Finally finished... My thoughts on the 100 day project
I have a lot of mixed feelings regarding the 100 day project. This is my first year participating. A goal that I set for myself for 2022 was to participate in an art challenge. So obviously, in typical Brooke fashion, I jumped in headfirst to the biggest challenge I could think of. I have admired other peoples hundred day projects since I first heard about it. I was confident from the beginning that this would be an exciting and fun endeavor. Granted, I had my doubts from the start. 100 days feels like a long, long time to do one thing.
My impulse is to deep dive into one area or genre of creativity. After intense fascination I gravitate to another area for exploration. This process repeats on a loop.
“I used to feel like I was failing, because I couldn’t stick with one thing for any extended period. What I have learned now, is those interests always come back around. I just need to be patient and wait for them to reappear in the loop ”
I went into this challenge with my eyes open to the fact that it would be a feat for me to finish. My biggest takeaway… I am SO PROUD of myself for starting, continuing, and finishing.
PROS:
Delving deep into one genre of work
Teaching myself about commitment.
Seeing growth out of the hundred days
Proving to myself that I could stick with it. (When something really matters to me I will come through.)
CONS:
Felt limiting, at times.
Feeling forced to stay within a specified box.
Only posting 100 day project Instagram - when in reality I worked on so many other things.
Project not be conducive to batch creating.
I learned a lot from participating in this project. A lot of days were not easy, and therefore not always positive. It can be easier to focus on the negatives immediately following a project. Overtime I gain some perspective, or maybe my mind starts to see things out of rose colored glasses..?? and I start to see the positives.
At this point I don’t know if I’ll participate in the project again next year. There is a long time before I need to make a decision, and that’s plenty of time to either convince myself one way or another. If I do play along for the challenge again, I have some ideas on how to make it more conducive to my style of creating. I’ll detail some of my ideas down below.
SOME IDEAS for making next year fit into my style of creativity.
Idea #1: Pick an overall topic for the project with several sub topics. Then plan for some type of change every 10, 20, or 25 days.
Why I think it would work:
For me, I think this planned change would be something to look forward to and keep me going until the next benchmark. This may not be the case for everyone, when I start a project/challenge, I don’t like to deviate too far from my original concept. I like everything to look cohesive as a whole in the end, and this can be limiting. This is just a personal preference. And really, a limit or barrier that I put onto myself, which is not always beneficial for me.
I am typically happy with the way my projects look at the end, yes. I don’t think this should be the most important takeaway to be concerned with. Admittedly, this is often what I get caught up with, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I would like to make it a goal for myself to concentrate more on my growth and progress. For me, I think setting myself up for success ahead of time and having a plan to change it up a bit would be a great way to do this.
Idea #2: Find a way to batch create.
Why I think it would work:
What do I mean by batch create? Say you need components A, B, and C for a project to be complete. Instead of creating in order, A, B, then C, and repeating that 10 times. You create 10 A’s, 10 B’s, then 10 C’s. After that you assemble all of the parts together. I’m able to fully immerse myself in a project this way.
A couple of ways this could be done:
-Make the base of all the projects ahead of time. Add the finishing touches on a day-to-day basis. This could mean art marks or stitching, etc.
-Pick one day a week to create for this project. In that one day, create 7 days worth.
It may be easy to think of this as “cheating” or “not following the rules.” Honestly, I can get stuck thinking this way, too. In the end, we need to make challenges or projects work for us instead of the other way around. It’s good to be stretched and taken outside of our comfort zone, but sometimes it’s better to acknowledge and appreciate the way we create and lean into that instead of fighting against it.
Idea #3: Don’t post every single day on Instagram.
Why I think it would work:
It was fun to share with people every day, but in the end I found it to be limiting. As a personal preference, I don’t want to overwhelm people’s feeds. Therefore, I don’t always like to post more than once a day. I reserved that post for my 100 day collage cluster and didn’t share all of the other fun things I was working on.
A fun way to work around this would be to post every day in IG stories, and share more progress shots and videos. Then, share in a post once a week the completed days.
In the end, I loved the interaction with so many new people that came from doing The 100 Day Project. It was fun to do a deep dive into one small genre of work. Overall, I had a positive experience and I will strongly consider participating again next year!
What did you think of The 100 Day Project, either mine or your own? Let me know in the comments, I would love to know your thoughts!
Check out my 100 day project gallery to see all 100 collage clusters.
