How To Start (And Finish!) Your Very Own 365 Day Project

1. INTRODUCTION: Have you ever wanted to do your own 365 day project?: How many of us have a personal, creative, or professional project we have always wanted to take on? Maybe you've always wanted to learn how to draw, or you want to write a novel, or you want to build your own business. Now, how many of us have struggled to get those endeavors off the ground? I know I have. There have been so many times when I would excitedly start in on a new idea, work on it for a few weeks and then lose motivation. Everything changed for me in '13 when I stumbled upon this viral YouTube video. I'm actually sure that you've seen it too, its called, girl learns to dance in a year. It was made by the filmmaker named Karen Chang, and if you haven't seen it, definitely go check it out. But what this video did, was they got me started thinking, I started to imagine, what can I accomplish if I spent a little bit of time every day for 365 days doing one big thing? Now apparently there's a name for this productivity tactic and it's called don't break the chain. Jerry Seinfeld used it in order to become the comedian that he is by making sure he wrote jokes everyday. I want you to imagine, close your eyes, what can you accomplish if you spend just a little bit of time every day for the next 365, a hundred or however long can commit, working towards your dream? How much better might you be at drawing? Or how much of your novel might you have written? That's what this class is set up to teach you how to do. My name is Cynthia. By day, I am a designer at a financial technology startup and by night I run my Etsy business, WontonInAMillion. I write about it all over at medium. In this class, I'll be sharing with you the frameworks and the roles that I figured out work for me in order for me to make progress on my own creative endeavors, and I'll be helping you figure out the systems and rules that you need in order to start and successfully complete, because we all know that's the hard part, your own 30 day, a 100 day, 365 day project. We'll be talking about what your daily deliverable is going to be, how you're going to integrate your project into your, I'm sure, a very busy life and how you're going to stay motivated and accountable for 365 days. Now, I'm really excited to share what I've learned with you because since I started applying this framework to my life, I have learned how to draw, which is something that I've always wanted to learn how to do. I went from this, don't laugh, to this. I've also applied this framework to building my Etsy business while having a full-time job. If you have a huge creative endeavor that you've always wanted to take on, or there's something you've always wanted to learn, or there's something you want to get a lot better at, and you're ready to commit just a little bit of time every day to work on it, then this class is for you. I'm really excited to see what you're going to build, so let's get started. 2. Step 1: Pick your project: So the first thing you have to do is decide what your project is going to be. Just as a quick aside, I'll be talking throughout the class about what it takes to do a 365 day project. But really could pick any amount of time that you want. The trick is really just to do a little bit every day until you accomplish your goal. So your project, some of you may already know what you want to do. If you do, go ahead and post the name of your project in 365 days of blank to the class project section below. If you don't already know what you want to do really, you could do anything. In general, there are three kinds of projects. The first kind is you can learn a new skill. So you could learn how to draw, or you could learn a new language, or you could learn how to code. I've even applied this framework to learning how to do arts hand. The second type of project is very similar to the first kind, but if there's something you want to get better at or there's something you want to do more of. You could build a body of work. So you could do 365 days of calligraphy, or you could do 365 days of photography, or you could even do 365 days shopping your own closet, which is actually something that a friend of mine took on. The last type of project is you could build something. So you could build your own business. You could build an app, you could write a novel. Really the 365 day framework is incredibly flexible and you could apply it to almost anything. I've yet to encounter a goal that cannot be accomplished by doing a little bit every day. So go ahead, decide what your project is going to be and when you're ready, you post the name of it to 365 days of blank to the class project section below. I'm excited to see what they're going to be. When you're ready, move on to the next video. 