The 4-hat process (the only writing workflow that doesn’t melt your brain)
This is the most useful part.
Artist hat: dump the raw material
No structure. No rules. Just ideas on the page.
Only requirement: know your grand payoff.
Architect hat: build the order
Now you cut weak ideas and arrange the steps that climb to the payoff.
This is where the video becomes a movie, not a rant.
Writer hat: connect the dots
Now you write the actual script in full.
And here’s the small trick that’s weirdly powerful:
At the top, write three lines:
- Goal: what “success” looks like for the viewer
- Failure: what goes wrong / what risk they fear
- Emotion: what they should feel as they progress
That forces every section to do something: progress, regress, or shift emotion.
So you don’t get that dead, flat “informational sludge.”
Wizard hat: retention surgery
Now you go through the script and highlight every payoff—every moment the viewer goes:
- “Oh.”
- “Wait—seriously?”
- “That’s clever.”
- “I didn’t know that.”
If you see big unhighlighted deserts, that’s where people leave.
- Simple. Brutal. Accurate.