Totally insane and truly helpful

The best creativity advice I've read in ages—plus, enroll now in Worm School Extension 🪱🎓

One of the deepest mysteries of life has to be the mystery of self-discipline, don’t you think? I mean: What is it that allows some people to consistently complete challenging tasks while others find even not-that-challenging tasks incredibly difficult? And how is it that some of us seem to be one or the other person, unpredictably, from day to day? (This is me.) We can talk about brain chemistry, environment, habit, “grit,” and countless other factors—but self-discipline is such “a complex foamy mixture”¹ that I never feel like I have a real handle on it, or not for long.

This is why I never tire of advice. Who knows what strategy or attitude or “subtle maneuver” might finally break things wide open? But I need my advice to feel true to the complexity described above. The worst kind of advice, for me, is something vague and grand like “Trust the process.” The best is hard-won and hyper-specific—and the best collection of this kind of advice I’ve read in ages was in the replies to an Instagram post that I happened to scroll across the other week, from an ADHD coach asking for her followers’ most unhinged executive-function hacks.

From @rebelwithoutadrink

What a wealth of human ingenuity is on display here! I don’t consider myself to have ADHD, but these hacks transcend any particular diagnosis—and I think they should be especially valuable to those of us trying to do self-directed creative work, because, um, self-directed creative work requires a lot of self-discipline. Indeed, many of these homegrown strategies remind me of habits employed by the figures in my Daily Rituals books, i.e. some of the most brilliant minds of the last four hundred years.

Below are my personal favorite tactics, sorted into several broad categories. For some of you, this email may get cut off for being too long—if that happens, look for the “view entire message” link at the bottom, or just go straight to the web version here.

Before we get to the hacks, a couple quick announcements:

• Last year, I launched Worm School, an eight-week summer course on “wriggling through” a creative life. This year, I’m offering Worm School Extension, an additional five lessons—specifically, the five things that helped me finally, actually, for-real get my long-overdue book project done—which I’ll be sending out weekly from May 27–July 1 June 10–July 8. These lessons will be for paid subscribers only, but here’s a coupon to subscribe for 30% off (expires 5/19):

• Tomorrow, from 1–3pm Pacific time, I’ll be joining the writer

  Helen Sword
  on Zoom for a conversation and workshop on the theme of writing rituals. A favorite topic, obviously! Hope to see some of you there. Find all the details and register here.

OK, on to the hacks:

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Channel your inner “Carol”

Putting this one first because it combines a few of the ideas/themes to come

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Dress the part

Similar to the above, but focused on specific clothing items

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Picture your future self

Like the “Carol” idea but without creating an alter ego, just projecting yourself forward in time

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Externalize the process

Again, creating an external “you” and then trying to please or impress them

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Make it a game

Always a good strategy

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Outsource decisions

These folks understand that even small decisions can zap your willpower

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Create a crisis

A time-worn strategy and one of my very favorites—though some of these specific techniques are new to me (ketchup on the counter!)

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Reframe the task as a privilege/reward

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Wench hour!

My wife and I periodically have “power hours,” but this is much better

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And one more, perhaps my very favorite:

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What I love about this collection of advice is its acknowledgement and tolerance of human foibles, and its compassionate attitude toward them. This attitude is especially important for creative workers, I think! As I’ve written before, the best projects are often the ones where you have no idea what you’re doing and/or you’re operating at the very edge of your abilities. But working this way can create a tremendous amount of resistance—and the above techniques provide a lighthearted roadmap to overcoming that resistance.

If you have additional techniques to add, please do share them in the comments; I would love to know all your most unhinged strategies for staying afloat in life and art.

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RELATED ISSUES

From the archive:

Life advice from a great 2021 novel

Van Gogh’s advice to a young artist

Really good writing advice from Slavoj Žižek

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Thanks for reading! This newsletter comes out every other Tuesday—and you can help keep it coming by upgrading to a paid subscription, buying one of my Daily Rituals books, forwarding this email to a friend, or even just clicking the “like” button below.

1. An all-time favorite phrase from Elena Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment, in that case used to describe a troubled marriage:

What a complex foamy mixture a couple is. Even if the relationship shatters and ends, it continues to act in secret pathways, it doesn’t die, it doesn’t want to die.