What Creators and Innovators Can Learn from Make It Stick
You watch a tutorial on a new technique, follow along step by step, and produce something that looks right by the end. It feels like you've absorbed the technique. Then you sit down a week later to use it on your own project, without the tutorial open beside you, and it's gone. Following along with someone else's demonstration is one of the most comfortable ways to feel like you're developing a skill, and one of the weakest ways to actually build it, because the tutorial is doing the remembering for you the whole time.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Notice when following along isn't the same as knowing
Watching a demonstration, tracing over an example, or copying a template line by line all create a smooth, capable-feeling experience. That smoothness comes from being guided, not from your own retrieval of the technique, and the two produce very different results the next time you're facing a blank page alone.
A creator follows a detailed tutorial to recreate a specific visual effect, nails it perfectly while following along, and then can't reproduce anything close to it a few weeks later on an original project because the tutorial did the deciding for them the whole time.
After finishing your next tutorial or course, close it completely and try to redo the technique from scratch on a different, original example before you allow yourself to reopen it.
Try to reproduce the skill before you check the reference
Attempting a technique from memory first, then comparing it against a reference or your own past work, builds the skill into something you can call up on demand — far more than watching or rereading the reference one more time, even though the blank-page attempt feels much harder and slower.
A writer studies a favorite author's sentence structure by rereading a passage closely several times, feels like they've absorbed the rhythm, and then produces flat, ordinary sentences when they try to write their own scene, because rereading never asked them to actually generate anything.
Before consulting a reference or tutorial for your next piece, attempt the technique cold first, and only compare it to the source afterward to see what's actually different.
Space out skill-building and mix your techniques
Spending one long weekend drilling a single technique produces a version of that skill that fades once you move to the next project, while short, repeated sessions across several weeks make it durable. Practicing the same technique in isolation, over and over, also leaves you unable to tell when it's the right tool to reach for — deliberately mixing techniques in practice, rather than mastering one fully before touching the next, builds the judgment to choose correctly later.
A musician spends an entire weekend drilling one difficult passage until it's flawless, then finds it falls apart weeks later during a performance because it was never revisited, and was never practiced alongside the surrounding passages it actually has to connect to.
This week, instead of one long session drilling a single technique, do three shorter sessions spread across several days, each one mixing in at least one other technique from your existing repertoire.
Connect new techniques to what you already make
A new technique sticks fastest when you deliberately connect it to work you've already made — asking how it would have changed a past piece, or where it fits next to a method you already rely on — rather than treating it as an isolated trick. When an experiment fails, treat the failure as information about the technique's limits, not as a verdict on your ability.
Practicing a technique cold, before referencing the tutorial, can slow down a project when you're on a deadline and just need the result. A reasonable split is to use the reference freely when the clock matters, but afterward, once the piece is done, go back and attempt the technique from memory so it actually transfers to the next project.
Name one thing, honestly
Which technique do you feel confident about because you've watched it explained well, versus one you've actually produced yourself from a blank page?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
This week, instead of one long session drilling a single technique, do three shorter sessions spread across several days, each one mixing in at least one other technique from your existing repertoire.