A partial history of 100-day projects. In 2006 when he was teaching at Yale School of Art, graphic designer Michael Bierut set his students an assignment to repeat a ‘design operation’ every day for 100 days. The only restriction was that every iteration must be documented for eventual presentation.

After running the assignment for five years, he shared some observations. Bierut wrote:

“Everyone starts with high hopes. But things get repetitive by day ten. By day twenty, no matter what you’ve decided to do, it feels like you’ve been doing it forever. And bridging the end-of-year break is always a big challenge. But the students who get past day thirty or forty tend to get in a groove that will take them through to the end.”

Michael Bierut

Having 100 days is such a clear container for creativity. Just do the thing, every day - simple.

In 2017 I took inspiration from Jenn Ashworth’s #100daysofwriting which was a gentle approach to writing productivity. I’ve interviewed Ashworth over the years and wrote about her 100 days process in my book Written. She told me:

“It was about seeing what it was like every day and trying to observe the process more than the product. I guess, trying to learn why I was so afraid, what worked well for me, and what didn’t, which times of day worked and which didn’t, and how much could I get done, and just consciously observe all of that and figure something out.”

Jenn Ashworth

I used it to write the draft of my first book. It nearly killed me! But I needed that container, that accountability and community.

I’m doing it again - it’ll be more focussed on process rather than output, but also, I do need to clear some writing goals. As ever I am constantly grappling between getting things down and being kind to myself. I’ll share updates on Notes.

If you want some background and helpful links check out this post I wrote last year: A countdown, a challenge and a community

breakthroughsandblocks.…