Three weeks ago, a friend and I shared that we had the same goal: improving our illustration skills. I mentioned in my post about Lichtenstein-inspired digital drawings that we’re in the habit now of starting our day with timed ten minute sketches, and texting them to each other—no commentary or response needed.

This has created a domino effect for me.

The illustration style that attracts me the most is a colorful, cartoony, minimally-detailed type that is best achieved with digital tools, so I’ve been committing to this process with an old iPad that had been collecting dust. I’m generally a proudly analog person, so this is outside of the norm for me.

What I’ve found is that I’ve been more drawn to experiment with digital tools, spend other minutes of the day creating similarly, and expressing other types of ideas organized through capabilities within the tool. For example, I had an idea for a conceptual piece—a frequent occurrence. While in the past I would think “one day I will do that.” This time I decided I could sketch out the concept & write the evolution of what I’d like it to be out to the side.

This got me thinking about the power of ten minutes

I’m creating more, by a lot. I’m utilizing a tool that can organize my ideas so they get out of my head and live somewhere else. When my brain isn’t filled with ideas of what I can do, I have more mental energy to actually do things.

The 10 minute morning sketches continue, and I’ve created the above-linked Lichtenstein-inspired works plus my first digital painting, a work inspired by Santa Claus coming to Southport, Connecticut. It’s amazing how much of a boost it can give.

The Power of One Minute

Back in Covid times, when I was trying to figure out how to spend my days, I started giving myself a sticker on a giant wall calendar if I spent one single minute doing one of the tasks I had outlined. Each task had a colored sticker assigned to it. One minute outside? Green sticker. One minute at the easel? Pink sticker. Organizing? Red. Reading a book? Blue.

This is a modified technique from James Clear’s life-changing book, Atomic Habits. The theory is that the hardest part about building a habit is starting the task—that the idea is daunting. If you set the stakes wildly low, you’ll get the dopamine once you meet that threshold & feel encouraged to do more.

The calendar/sticker thing combined that theory with Jerry Seinfeld’s practice of writing jokes every single day, and marking an X on the calendar for days he completed his writing. Once you get a streak going, you don’t want to break the streak.

What could you do less of?

Oh, I L-O-V-E less! My year of less post is one that I link back to most.

In the past, I would say something about my digital use, but I’ve finally learned to manage my screen time by rarely using social media, not using instagram, and changing people’s expectations around me and texting.

What I could do less of is hemming and hawing over what a blog post should/could be about. I think of blog post ideas all day every day, but I generally think they need to be more well researched, have quotes from different books I’ve read, etc. In the meantime, there are valuable lessons that go unshared.

Seth Godin, a digital media deity, writes blog posts every single day. He’s got them scheduled so that they’ll keep being posted weeks after he’s passed away. Are they long? Overthought? Cross-linked?

No. They’re simple, punchy. They’re thought-provoking yet succinct.

I could do less explaining. Perhaps the ten-minute technique, applied to blog posts, would suit me.