One of my favorite authors, Gretchen Rubin, continually reminds me that what we do every day influences us more than things we do once in awhile. Habits matter.

One of the habits I struggle to create for myself is daily drawing. As a Graphic Facilitator, I rely on drawing as one of my tools for helping clients think, create, and work better. But when I’m not actually working on a job, I don’t draw as much as I think I ought to. I keep saying that I should draw every day, but haven’t figured out how to actually get myself to DO this.

Until I went on vacation.

I spent six weeks in Europe this summer. Since I am neither a photographer nor a journal writer,  I decided to chronicle this trip by doing one small drawing per day. Each morning,  I used a small, cheap 4″ by 6″ sketchbook and markers to capture the highlights of the previous day. The drawings were done quickly; they include words, stick figures, and unrecognizable icons that are meaningless to anyone but me.

I find using small, cheap paper freeing – if my drawing sucks I can start over! When I buy nice expensive art paper, I sometimes find myself intimidated to start. While I did end up posting these doodles on Facebook, knowing that they didn’t really need to make sense to anyone else was also freeing. Doing these small 15-minutes drawings daily did more for my skills than trying to sit down and do a large two-hour painting once a week!

How might YOU chop a new habit up into  tiny, easy, non-intimidating bites?