What I learned from a 30-day creative challenge
One of my personal goals for this year is to be more creative. To kick-start this I took on Starter for Ten (S410) a 30-day, daily creative challenge. Each day I planned to set a ten-minute timer and write whatever came into my head. After that, I would do the same to create a visual and document the process on this blog, Instagram and Linkedin.
The challenge
I co-run a design business and care about creating high-quality branding and designs for clients. This daily challenge would be tough for me, I like a brief, a plan, and someone to collaborate with. Would I have the time and energy to create daily? Could I create quickly without caring about the outcome? Would I follow through with sharing the results on social?
My hope was that doing this challenge would help me to loosen up, exercise my imagination and get over the idea that everything I make needs to be perfect or have a purpose.
Plan to fail
I went into the challenge knowing there would be days that I couldn’t be bothered and wouldn’t want to write or draw. To help combat this I devised the following strategy:
1. Make it easy
Before the challenge started I set-up a space where I could do the challenge without distraction and collected paper and materials that would inspire me.
2. Get up early and get it done
I know me, if I didn’t get up earlier and make the challenge the first thing I did in the morning I would overthink it and prioritise other things.
My desk prepped for the morning creative challenge
3. Prepare before going to bed
I planned to set up my desk before going to bed each night so that when I woke up all I had to do was go sit at my desk, set the timer, and create. Thanks to my work coach Emma for this idea.
4. Rally support
This was the hardest part of the plan, I let people know I was doing the challenge and where they could follow along. I felt equal parts excited and vulnerable. Now I had to do it.
Creating daily
This is what 30 days of creativity looks like!
The highs
Creating daily gave me a positive focus for the day. It was something I looked forward to and after 30 days has become a habit. I want to write and create every day.
It made me feel happy, calm and gave me energy. The process of making and writing opened me up and I had more ideas throughout the day as a result. It’s as if I was getting some rubbish out cleared the path for good ideas.
Sometimes I surprised myself and created stories and visuals that I thought were good, this inspired me to go on and put more time into developing it further.
Don’t break the chain! I marked the days I had created with loops that formed a chain.
The lows
Even with a strategy and feeling good from doing the challenge, there were still days that I prioritised work and others where I just couldn’t be bothered, like this one.
The one thought that motivated me on these days was “How will I feel tomorrow if I don’t do it?”. That was enough to make me grab a pen and a piece of paper and get it done. I didn’t want to let myself down. On reflection, I realised that these were the days that I needed to create the most.
Creating quickly
For over 20 years I have been working as a designer, so I’m pretty fast but creating a visual in ten minutes was a new challenge.
When I start a design project I write my ideas first. I know I’m not a proper writer so I’m kind to myself, I don’t expect it to be good I just enjoy the process and let the words flow.
When drawing or sketching it’s a different matter. I have a story I tell myself that I should be able to draw exactly what is in my head and get frustrated when the results don’t look perfect or how I imagined.
Putting a ten-minute time limit on drawing or visualising an idea meant I started with low expectations and didn’t care about the outcome. I was open to failing. I was surprised by the freedom that this gave me. I loosened up and fell in love with drawing and making again. I was living number five of my manifesto!
Ten minutes of freewriting in the park
Sharing on social
I chose to share the daily outcomes on Instagram and LinkedIn, the social channels I often look at but rarely create for, to see if I could build some resilience, gain new followers and learn what people engaged with.
Instagram felt like a safe space to share, it’s mostly my friends and family who follow me and they like me so I knew at least my Mum and sister would heart my posts. I used hashtags but only bots seemed to be interested and the reach outside of my followers was non-existent.
Observation: Posts that featured cats did better than the others.
The likes and comments from my friends kept me going during the challenge! Although, I admit I was checking Instagram more than I would like.
LinkedIn was an experiment, I rarely post here and mostly lurk. According to this article I’m not alone, only 1% of LinkedIn’s 260 million monthly users share posts.
It’s a strange space. I wanted to experiment with authentic posts about process and creativity rather than work updates or achievements.
I started by sharing links to the blog with a caption and a few relevant hashtags. A few likes but not many eyeballs at first, it seems LinkedIn is slow to show your content to people. I’ve noticed on my feed I’m sometimes served up content that is two weeks old.
Posting an image or video and adding the link to the blog in the caption along with hashtags meant a post got in front of more people but wasn’t any more effective in creating engagement.
Positive outcomes of posting on LinkedIn were that I built up some resilience in sharing on the platform and I engaged with some of my favourite clients which is always good!
Selfie with my 30-day challenge Tony Hart style gallery
The results
Taking on and sharing the 30-day creative challenge has definitely helped me to exercise my imagination and get over my block of getting started with drawing and creating visuals.
I’m feeling inspired and it’s created a ripple effect. Friends and colleagues have told me they have started to share their artwork and are starting their own creative challenges which is awesome.
The challenge has made me realise how important it is for me to create for the joy of it and to build it into my daily habits. I want it to become as simple and necessary as brushing my teeth every day. I’m looking into joining a writer’s group to improve and have started ideas for a new children’s book. Stay tuned for more.
If you are thinking of taking up a creativity challenge my advice would be to make it easy, plan to fail, document the process (even if you don’t share it), and share it with me. I would love to see your journey.