3. Step 2: Pick your minimally viable daily deliverable: Next you're going to pick your minimally viable evaluates deliverable, you're MVD if you will. Exactly what is it are you going to do every single day? Are you going to write for ten minutes in your blog or you going to draw one sketch? Are you going to get into a handstand five times every day? I'm going talk a little bit here about what makes for a good deliverable. Number one, as the current rule of thumb, a good deliverable can theoretically be done at around 10 minutes. You don't have to spend just 10 minutes but the trick here is to pick something that will fit into your schedule every single day and moreover, possibly more importantly, it has to be something that will mentally be as far away from being intimidating as possible. You have to have no excuse not to do it. When I was doing my 365 days of learning how to draw, my deliverable was either a complete sketch or 10 minutes of trying. On my busiest days, I would do two hours of try but on my busiest days I would do only 30 seconds and those 30 seconds drawings are really not very good but the key here is to show up, to make sure you don't break your chain. Now, the great thing about this is that once you get started, you'll realize that you're so into it that you won't want to stop. What we want to do here is just make sure that you start, in addition to being small, a good deliverable should be discrete, meaning that you should know when you are done. Instead of saying, you will write every day, you need to say you will write five sentences everyday, or you will write 10 minutes every day. Instead of saying you will take this coding class every day, you should actually decide how much of it you're going to do every day. Are you going to watch one video? Are you going to watch 20 minutes of video? The more you can quantify your deliverable the more likely you are to do it. While you are keeping your deliverable both small and discreet, you will still need to make sure it's substantial enough to ensure that you progress towards your goal. Definitely be honest with yourself. So most days should probably not consists of a 32nd sketch. You probably won't progress that way. If your goal is to write the first half of your novel and your daily deliverables to write for 10 minutes but on 80 percent of those C's, you go back and edit what you already wrote, at the end of your project, how much of your novel are you actually going to have written? Make sure you set some parameters for yourself here. If you're the person who, at its essay, right, for example, like I am, you could establish a rule that says only on two out of seven days of the week, can you go back and edit, the trick is to be honest. Keep in mind that your goal is not merely to show up every day, even though that is immensely important and impressive in itself. The goal is to eventually write that book or produce that music album, or learn how to do that handstand. There's a bigger goal that your project is meant to get you towards. Pick an MVD that moves you forward on most days and lastly, your MVD has to be a proxy that forces you to do all of the many other things you have to do to move towards your goal. If those things exist. For example, in building my Etsy business, my daily deliverable is to post one photo to Instagram every single day. Now, the reason this works for me is because this forces me to, number one, constantly have new photos to post, which means I constantly need to have new products to post photos of, new partnerships to talk about, essentially interesting things to post photos of and number two, this forces need to constantly be promoting myself, which is something that I am naturally uncomfortable with. Actually taken together, these two things are the things I need to do to move my business forward. Number one, make products, number two, sell them. To summarize, your MVD should be small enough that you can theoretically finish it in 10 minutes every day. It should be discrete so you know when you are done yet it has to be substantial enough that you are moving towards your goal and the best deliverables act as a proxy for all of the other things that you have to do in order to reach your ultimate destination. Now, not to worry as you go along, you are more than welcome to modify your deliverable. Especially if you're learning a new skill like drawing and you want to take on more complex drawings as you get better. Think of this as your deliverable for the first 30 days, the first 60 days and re-evaluate. So pick what your minimally viable deliverable is going to be and add a sentence or two to your class project to describe what it is. In the next video, will be talking about how we're going to fit that daily deliverable into your busy schedule. 4. Step 3: Decide when you will work on your project: This may actually be the most important step in this class, the secret sauce if you will. In this video, you will be figuring out when you will work on your 365-day project. There are actually three parts to this video. Number 1, we're going to figure out how many days of each week are you going to commit to producing your deliverable. I've been talking about doing something every single day but as we can imagine 365 days in a row is no joke. Build-in some breathing room if you think you will need it. For example, when I was learning how to draw, I told myself that a week is successful if I drew for five days out of seven days. Now, this meant that I finished my project in a little over a year, but it also meant that I was showing up until the end because every week I was feeling like I was being successful. Alternatively, to build my business, actually I do post an Instagram photo every single day of every single week because I know that posting a photo is low impact enough that I can do it even on my busiest days. How many days out of the week will you work on your project? I would say anything above five is fantastic. You might even be able to get away with four, but going any lower than that means that you will risk losing the momentum