Many of the questions I field each day (in my inbox and DMs) are related to habits and how to formulate and implement productive, healthy ones.

One aspect of habit-building that’s perhaps counterintuitive, but which I find to be powerful, is coming up with intentional limitations so my new-habit framework is lightweight enough to be effortlessly handled and manipulated.

For instance: I recently decided that I want to make art on a regular basis.

Art-making was a normal, everyday activity for me years ago, but my life and priorities and rhythms and routines have changed dramatically since then, and it wasn’t immediately clear where this endeavor would fit amongst all the other commitments and considerations I juggle each day.

That in mind, my first step was to decide what my eventual goal would look like: I want to make art and I want to make doing so a casual thing that’s barely worth mentioning because it’s just something I do.

My next step was figuring out what tangible actions would serve as ingredients for this habit.

Making art can involve sitting down and doodling, it can involve research, learning new tools, exposing oneself to art made by others, and all sorts of other things.

I decided, for the purposes of this specific habit-building project, I would focus on the “actually sitting down and making physical artwork” component of “making art,” as I already imbibe a large volume of aesthetic influences, daily, and the “learning new tools” facet of this pursuit can always be added on, ad hoc, while I’m in the process of making things.

My project thus refined into something concrete (a single goal with delineated intentions), I further whittled the concept into something I could squeeze into even my busiest days: the days when I’m exhausted, time-constrained, and not feeling creative or ambitious.

I fiddled around with a few time- and medium-related limitations, and ultimately landed on the combination of painting a single object, grabbed on a whim from around my apartment, captured on either a medium-sized piece of paint-worthy paper or small-ish canvas board (two surfaces I have on hand), and painting whatever I can manage within 30 minutes using only a quarter-inch brush (a common brush size that’s small enough to do some detail-work, but large enough that I don’t feel compelled to capture more than the raw form and essence of the things I’m portraying).

This is, of course, a painting- and me-specific collection of constraints.

It works for the tools, time, and psychological limits and capabilities I should have available even on my worst, most drained days. And that’s important because habits tend to fall apart if the frictions they introduce, when combined with the day’s other frictions, become overwhelming.

I’ve also found that by reframing this habit in my mind as something I get to do—something I’m rewarding myself with—rather than as a responsibility, it’s easier to clean my palette, grab something to paint, set a timer, and get to work.

If it’s one more item on my to-do list there’s more perceptual friction between me and making art, which is the problem I’m trying to ameliorate with this process.

When establishing intentional habits, then, it’s prudent to make sure you know what you hope to accomplish, why you want to habitualize the things you’re trying to habitualize, and to figure how to make those things consistently doable—rather than aiming for habits that are theoretically great, but never manageable for more than a day or two before they’re dissolved by practical reality.

Also: these habits are ideally viewed as experiments, not fixed undertakings.

I arrived at this model for reintroducing art-making into my life after trying a few other approaches that didn’t stick (not as well as I wanted them to, anyway), and I’ll iterate or discard this one just as quickly if after a month or so it doesn’t seem like it will serve its intended purpose.

If you found value in this essay, consider buying me a coffee :)