Putting in the Work
I’ve been made a promise that putting in hard work everyday will lead to success. This promise has been made to me by multiple people that I never met, but that I admire and only hope to achieve a similar level of success. I’ve jumped off the cliff with a leap of faith that my idols weren’t lying to me. This is why I now make one sketch everyday. Today marks the 365th day of my #everyday pursuit. This article describes my process and gives guidance to anyone who wants to level up their creative work.
Definition
An #everyday is the act of making something everyday. Others may call it a #daily or #arthabit.
Setting Up Your Space
So you want to learn something new, but aren’t sure where to begin. The first thing you need to do is setup an environment where you feel productive, have all the tools that you’ll need within arms reach, and that is solely for creative activities. Your “creative space” will eventually serve as a subconscious mental cue that you’re going into work mode. You will be undistracted, productive and unstoppable in this environment.
Avoid having a creative space that’s muddled with other activities. For instance, doing #everydays on your couch is not a good idea because your mind already has other associations here (e.g perhaps you browse the web on your couch already). This will subconsciously add resistance when you’re trying to get into a state of flow.
You’re a product of your environment so take ownership of it and set yourself up for success.
Micro-Goals
Okay — you have a workspace and feel good about it. What are you actually going to be making though? It’s important to give yourself a goal that you can achieve. When you achieve micro-goals your mind will give you dopamine as a reward. We want our next fix of that good ole dopamine so let’s set a goal that is small and attainable. My #everyday goal was to sit down for at least 1 hour and make something visual that allowed me to learn something new. I jumped around lots of mediums from 3D modeling to graphics programming, but I achieved each day’s micro-goal. If you’re interested in learning/mastering one thing — that’s great too. Give yourself a micro-goal each day and book at least 1 hour to do work on it. You can even spend less time if you like, but for exponential growth you need to spend 2 hours a day.
Rewarding Yourself
That dopamine fix is important and figuring out a sustainable way of rewarding yourself is key. I chose to post my #everydays on Twitter and Tumblr because my ego gets a boost when others enjoy what I’ve done. Your reward doesn’t need to be social however. Give yourself a treat, take a shower, or play a song you like. We’re pavlovian dogs and we need to just give ourselves a process that will encourage and help us along the way.
Putting in the Work
It all comes down to time. When you meet someone at the top of their career, they are where they are because they put in the time. When I first started designing I sucked. I sucked for several years, until I got a job as a designer. At this job I had to sit down and design for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. It’s so obvious, but hard to see. After two years I became a great designer and it’s not because I was destined for it. I sat down and put in the work and eventually things that used to be difficult became easy.
If you want to enter a new industry, learn new skills, or just become a better creative — you’ll need to put in the work. This is the #1 most important thing if you want to level up. There’s no substitute for hard work. Anyone can be a master at anything — just put in the hours.
Finding Time and Fighting Resistance
There’s lots of resistence in life that will try to prevent you from sitting down for an hour everyday to make something. I have a full time job where I wake up at 8am and often get home around 9pm only to eat dinner. I also have many social desires like spending time with my girlfriend, seeing family, going to a friends birthday party, etc. Here are some tactics I used to fight the resistance.
First, stop watching videos on the internet, checking facebook, and reading clickbait articles. I cut my television show consumption down to two series. I just didn’t have the time to watch 5 series, spend an hour or two on my #everydays, and deal with my other social desires. You need to assess your time and how you can best use it to have the highest impact on your life. For me — the shows I was watching added little to no value to my life. What would add value is taking hold of my destiny and becoming the best 3D artist and concept designer I could be.
What about obligations you can’t miss like your best friends birthday party? Don’t miss it, go to the party, drink less or don’t drink at all and come home at a reasonable hour where you feel comfortable staying up another hour to do your everyday. Or better yet, wake up early and do it in the morning so you’re free to hangout at night. Resistance is all around you and offers easy excuses to not do high value activities. You’ll have to fight it and others will respect, admire, and appreciate you for it. It just might take a few months for them to get on board.
There’s plenty of other resistance that I haven’t covered like being sick, going camping, a loved one being sick, etc. There were most certainly very very difficult days in my year, but make sure you do something. On my worst of days I spent 5–10 minutes on my #everyday. Even in 5–10 minutes though you can practice speed, brevity and clarity.
