How to actually keep up with a 365 day challenge without going crazy?
How to give yourself rules and constraints that build creativity and consistency.
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What Options Can We Remove To Help Creativity and Consistency Thrive?
Without constraints most tasks are just impossible to complete.
Especially with creative tasks, the possibilities and tendency to overcomplicate mean most projects or ideas never get off the ground. One way to give ideas a good chance of survival is to create some constraints or rules around them. That’s what Yao Xiao author of the Thumbnails substack did, and that enabled her to draw comics for 365 days straight!
In your own practice, what are some limitations you already use or could add to make the work easier and therefore more consistent?
How do you wrap up a day?
I love drawing comics, but most of my attempts take me about 5 hours to complete, the only exception being the Ten Minute Visual Journal Method which I do in the morning. So I need a different way to create a book end to my day.
Because I work from home, and am going from deadline to deadline, aging a way to create separation and ending the workday is something I crave for but never really managed. That’s why when I read Yao Xiao ’s rules for making comics and learned that it only takes her 20 minutes each night, I was intrigued.
I tried it following her rules, and managed to get it down to 10 minutes.
Xiao designed her rules to keep the process fun and take the seriousness tediousness out of the project, and to ensure she could keep going. Better to show up consistently with constraints than occasionally with perfection.
I would add a 5th rule, use lined paper. Xiao uses lined paper in most of her work but not all so it’s not a rule, I think using this kind of paper takes the seriousness and pressure out of the making
So is this going to be my evening routine, will it be yours? i don’t know but I really like having a clear set of limitations that make the job easier.
Which rule resonated with you the most, and which rule bothers you? Do you have a rule to add?
I used to believe that the only way I could draw a comic strip was by giving myself 5 hours to do it. Maybe by giving myself more limitations, and allowing myself to not be very good at it in the beginning, I can draw comics more often, something I really enjoy doing!
Adam Ming is a start up co-founder turned children’s illustrator at 40, he’s illustrated nearly 20 books. He writes generously about keeping a daily drawing habit and the early years of breaking in and working as a freelance illustrator.
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