ADHD-friendly creativity & productivity tips

I’m a self-employed artist and designer, and I developed quite a few tricks and methods to help me work around my executive function challenges, sensory overload, and self-doubt.


My Digital Detox Guide

Why people avoid social media detox (let’s bust those excuses)

I truly believe everyone would benefit from taking a long break from social media at least once a year. In my many articles on this topic I gushed about the benefits of digital media sabbaticals, and my own experiences with increased mindfulness, focus, and productivity. So let’s talk about why people typically avoid trying a digital media detox. Read more...

Doorways of inspiration

Doorways of inspiration

How is it that sometimes I can be so full of inspiration and drive to create, but other times I can’t even get myself off the couch? Why is it so difficult to remain in the state of forward momentum? How could I reinvigorate that creative spark after the fire has died out? I’ve tried to answer all of these questions, and more, in this essay. Read more...

Setting goals after a disappointing year

Setting goals after a disappointing year

It’s the time of the year when business owners and bloggers flock to reminisce on their past year, highlight their biggest achievements, and plan for the year ahead. I feel that goal-setting can sometimes create pressure that only makes us feel inadequate, instead of inspired. Read more...

Creativity in digital isolation

Creativity in digital isolation

“Common sense” marketing advice for creators is to publish something every single day. I know many folks who show up daily or almost daily, and it works for them. It’s an excellent marketing technique if you can pull it off. I’m not doing it, and I don’t think it’s the right way for everyone. I want to talk about the positive side of not having to put on a show every day (or every week, or even every month) if you’re not the kind of person who can or wants to do that. Read more...

The challenge of restarting a creative practice

The challenge of (re)starting a creative practice

It’s no secret that sometimes I don’t do art for months. There are objective reasons, and emotional reasons, and totally silly reasons, but whatever they are—the result is the same: no new art, guilt and shame because I’m not making art, and overall grumpy feeling and lack of enthusiasm because I need my art. In the interest of documenting my methods for the future when it’s bound to happen again, but also to help others who have the same problem, I’ll talk about what I’ve tried and what helps me start again after a long period of not creating. Read more...

How to stay motivated while working on long-term projects

How to stay motivated while working on long-term projects

Working on long-term goals is hard. Our brains are not exactly wired for it—we carry biases that undermine our efforts to become successful at whatever we’ve chosen to do. If we want to achieve something bigger than we’ve ever accomplished before, we need to support ourselves better because willpower alone is not enough. Here are the methods I’ve used to overcome my own unproductive patterns and self-publish my book. Read more...

Business tips for people who have too many passions

Business tips for people who have “too many passions”

Having multiple passions is wonderful—you never get bored, and the world looks full of options. What could you do with your career? Who could you be? So many possible answers to that question. It's exciting! But it's also challenging. Multi-passionate folks aren't held in high regard by anyone but ourselves, it appears. In this post, I'm sharing tips for overcoming challenges that multi-passionate people experience, based on my own 13+ years of work experience as a creative professional. Read more...

What’s in your Creative Wellness Toolbox?

What’s in your Creative Wellness Toolbox?

Artists are intimately familiar with our physical tools—but today, I’m talking about a different type of toolbox. The toolbox you need to keep yourself in optimal mental and emotional shape to be able to create not just any kind of work, but your best work. Read more...

I royally screwed up

I royally screwed up.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people put me on a pedestal I don’t deserve to be on. I fear that if they knew of all my past and ongoing mistakes, they would change their mind about me, and wouldn’t want to be my friends or work with me ever again. But I’ve spent the past year teaching and mentoring intensely in different ways, and I’ve learned that what I’m most interested in is teaching by example. If I want others to feel safe about admitting to their mistakes, I need to do the same. So that’s what I’m doing right now. Read more...

Is perfectionism all bad

Is perfectionism all bad?

Perfectionism is badmouthed on blogs and social media all the time. It's a modern boogeyman that incapacitates many creative people. But is there a good side to it? Here's how to use the benefits of perfectionism, without letting it paralyze your progress. Read more...

Why I don't take career advice from anyone

Why I don’t take career advice from anyone

Throughout your life, people have probably told you “You're so good at X, you should be a [something].” If you’ve heard the same thing over and over again, maybe you’ve ended up believing that was what you should do. One thing that many people miss is that the idea of doing something is very different from actually doing something. Read more...

The kooky stuff I do to feel better when everything sucks

The kooky stuff I do to feel better when everything sucks

A big part of being human is running into things that make us feel sad, angry, helpless, betrayed, guilty, or any of the rich spectrum of the so-called “negative” emotions. Sometimes, things are just not good. And you’re allowed to not feel good. At the same time, we also don’t want to not feel good forever. We want things to get better. We want to get better. This is what this post is about – all the things I do to make myself feel better. Read more...

Productivity tips for the incurably lazy

7 productivity tips for the incurably lazy

Productivity tips can only offer you so much. If blog posts could change your thought patterns and habits in an instant, I'd be a mix of Buddha and Neil Gaiman by now. We all know that if you want something to happen, you need to put in the work every day. It's so simple. For this reason I decided to tackle this topic from a different angle, one that is more geared toward understanding yourself and your reluctance to, you know, actually doing the friggin’ work. Read more...

Create first, consume later hand lettering

A simple tip for better creative productivity

I’ll tell you what this “super secret” tip is straight away: create first, consume later. That’s it. Simple. Not easy, though. If it were easy, more people would be doing it. I know I have a tough job of convincing you why this tip is so helpful and might radically transform your creative output. In the rest of this post, I’ll try to make my best case for it, and offer some ways you can put it into practice. Read more...

How to overcome information addiction

How to overcome information addiction

Information addiction can be a huge block to growing our business. If you see this as a problem in your own life, you may be wondering how you can deal with that. Here are some things that helped me, and I hope they’ll give you some ideas to try out. Read more...

You already know enough – Tips to stop forgetting the important stuff

You already know enough – Tips to stop forgetting the important stuff

How often do you go through an experience, and afterwards you think “Why did I get myself into this again? I’ve been through similar things so many times before, I’m supposed to know better by now.”
Falling for the same thing time after time doesn’t mean you’re stupid, or that you lack self-awareness – it just means you're not doing enough to remember what you already know. In this post, I offer some tips on how to do that. Read more...

15 ways to infuse creativity into boring business tasks

15 ways to infuse creativity into your boring business tasks

No matter how wild, beautiful and free your creative work is, there are some things you need to do so your business could thrive that are just booooriiiiiiing. Maybe you postpone things that are essential to keeping your life and work running smoothly because you’re either intimidated by these tasks, or the very thought of doing them is exhausting. I wrote a bunch of ideas how you can approach your boring, tedious and fear-inducing tasks to make them slightly less terrifying and dull. Read more...