of feeling like you are showing up every day. Once you've decided how many days you're going to work on the project, every single week, you'll need to figure out where you will be fitting your 10 minutes into your day-to-day schedule. This is really the crux of this video here. Actually this is a great productivity tool for getting anything done. There have been studies that have shown that people are many times more likely to work out when they schedule their time at the gym ahead of time. If they actually pick a date and a time and they put it on their calendar. Let's put your daily deliverable on the calendar. Are you going to work on it in the morning? Are you going to work on it in the evening? Are you going to work on it on your morning commute? The key here is to be as specific as possible. If it's in the morning, is that right after you wake up or is that actually after you brush your teeth and wash your face, but before you eat breakfast. Make sure to actually identify what you're doing before and right after you produce your deliverable so that you know exactly when you're supposed to do it, and so that you actually feel a little bit uncomfortable when you skip that step in your routine. When I was learning how to draw, I would sketch for 10 minutes every morning before going to work. Or if I miss that slot, I would do it first thing after getting home from work, but before I allow myself to eat dinner. So you might want to pick two slots, the backup one in case you missed your first one. Go ahead and decide when exactly during your day can fit 10 minutes and to work on your project, maybe it's more than one slot. Now, after you visualize where you'll fit in those 10 minutes, let's pick a launch day for you to do your first day, the most exciting part. Of course, the best day to start was yesterday. Just kidding. The best way to start is actually today, so if you can manage it, definitely do that, but if you won't be starting today, the next best day is probably the upcoming Monday when you will, hopefully, so be fired up from this class. Once you've picked your day, actually putting event in your calendar, maybe invite some friends to it, maybe even feel free to invite me to it, my e-mail. Make your start day a big deal because it is. I once read somewhere, someone said, "If you're going to launch something, launch a blank out of it." Go ahead and do that. To close, don't forget to do this whole video. You can adjust your schedule as you go along, absolutely. But scheduling those 10 minutes ahead of time, is actually going to be half the battle of finishing your 365 project. In the next video we'll be talking about accountability mechanisms that you're going to set up for yourself to keep you motivated for the entire 365 days. But before you move on, don't forget to specify your start date and to describe when during your day you'll be working on your project and add that to your class project. 5. Step 4: Set up your accountability mechanisms: Now we're going to talk about what is likely been the biggest question on your mind, how in the world are you going to stay motivated enough to do this one thing every day for 365 days? In the video, you will be setting up some accountability mechanisms to help you stay on track throughout the year. I'm going to talk about three ways here for you to keep accountable. One, by having the public or rather your social network hold you accountable. Two, by inviting a friend to do so. Or three, by doing it for yourself. Pick one, ideally two. Though, if you want to be extra safe or you think you'll need some extra motivation like I usually do, you can do all three. I'm going to go into a little bit more detail by each of those here. The first mechanism is to document your progress publicly. You could post a photo to Instagram every day over something you drew, or you could post a photo to Instagram of your calligraphy. Or you can write about your daily deliverable on Tumblr. There are a ton of benefits to sharing publicly what you are working on. When you share your 365 project with the world, you invite people who care about you to get involved in keeping you motivated. For example, you might actually start to find that everyone you hang out with will now start to ask you how your 365 day project is going. Sometimes your annoyance if you've dropped off for a few days, maybe. Another cool side effect of posting your project online is that you might also open up yourself to meeting kindred spirits who are interested in the same things that you are. For example, you can meet other calligraphers on Instagram by using the hashtag that the calligraphy community uses on there. You also open yourself up to being picked up as a cool story by the media, which is admittedly extremely rare. But, two years ago, I stumbled upon the coolest project ever. Jennifer Dewalt built a 180 websites in 180 days in order to learn how to code. How crazy is that? She wrote about every single website over on Tumblr. The media actually picked up on her story and it spread. If you are ever in need of inspiration throughout this 365 day journey, make sure to go check out her project. Now, another benefit of documenting your progress publicly is that, you can also look back on how far you've come when you become fatigued at day 150 or 200. Finally, another reason I love this accountability mechanism is that if you're doing something that will eventually require public consumption, like