Treat Yourself as a Professional
Book time in your calendar for your daily practice. This is the most important meeting of your day. If you’re already booked — resistance won’t stand a chance. It may seem silly at first since your #everyday is a passion project, but the more seriously you treat it — the less resistance you’ll have, the easier you’ll be able to focus, and your mind will make a habit of it quicker.
Missing a Day
Never miss a day. Period. Fin. End of story. Once you make an excuse to yourself once — you’ll make it again. This is a form of resistance that you’re doing to yourself. It’s the worst and ugliest type of resistance there is and you must not allow this to happen. Treat your #everyday commitment to yourself seriously because it will have the largest positive impact on your life in the long run.
When Are You Most Productive
The majority of creatives are the most productive in the mornings and/or after working out. It’s different for everyone though so play around with the time of day that you work and be self aware of your productivity and motivations levels. Find the optimal flow state for you.
If you can’t do your #everyday at an optimal time that’s okay too. Be self-aware of this and find ways to make your time as productive as possible. My optimal time to work is 9am, but since I have a full-time job I only can start my #everyday’s around 10pm. Nonetheless, utilizing the above guidance I have made it productive time for myself.
Taking Care of Your Body
Practicing something everyday makes you a professional and you need to take care of your body so that you can win the creative marathon. If you do computer work, make sure you workout at least 4 hours a week. Eat healthy. Avoid heavy and greasy foods since it will make you tired and reduce your productivity.
Saying No
Another form of resistance is opportunities. There are opportunities you’ll receive along your journey that aren’t directly related to achieving your future goals. They may sound enticing because they’ll pay you money, have lots of viewers, give you recognition, etc, but if they aren’t helping your ultimate goal — make sure you say no. Say “no, I’m fully booked right now”. Your #everydays is a client and it’s your best time investment because it’s directly related to your larger life goal.
What is Your Goal
This is the hardest and trickiest question of them yet. When I started my everydays I didn’t know what my career goal was or even what I was truly passionate about. There was a bunch of work I admired, but I didn’t really know how to achieve similar results or what parts of that work I wanted to make. In lieu of having a clear goal — I set my 365 day #everyday goal to discover what I truly wanted to do with my life. This is why I jump around so many mediums in my #everyday pursuit and although my life passion remained unclear for 7-ish months — it eventually revealed itself to me with beautiful clarity thanks to achieving micro-goals everyday. I now know where I’m headed with more confidence than I’ve ever had before and it has been empowering and extremely motivating.
I know a lot of other people who started an #everyday with a clear passion and direction. For instance — they want to learn Processing to become a creative coder / artist. If you have clear goal already that’s even better! You’ll only achieve mastery sooner. Go for it!
On the Pulse
All areas of creative work have amazing people who are also trying to be the best that they can be. Staying connected to what others are doing, being part of a community, and studying/learning from them is important. Read, listen, and absorb as much as you can from others. Hearing a new perspective can change the way you think about something, allow you to articulate ideas better, and create more innovative and unique work.
Where I’m At
After a year I’m still not creatively where I know I want to be. But practicing everyday has exponentially improved my skills, time management, organization, self-awareness, career direction, and purpose for living. I now see the path to success and I intend to continue doing an #everyday indefinitely. The biggest surprise to me was how much I learned about how I like to work creatively and how to manage time to focus on high value activities. At first it was tough because I had no idea what a high value activity was due to my lack of direction, but putting in the work has allowed me to see these answers clearly now. This has improved my personal life just as much as it’s improved my career.
I greatly encourage anyone who’s interested in a daily practice to do it. It’s a ton of fun and rewarding beyond words can describe.
Other #Everyday’ers to Check Out
Beeple, Kenneth Rocafort, Eric Kalsbeek, Atey Ghailan, James Curran, Yancy Way, Tim Rolls, Jan Buragay, Charlie Deck, Beau Wright, Mariusz Becker
Recommended Reading
Eat that Frog, War of Art, Managing Your Day to Day, 21 Days to be a Better Artist, So Good They Can’t Ignore You
