So you may or may not have heard of the 40 Days of Dating project. If you haven’t, you might have been living under a rock. Two friends, “It Girl” of graphic design Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman, who have opposite relationship issues, perform a social experiment: they agree to date each other for 40 days. The blog was such a viral hit that a feature film based on the concept is in the works, and there’s now a coffee table book.
Here are the rules:
So based on their social experiment, I challenge you to 40 days of “dating” your passion project—whether it be some songs you’ve been itching to write and record (FYI: February is when The RPM Challenge happens), setting time aside to make those crafty creations to sell on Etsy, or really cracking down on that novel or screenplay.
Here are the rules that are tweaked from the original concept:
During the 40 days, you will:
1. Spend time with your project every day (anywhere from 10-30 minutes).
2. Commit on going on three “dates” a week with your project (set aside 2-3 hour blocks of time to work on it).
3. In lieu of seeing a couples therapist, choose a book or some sort of tutorial to improve your craft or help you do your best work. Spend at least one hour a week on this.
4. In Dear Diary fashion, create and take a daily questionnaire or write in a journal. You can include whatever questions you think would be beneficial.
5. Go on a weekend trip (choose a weekend to get away and spend all your time with your project).
6. No cheating (no spending time on other things, including other projects).
As you may know, when it comes to my creative projects, I suffer from Shiny Wrapper Syndrome. I have trouble focusing on one thing and tend to “cheat.” So from February 1 through March 12, I will be challenging myself to stay on task. I’ve decided to focus on a short story collection. My weekend bender will take place on March 7–March 8. I’ll probably do a local coffee shop tour. My questionnaire will be a brief one with just one question: 1) What will I work on during the next session? For self-enrichment, I’ll read Stephen King’s On Writing and The Paris Review Author Interviews (which are accessible online for free, by the way).
I would love you to join me, so am challenging you guys to participate.
To get started, here are some tips:
Be specific. Just like you would schedule a specific time, place, and something cool to do on your date, set time in advance and decide on what aspect of the project you will be working on during that time.
Hold yourself accountable. Don’t be a flake. You wouldn’t want to be a jerk and bone out of a commitment at the last minute, so don’t do it to your passion project.
Ask others to join. Okay, so maybe this isn’t what you would typically do in a real-life situation, but ask your creative pals to work on their own projects. If you set the same dates, it will help to be on the same wavelength and you can potentially meet up to throw a work party.
Build a creation cave. A timeout from the hustle of everyday obligations, a creation cave is way cooler than a man cave, in my opinion. Here’s more info on how.
Feel free to contact me with your own experiences, or if you have a question: jackie[at]cheapsters.org. I’d love to hear from you.
Have fun!
*Feel free to make tweaks to the challenge, so long as you aren’t tweaking simply to bend the rules. 🙂
Facebook group: There’s now a Facebook group for participants of the challenge to cheer each other on. We can also share helpful links and whatnot.
I’m super excited about joining you on this! Let’s see if I’m still this excited on day 39!
Crystal! I am so excited for you to be joining me! Haha I know what you mean. I’m a little nervous but know it will be good to really focus on something that’s been so easy to put off.
That’s so inspiring! What do you plan on working on next? I think I am going to continue doing cycles of the project until I get things done. 🙂