writing a book or bolting in business, showing people how you bolted from the beginning is really fascinating. My early Instagram followers for one time in a million and my friends tell me all the time that it's really cool to see how far my business has come. I think partially because my first few photos were actually pretty terrible. But, really, by bringing people along on your journey, you invite them to become invested in seeing your success and seeing your final product which makes it harder obviously for you to quit. Of course this works well if you're daily deliverable is in a visual medium like photography or drawing. For my own drawing project, I post it to Instagram as well as to a dedicated Tumblr every day. But you might be thinking, what if you're doing something that is not entirely visual? What if your project is to write a book? Well, if you're comfortable, you can even share one sentence of your book to Instagram everyday or to Twitter. You could take a selfie of yourself writing every day you get really creative here. But remember, don't force this if it doesn't feel right. Your accountability mechanisms need to work for you and for the nature of your project. If you think you want to document your progress publicly because you think it will help keep you motivated or you want a record of your progress over time, go ahead and start that Instagram account or Tumblr or Twitter now and share it to your class project description. This step is actually the reason that I've been encouraging you to share your project throughout the class so that we can cheer each other on and be motivated by each other's progress. I can't wait to follow all of you. Go ahead and share those accounts now. In addition to or instead of documenting your progress publicly, you could also invite a friend of yours to do their entourage 365 day project with you, and together you could even put some money on it. When I started my drawing project, I actually started it alongside a friend of mine who committed to his own 365 day project to learn how to speak Chinese. What we did was we brought each other $5 for every day of each week that we missed. A complete week consisted of five days out of seven for us, so whenever we missed a day, we would send each other a Starbucks gift card but, over the course of our 365 days, we only ever sent each other three gift cards each. Three out of 365, that's pretty good. If like me, you're the kind of person who's motivated by not losing money however, small that amount might be, this could be the accountability mechanism for you. Now, I have to say that a big part of the reason that this works so well to motivate me was because my friend was incredibly committed to his project, so quick shout out to Boris. At one point, he even moved to China in order to further his learning experience. When he came back, he moved in with a roommate who was Chinese, who promised to speak Chinese with him. He made his project such a big part of his life that I'm sure he actually stopped keeping track of whether he was doing five days a week because he was actually doing seven days a week. It's important that if you decide to find an accountability buddy to do your project with, that you and your friend both agree to be 100 percent committed to it because there is a danger that if one of you falls off that that's sufficiently be de-motivating enough to lead the other person to stop as well. But, even if that happens, don't worry keep going even if your friend has decided to put their project on hold. Lastly, you could of course, hold yourself accountable. In fact, you will most likely need to do this in some capacity regardless of if you decide to do either of the other two accountability mechanisms. Some ways to do this are you could use Jerry Seinfeld's method. You could print a calendar and put it on your wall, and everyday that you do your project, you put a big x to it. Don't break your chain. There are a lot of free calendar templates online that you can download, so just google digital calendar templates for those. Another thing you could do is you could add your days to your Google Calendar and check them off as you go along. Essentially, you're creating a checklist. At one point, I was doing the P90 X3 video series, which consists of a workout every day for 90 days, and I put every day's workout into my Google Calendar as an event. I scheduled them, throw back to a previous video. I scheduled them and then I numbered them 1-90 and whenever I finished with a day, I would mark it with an X in the event name. Lastly, you could, this is another way to keep yourself accountable and actually you probably should do this, you could add your daily deliverable to wherever you keep your existing to-do list. For example, I literally type post Instagram photo into Asana everyday. This is helpful in that it ensures that as you're making your way through your day's to-do lists, you are reminded to produce your daily deliverable. Additionally, by putting it on a list that you can check off, you'll also benefit from that little dopamine rush you get when you complete your day's task. To summarize, to hold yourself accountable and to keep motivated for 365 days you can, one, have the public and your friends hold you accountable by sharing your progress in a public place. You could hold yourself accountable using a variety of methods. You could find an accountability buddy to do their own 365 day