MYTH: "Templates kill creativity."

The correction: templates handle the boring 80% so judgment goes to the 20% that matters. The blank page is what kills output, not the structure.

SOP: Building a reusable template
Run this whenever you've done the same deliverable three times.

Stage 1 — Extract
— ☐ Pull the parts that are identical every time into fixed blocks. (Owner: template author)
— ☐ Mark the parts that always change as [fill-in] fields. (Owner: template author)

Stage 2 — Guide
— ☐ Add a one-line instruction in each [fill-in] field. (Owner: template author)
— ☐ Note the one creative call this template can't make for you. (Owner: template author)

Stage 3 — Test
— ☐ Someone else produces a deliverable from it in under half the old time. (Owner: reviewer)

Owner: template author. Trigger: a deliverable repeats three times. Done-when: fixed parts are locked, variable parts are labeled.

Save this. Run it every time.