Numbers game
That number being 115
TLDR? Over on Instagram I’m offering fifteen postcards - free with a donation to a charity of your choosing.
If I was doing the choosing, it’d be either breast cancer research or cancer care (your local cancer centre or Macmillan or equivalent).
Here’s the cards
And here’s the deal
To be in with a chance of getting your paws on one, you need to head on over to Instagram (yes, it’s happening there and there only) and
Like the post above
Follow me if you don’t already
Message me via Instagram - not here - with YOUR FULL ADDRESS and NAME for the envelope!
The cards will go to the first 15 people to do exactly that and I’ll announce the names on Thursday 22 February.
The most important bit? When you receive your card, make your donation. Don’t have to report back to me, I won’t be checking, there’s no fixed amount, it’s completely your decision and can stay private to you.
And the one hundred?
That’ll be the one hundred days inclusive from 18th February and 27th May within which span of time you could (again, not compulsory!) complete a #100dayproject.
Won’t go into all the ins and outs of the thing, there’s enough out there already, suffice to say I’m going to have another stab at it this year.
What I’m doing
Don’t know - but I’ll be doing it in an 8” square sketchbook. The one I’m using has heavyweight 250gsm paper that’ll take whatever I throw at it, whether that’s glue, matte medium or paint. Spiral bound, so I can stick stuff in and it’ll still close.
This year, I need to tighten it all up.
One idea could be to set aside a bunch of materials in a space (or a box or whatever, à la Phoebe Gander with her January challenge which I didn’t even attempt) but I know that wouldn’t work for me (a) space constraints to leave stuff out who am I kidding there’s stuff everywhere (b) don’t know what I want to do from minute to minute let alone for the next 100 days.
In 2022 I tightened it up with size.
But that got seriously boring after a while. Yes, I got the 100 done but it didn’t really give me much scope beyond the inch or so I had to work with. It certainly embedded the habit - can’t have a mid-morning coffee without feeling I should draw something too!
In 2023 I went large
I kept the idea of using one sketchbook but extended it to be anything each day. Worked out OK for about 30 days straight then it all went a bit wonky and I drifted off when I started major work on my Fabulous Free Motion course (which will return, more on that another time).
It was better to have more room, but the temptation was to do too much on a bigger page, fiddle about, generally set the bar too high.
This year, I’m doing time
And I’m going to experiment with a crazy idea I had the other evening. It isn’t crazy, because it’s completely workable, but it resulted with some crazy maths that used up all my fingers.
In fact, I had to ask Chat GPT what the heck it’s called, this idea, and apparently it’s a linear progression. Seemed a little dull for something that felt like genius when I thought of it, so I’m calling it Izzy’s Progression.
I’ll get to what I’m on about in a moment, but first, let’s acknowledge some incontrovertible truths:
Jumping in and saying “I’m going to do 15 minutes a day every day” is doomed to failure
The only way to make progress is with consistent practice, yawn
Life has a habit of getting in the way. I’m tempted to conveniently forget this one but I think my theorem will still work should this happen
Baby steps works - start with the teensiest tiniest thing you could do, do it consistently until it becomes a habit (the 2022 thumbnail sketches Exhibit A)
If you start to feel cocky then do too much too soon, jumping from the tiny thing to a bigger thing, it’s going to hurt (like my legs after starting to run again - lungs said yes, tendons less keen: I’d kick myself if my knees weren’t sore already).
This article about doing something for 30 minutes a day for 30 days which adds up to 900 minutes which seems like a heck of a big number and that’s just 30 days
As a side-note, this reel very accurately describes exactly how my brain understands time and number
So this is what I came up with as a method to bypass the potential hindrances yet capitalise on the benefits of repetition:
Izzy’s Progression
Day one, I do something (in my 8” sketchbook) for one minute.
Day two, I do something for two minutes. And actually, I do that for two days.
Pay attention now - on day four, I do something for three minutes, and I do that for three days.
That takes me to day seven, so I do something for four minutes - and you’ve guessed it, I do that for four days.
