From lockdown dreams to global creative rhythms —

How a spark of intuition lit up over 3,000 sessions across eight time zones

Origin Story: Born From Community, Not Thin Air

It wasn't an idea out of thin air that drove the founding of Creative Work Hour or CWH. No, it was being in other communities where creative people came together with common interests that brought it into being.

I spent a lot of time in online cohort-based productivity orientated courses during lockdown, like "Building a Second Brain", "Linking Your Thinking", "Life OS", Part-Time You Tube Academy," as well as those that were digital note-taking tool specific, like for Roam Research, Craft.do, and Obsidian. I noticed that my cohort friends tended to fall into a couple of creative style groups that I describe as analytical or intuitive. This oversimplifies, yes, but it certainly establishes the continuum of our creative expression styles.

Analytical Meets Intuitive: A Continuum of Creative Styles

During those courses, I received scores of DMs asking my take on how effective the courses were for creatives, especially those not so hard-core analytical. It was from having and thinking hard about these convos that the idea of holding space especially designed for the more intuitive leaning creative was born.

My partner, @bitterirony was working (in fact, he's still with the firm) in the C suite of a upmarket app and website design studio in San Francisco when CoVid hit in 2020. The city became a ghost town as WFH became the new normal. So Bitter and I sought out somewhere else to wait out the pandemic.

The Roadtrip That Changed Everything

A few months later, an offer came from a work friend to move into her big house in Washington state during her move abroad to Italy to wait it out. We gathered our PPE and headed out on the 1,000 mile roadtrip to see the house in the new city.

Along the way, Bitter and I discussed the logistics of my founding this new thing, which from that day to this is called, Creative Work Hour. But instead of waiting until we returned home for me to launch, I felt it important to get started ASAP, primarily because I could have just as easily chickened out (yep, I deal with stage fright)!

An interesting detail of the story is that we arrived the Evergreen State during "The Heat Dome" of June 2021 to temperatures hovering at 117℉ / 48℃. Somehow, it contributed to the launch excitement.

A Sofa, a Lounger, and a Leap of Faith

And so it was founded even though we were travelling (and that's never stopped!) On 1 July, 2021, from the historic Montvale Hotel in Riverside, Spokane, WA, we set up in a second floor lobby, furnished with a tufted leather sofa and an indigo velvet lounger, reminiscent of the TV series, "Friends." Though I was dying with anxiety, I kicked off this crazy creative adventure, together with friends from eight time zones from twenty-one countries.

3,000+ Sessions Later: What We’ve Built Together

To date, we've hosted over 3,000 creative sessions, including the spin-off called Practice Not Perfect, for music practice & extra creative work time. These are run live on a daily basis on the zoom platform, while the community lives asynchronously in the CWH Discord.

By Invitation, Yet Always Welcoming

Creative Work Hour is by invitation only, as we have creatives working on intellectual property. Yet we are a true Hive Community, so if you are on Hive, you are already welcome. Simply go here and I will greet you at the door.

A Diary Worthy of the Moment

In the photo above is pictured our 2025-26 Smythson Portabello Diary (this craftmanship would make for a post all its own!). This is the first year Smythson produced the world famous diary in Red. It was close, but we scored the very last copy of it in all of the United Kingdom! To mark our anniversary, I made the first entry in it today. Note the hand-pressed gilding, "CWH + HIVE." 🎁💐🍾

Plug into the CWH Heartbeat: Join the 4th Birthday Party Podcast 🎧🎉

Grab your airpods or headphones! You can get a great sense of what we are like in the CWH Podcast. Here is our 4th Happy Birthday Episode.

Let’s Chat!

Got questions? Wanna chat more about CWH or interview us for your podcast?
Just reach out to me on Discord @alessandrawhite

Much love! ❤️🥰
Alessandra