The best way to practice self-discipline -
and yes, it is a practice -
is to work on something for a bit every day.
If you're doing a longer-term project, perhaps it's once a week,
but I've found that discipline really requires consistent repetition.
I'm gonna give you the outline I use personally to figure out how to do things daily,
and I'll apply it to three examples:
making daily videos, working on creating a comic book,
and (by your request), starting minimalism.
We need to work backwards here, so start with your end goal.
This CANNOT BE VAGUE, because we need to be able to tell
when we've achieved the goal.
In order to get clarity on this, we need a specific date,
time, and definitive measurement.
For daily videos, my goal is to post daily videos at 5am.
The "date" is daily, the "time" is 5am, the "definitive measurement" is upload.
My goal for comics is to send a proposal to Image Comics on May 1st, 2022.
The date is May 1st, the time doesn't really matter, and
the definitive measurement is based on what Image Comics requires for their proposals.
If you're starting minimalism, defining the goal is very important here.
Why are you interested in starting minimalism?
If you want less clutter, HOW MUCH less clutter?
Do you want to fit everything in a suitcase?
Or do you just want it to be easier to clean?
Are you trying to reach a certain aesthetic?
Or is it less about "stuff" and you're more interested in getting rid of
time commitments and obligations so that you can make nightly dinners with your family?
It's hard to give advice and help someone achieve something if they
can't define themselves what it is that they're trying to achieve.
Again, absolute clarity helps you to figure out
what you need to be disciplined about.
After the goal, you need a "why." You need to explain your reason to do it,
and you have to have a belief that your goal is actually possible to achieve.
For daily videos, I'm doing this to get better at filming, editing, and storytelling.
For comics, I love that I get to write AND have artwork,
plus - still working on storytelling.
With minimalism - why are you doing this?
Do you want to feel less anxious? Do you want to be more focused?
If there's something specific that you can pin down, then it's a lot easier to define what
you can do daily or weekly to get to that thing that you're trying to achieve.
Now this is where we break it into a schedule.
We need something realistic and sustainable.
That's actually the hardest part of creating a schedule for this -
is to give yourself breaks and to keep it SLOW progress.
We need to make this into a math problem.
So, you know where you are right now. You know where you want to be.
And now we break down the steps in between those and
achieve things - very slowly - step by step.
In order to make it sustainable, you also need to make sure it's enjoyable.
If you can do your goal while listening to great music,
at some point in the day when you're feeling energetic and creative,
making it enjoyable is a great way to actually get there, step-by-step,
slowly, over time.
My schedule for daily videos is I need to start filming by 2pm at latest,
and I need to edit and upload the video the night before it actually gets shown
to you guys.
The video becomes public at 5am,
but I post it the night before.
For comics, I'm actually still working out the daily schedule, because
I don't know what's achievable.
I know that most comic creators aim for one page a day.
Since I'm not a professional yet, I'm going to aim for half a page a day.
When you're starting minimalism, you might want to think about the fact that it takes
lots of people many YEARS before they get to a point that they
actually share things online.
So if you're comparing yourself to someone you see online,
understanding how long they've been working on this is a great way to
gauge how long it will take yourself.
My personal favorite way of minimizing things is to
do the "packing party" technique that was popularized
by Ryan Nicodemus of "The Minimalists."
If you just Google "packing party minimalists," it'll probably come up, and
you'll be able to read about how he did that.
Once you have a schedule initially figured out,
the best thing to do would be to persist with it -
to stick with it for a week or a month before adjusting the schedule.
Try to stick to a habit of "sitting in the chair" at the same time everyday,
and figure out ways to make it fun.
And you know - a little bit of caffeine never hurts either...