Here’s where I’d insert a formula to instantly calculate all the remaining days up to 100 - there must be one but 🤷🏻♀️
But instead, I’ll consult my scribbled notes….
On day 100, I’ll be doing…drumroll…fourteen minutes!
Told you it’d be completely do-able! Fourteen minutes is surely enough time to do something even if life happens. In fact, I’m now wondering whether a handful of minutes (or seconds) is even enough at the start, so…
I’m inventing a new rule
The time in Izzy’s Progression is a guide, at least a minimum. If you want to do more, that’s cool, but there’s really no need. In fact, I’d discourage going on too long - don’t want to peak and set the expectation too high for subsequent days.
Why I think it’ll work
As Nancy Hillis says, when starting anything, the biggest jump is from zero to one. With Izzy’s Progression, the jump to one is literally just that - one and done.
On day two it’s a leap ahead to two minutes - but woah, that’s double the time. Kudos! Let’s stay here a couple of days and get used to the idea.
The temptation is naturally for day three to go to three minutes, and if this continued I know by the end of the week, I could still be hanging on. But by the end of only two weeks, I’m already at 14, 21 by three weeks, and that’s going to start to burn. It’s like kettlebells (my new Saturday morning jam) - the first few swings are easypeasy, but by the nth, you’re starting to feel it.
Even for the number-challenged, it’s not hard to realise that by the last few weeks you’d be putting in some serious time - well over an hour - EVERY DAY. Nope, that’s ridiculous. Too much, too fast, never going to happen.
Spending some time at each increase, longer each time as the numbers go up, will allow the brain to get used to the idea before the next jump. And hopefully, it won’t seem like a jump, but a natural progression - it’s only one minute more.
The tiny amount of time at the beginning will preclude any sort of faff - a quick sketch, or slap a couple of bits of paper down with a glue stick, that’s it.
Even by the end, 14 minutes is not long. It’s short enough to still be doable, a little more scope for doing a bit more than a quick sketch.
I read somewhere that 14 minutes is better than 15 as time for ‘exercise’ or anything ‘hard’ as it’s under quarter of an hour - it’s not 15! It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book - the same that shops use to price things at 99p not £1.
The most important thing: 14 minutes isn’t the START - which quite frankly would spook me from the off, as I know I wouldn’t be able to keep up. As I said, life happens. It’s a slow imperceptible creep up to it, so as not to frighten myself.
It’s interesting and a bit unpredictable - there’s no quick way to ascertain on which date things will ratchet up.
Each short stretch of time will feel different from the last and the next - different number of days, different length of time. Again, keeps it interesting.
Feels more like a challenge, than just the same old same old day after day after day.
Revisit this post if you’re interested in why a brain like mine needs a bit of urgency, interest and challenge to be part of the mix if anything’s going to be achieved.
If you want to follow along with how I’m doing, I’ll probably post on my alternative instagram @izzymoore.paint (see the 2022 post above).
At some point, probably when I’m supposed to be doing something else, I’ll create an aesthetic chart to help keep track of the dates/days/numbers. Watch this space! The first week or so will be easy enough - I’ve got enough fingers and toes to count the days.
Edit: Here’s a not-particularly-pretty tickybox you can print if you like.
If you’re joining in, let me know what your #100dayproject will look like - and if you want to try Izzy’s Progression towards building your creative muscle, feel free - and tell me how it goes!
Until next time,
PS Thinking ahead and wondering what 365 days would be? Reckon it’s 27 minutes. Totally achievable. Cool, huh?!
I have used Izzy’s progression swimming laps and I didn’t even know it. I was adding 10 laps or so each week, but my husband suggested just adding a lap a day. So I add two laps, so I get out on the right side of the pool. ;-). Much easier, before I know it, I’m swimming 65 laps.
I think my brain just broke with the revelation of 14 minutes being so workable.... I've been dithering about #100days but (which may change by tomorrow 😏), I think, will probably involve the 100 hexies I made last year which are only partly made into a quilt top...