project with you. If you do find a buddy, make sure to share this class with friends so they can get setup to successfully complete their project too. Go ahead and decide what combination of these mechanisms you are going to use for your own project and share them in your class project. If you're documenting your progress publicly, please do share your link where you'll be doing this so that we can all come cheer you on. In the next video, we'll be figuring out exactly what you would do on your first day and your second and your third because you should never be scrambling to figure out what you're going to do on each day. 6. Step 5: Establish your curriculum: Now we're going to talk about whether you need a curriculum for your project and if so, what does that look like? The reason we're talking about this is because if you pick the good, minimally viable daily deliverable, you are not going to be spending a lot of time on your project, so you don't want to use up five out of your 10 minutes every day figuring out what you're going to do. So to start off, what kind of projects do you need a curriculum for? If you have a project where you are building a body of work or you are trying to get better at something very specific, you actually might not need one. It depends. If you're doing 365 days of photography and your deliverable is a photo of something that you encounter throughout the course of your day, deciding what you're going to discover beforehand actually doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you're going to do 365 portraits, you might want to know who you're going to take a portrait of beforehand. Alternatively, if your project is to learn something new, you will definitely want a curriculum, if you are learning how to draw or learning to code, or even learning to dance. Or lastly, if you are building something, if you are writing a book or producing a music album, you will most likely want a curriculum, although in your case, it will be more of a to-do list. If you think that you'll be spending any amount of time at all deciding what you're going to do for your daily deliverable, take some time now to prepare. In fact, actually go ahead and figure out what you're going to do for your first 10 days right now. If you are learning something new, you may be wondering how are you supposed to know what you're supposed to do first. You don't know what you don't know yet, right? Well, here's some ideas to get you started. You can pick up a book or you can find an online course to take. When I was learning how to draw, I actually started my 365-day journey with a book called You Can Learn to Draw in 30 Days, which is like a God sent. If you're learning how to code, you should go check out this website, it's called onemonth.com and it has great 30-day curricula that you can do a little bit of everyday. For what you want to learn, are there any resources like that out there? If so, start your 365-day project with them. Since you are learning something new, following a plan that someone else has thought through is a great way to get into the habit of doing your own 365-day project, at least until you yourself have built up a wish-list of things that you want to try or things that you want to learn. Actually on that note, if you already have some ideas for what you want to do or learn, go write them down right now. If your project is writing your blog more, for example, start a list of articles that you want to write. As you progress through your project, keep adding new things to this list so that you will always have a backlog of things to choose from if you ever don't know what to do next. Another thing you can do actually, is you can start collecting things that inspire you. So if you're learning how to draw, for example, you can create a Pinterest board like I did of drawings that you like and want to draw as practice, or you could go and follow some Instagram accounts related to what you're doing. If you are making jewelry, you can go follow some jewelers so you know where to go for inspiration if you ever need it. Those are a few things you can do if you're learning a new skill. If you are building something, what you're going to need is a checklist. So go ahead and make a checklist right now of the specific steps that you need to take, all of them that you can think of in order to do your project. See if you can get at least 10 things on there. If you are building a business, what are the things you have to do first? Day 1, pick a name, Day 2, buy your domain name, Day 3, write a business plan. If you are writing a novel, what are the things you have to do first? Day 1, start a new word document, Day 2, write an outline. Now, you might be thinking, start a new word document is a silly thing to have take up a full day. That's way less than ten minutes. But actually, I use this trick a lot in order to get myself to start things because a lot of the times that's the hardest part of a new project. So I would literally put ''Start a new Google Doc'' to plan this project, on my to-do list with the intention merely to open up the doc and give it a name. But it always tricks me into doing Step 2, 3, and 4, so a quick tip here to get you some momentum as you are starting your project. Another tip actually, if you can go ahead and break down these to-do items, be as specific as possible. For example, for pick a name for my business, you could break that down even further into, ''Brainstorm 