Make Habits

How can I turn my project into a habit?

How do we turn that novel, that painting, that comic, that critique group, that substack into a habit?

If answering a single question could turn your project into a success, this question might just be the one. You could make a habit of asking this question for any new endeavour. If you’re truly serious about a long term project, you will have to answer this question at some point.

How can I turn my project into a habit?

"Process is everything. Process is what we want people to engage in. Ultimately, all we want is for people to have the courage to experiment"

- Hans Zimmer

You don’t need to figure out every detail of the project. There can be a lot of flexibility, but the thing I’ve found to be most effective is to get some accountability directly or indirectly.

Some ways to get accountability:

When we started the

illoguild

the habit was we would show up every 2 weeks with a piece of work to critique. (Accountability to the group)

Committing to a publication schedule for a newsletter means you’re likely to post according to that schedule. (Accountability to subscribers)

When I was building my illustrator portfolio, the goal was to post on instagram everyday, that habit with it’s built in accountability made me do the work daily. (Accountability to followers)

With

Art Gym: Live Drawing Workshops & Illustration Tutorials

we have a habit of putting out a workshop every month. (Accountability to the other host and participants)

Since I was 11ish, I enjoyed reading books about the brain.

And in brain science, there is this idea of a temporary memory. Things in the brain that are not it current use get put away. And it feels like the longer the disuse the harder it gets to access those ideas again.

This is the reason I believe making daily habits outweighs, monthly and even weekly habits. Your brain is ready to tackle the stuff you do daily, but takes awhile to boot up and unpack the longer term stuff.

So with a daily practice, you’re always going to function at a higher capacity, than something you do less frequently.

Said another way, you’re most effective at the things you do daily.

And if you have a creative project you want to undertake, wouldn’t you want to do it at your most effective?

TEN MINUTE ARTIST PROMPT

Build a drawing habit tracker

There are different ways to build habit trackers the simplest version is to cross days out of a calendar with a big X.

The reasons it works are:

1. It’s satisfying

2. Our brains (that old thing again) want to complete things that it sees as incomplete, it’s this idea of ‘open loops’.

Now today’s exercise, and you can do it over 4,6 or 8 days….

Is to breakdown a sketchbook spread into a grid of 4,6 or 8.

Fill the first one with a drawing, you could draw a hand or a figure or a flower, or anything you like. Just fill the first one.

Now the task is to revisit this spread, daily to add another drawing in the same category, another hand, figure or flower. Come back and share it when it’s done.

Note to future you: Hello person who finished their drawing habit tracker, first of, great job, now imagine, what if every time you went to the gym you did a drawing like this, or every time you walked the dog, or every lunch break, how great would that drawing habit trackers look?

Not a hypothetical question, share how great it looks!

Share your habit tracker in notes and tag Ten Minute Artist: Daily Creative Joy

Or put it in the chat.

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Do you have an art habit?

Share what you do in the comment section below and if you found this prompt valuable, why not pass it along to an artist friend, peer, or student who might appreciate these insights too?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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