns out there's real science behind this: identity fusion, the default mode network, the incubation effect. And understanding it doesn't automatically make it easier – but it does make it feel a lot less like a character flaw.

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You've been told to visualize your success, but there's research showing that advice might actually be making your creative block worse.

The new album: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/album/subtext-vol-1

There's a piece of advice creatives have been given forever: visualize the finished album, the sold-out venue, the standing ovation. It feels motivating.

The problem is, psychologist Gabriele Oettingen spent decades studying this, and it turns out pure positive visualization quietly reduces the effort you actually put in — your brain takes a small hit of satisfaction from the fantasy and eases the tension that was driving you forward.

In this episode, I walk through a research-backed alternative called WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan) and show you exactly how I used it to finally release a project I'd been sitting on.

It's not about willpower. It's about designing a small, honest experiment inside your real life.

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What happens when a jazz trumpeter decides to turn his own anxiety into a chamber music suite... and then the world has a collective breakdown right on schedule?

Ian Carey and I go way back. We used to live two blocks apart in Brooklyn and played together before life pulled us in different directions, so having him on felt long overdue.

Ian is a San Francisco-based trumpeter, composer, graphic designer, and educator who has built one of the most quietly distinctive voices in contemporary jazz, one self-produced album at a time.

In this conversation we dig into the music behind Fire in My Head: The Anxiety Suite, how he channels personal struggle into instrumental composition without lyrics, why creative limitation is often a gift, and why AI-generated music bothers him — not just ethically, but on a fundamental level that cuts to the heart of what art actually is.

If you believe that craft and process matter, this one's for you.

Ian Carey's music: https://iancarey.bandcamp.com/

Ian's website: https://iancareyjazz.com/

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I never set out to become a minimalist composer, but somehow I accidentally stumbled into a creative process that completely transformed my output.

What started as a simple experiment with my 2012 album Remote Location—recycling a bassline as a melody—turned into an ongoing game of "what can I get away with?"

And here's the weird part: by giving myself fewer options and looser constraints, I ended up being way more productive.

In this episode, I break down how minimalism and gamification accidentally helped me increase my creative output by 700%, and how you can use the same approach to unstick your own creative projects.

Check out my music: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/

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The better I got at my craft, the less I actually created. Sounds backwards, right?

In this episode, I share how improving our skills can paradoxically make us more hesitant, more critical, and less willing to experiment. Drawing from my own journey from coffee drinker to coffee snob,

I explore why creative growth sometimes means hitting the record button less often—and why that's a problem we need to fix.

If you've ever felt like you're too good for your own ideas, this one's for you.

Jake Frew's video: https://youtu.be/DFirZ54qLbs?si=nKtKkCyTzvGjQlem

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I was completely stuck trying to come up with a better title for an episode when something unexpected happened.

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The moment I picked up my Apple Pencil and started doodling, the perfect phrase appeared—like my brain had been holding it hostage the whole time. This experience sent me down a research rabbit hole into the neuroscience of handwriting and creativity, and what I discovered completely changed how I approach creative blocks.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the science behind why writing by hand can unlock breakthrough ideas, what's actually happening in your brain during those "aha" moments, and how you can trigger this process intentionally whenever you're stuck.

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