20 names that I would consider and then pick five that I really like, and then go and ask three friends which one they would vote for''. Go ahead right now and figure out what you're going to do for your first 10 days and if you'd like, share that list to your class project. As you make your way through this curriculum, continue to add to it every day, as you finish your daily deliverable. Actually, just spend 10 minutes deciding which one you're going to do for the next day. After this step, we are actually almost done with the class. In the next video, we will be spending some time envisioning the light at the end of the tunnel. What is it that you have to look forward to at the end of 365 days? 7. Step 6: Articulate your 'why': So by this video, I hope you are really excited to get started on your project. Now let's feel the deal by envisioning a big, ambitious celebration for when you finish Day 365. What is going to be your light at the end of the tunnel? Will you hold a book launch party? Will you hold a film screening for your friends? For my drawing project, I envisioned holding an exhibit of my drawings, showing my progression from Day 1 to Day 365. For my business for one turn in a million, the one-year just passed, so what I did was I held a first birthday party for over 100 people, complete with pretty bags and coloring stations because it was there first birthday party. If you're practicing a skill you already have like doing a handstand, for example, imagine how great it's going to feel when you are able to hold it for as long as you like and you can watch TV while you do it, and maybe you'll even tried to break a world record. How cool would that be? When it's Day 125 and it seems you'll never finish, what is it that's going to keep you going. Figure out what that is and write it down. You might not even need a big celebration at the end to act as a goalpost. But why is it exactly that you are doing this project? Is it because you're learning something you've always wanted to learn? Is that because you are pursuing a dream of yours and you can no longer ignore it tugging at your hearts shadings? How are your life change when you finish the project? If you finish a draft of your first novel, how amazing is that going to be? Just spend a little bit of time there feeling that you are literally at that point on the brink of becoming a published author. If you spend 365 days learning how to core, what is the possibility that you might be able to make a career change. Is that what you want? That's possible. When you start to get demoralized and it's not unreasonable to expect that to happen, come back to this. Come back and remember why you started this in the first place, because it must have been something that you've really have wanted. Because otherwise, you wouldn't have committed a year of your life to it. What is your light at the end of the tunnel? What is your reason for continuing to do this? Take a moment here to really articulate it to yourself and write it down. 8. CLOSING: Final Tips: This is the final video which means you are just not ready to start and complete your 365 day project. Before we conclude the class, I actually just wanted to share two final thoughts with you, hopefully to nudge you over the finish line. The biggest thing that I want you to remember is actually just that you are most likely going to miss a day or two days or 10 days. No, life happens. The goal isn't perfect attendance here. The goal is to make progress during this thing that you want to do. Just keep going. The second thing is, it's okay not to be perfect. The important part is showing up. Now this is something that I've had to learn again and again, but doing 365 day projects have really brought this lesson home for me. Now if you're a perfectionist or a planner like I am, you may get frustrated when you start that your daily deliverable is really not very good. Now this sentiment stems from the same concern that leads you to sometimes tell yourself, "I'm not good enough yet to share my art with overalls or I don't know enough yet to start my own business or my book idea is not good enough yet for people to know about." But what, having to do something every day has taught me is just that there's so much power in just getting things out into the world. In letting things breath, and doing things a little bit at a time and getting better one percent every day. If you're not yet where you want to be, that actually is exactly the reason to keep going and to keep putting yourself out there. With that, you have made it all the way through to the end of the last video. That's amazing. Thanks so much for sticking through with me. Now comes the hard part. I hope you're excited to get started on your 365 day project and I'd love to follow your progress if you are willing to share that. If you haven't already share any links, you have two social media accounts to your class project. Actually I have a request for you guys, if you would like to keep in touch or you would like to connect with classmates, please actually let me know, drop me an e-mail or leave a review of the class. Because if there's enough entrance, I would love to start a Facebook group for all of us to keep up-to-date on each other's progress. I have gotten so much out of applying the 365 data frame to all parts of my life and I hope you will too. I hope you're excited to see where you will be in 365 days because I am, good luck.