8 Decision-Making Tips

I always have trouble making decisions. I’m experiencing this at the moment because I started working again on my graphic novel “Abyss of Absurdity“. For a year and a half, I made a hell of a lot of progress on this thing, but after I finished the prologue and started working on the rest of the final pages, a lot of things got in the way of finishing the comic. This week I’ve had time to work on it, but now I don’t like the style of the whole thing anymore.

Now I’m back to “What will the final graphic novel look like in the end”. But it is really hard to make those decisions because it is something I have to work on for months or years. And I want it to be almost “perfect” (I know that this is not possible).

So here’s a list I wrote down a long time ago to help me, and which might help you if you have the same problem in your life.

How to Make Decisions

Set a Time Limit

Set yourself a specific time to make decisions. Sometimes endless thinking can lead to even more uncertainty. When you set a deadline, you force yourself to make a decision.

Pro and Con List

Make a list of the pros and cons of the different options. This can help you better understand the potential consequences and make an informed decision.

Seek Advice

Talk to other artists, friends, or mentors about your ideas. Sometimes outside perspectives can help you better understand the pros and cons and make decision-making easier.

Test It Out

Before you finalize your decision, you could create a small test version. In my case, maybe I could do several small sample pages to see how it looks. This can give me a better idea of what the final result could look like without making a full page.

Accept That Not Everything is Perfect

Sometimes we try to make the perfect decision, but this is rarely possible. Accept that there is no perfect solution and that mistakes or changes are still part of a valuable creative process.

Visualize the End Result

Visualize what the result will look like when you decide on an option. This can help create an emotional connection to the choice and help you make a decision.

Focus on the Goal

Remind yourself what you want to achieve with your creative projects. What feeling do you want to convey? What message do you want to send? This can help you choose the option that best fits your creative vision.

Make it an Iterative Process

Remember that many creative decisions are not final. You can always make adjustments as you continue to work. It’s normal for things to evolve during the process.

And sometimes I try to think of a phrase someone gave me on my way to becoming an illustrator: “Decisions are easy. You just have to make them.” I love that because, at the end of the day, all that matters is showing up and doing the thing. So I am trying to use this new post of my series “Creative Clutter” to finally make a decision for my Graphic Novel!

Thinking About Observing

Every morning I take some time to study. I’m still at a place in my artistic journey where I don’t feel good enough, so I’m always striving to improve through learning.

What I’ve realized in the months I’ve been doing this is that I’m not observing enough for my art and drawing practice. I even go through my life blindly instead of looking at things. When I was a child I was much more curious than I am now, and I lost that thing somewhere and somehow.

When I was thinking and writing about this topic, I found a note where I wrote that we have to observe 80% of the time and use what we see 20% of the time. We have to look at things to see how they work and the way they behave. Why does it look like this? Can it look different? How did it get made? Thinking about more than just how it looks will help you if you want to reproduce it. You will make it much more believable and beautiful.

For example, in the last few weeks, I have been trying to get better at clothes and folds. I realized that I rarely do seams on clothes. And they help so much in understanding what kind of clothes they are and with the figure itself in perspective. Why have I never done those seams? When I look at clothes they all have them unless they are crocheted or knitted. Why have I never seen that?

That’s why I try to observe more in real life. Not to go through life blindly, but to see the things around me and try to understand how things are and why they look the way they do.

I also recommend that you pay more attention to seeing rather than just doing.

About Creative Clutter

Thinking is my greatest pleasure and my greatest distraction. Sitting by the window with a cup of coffee, I get lost in contemplating work, projects and creative challenges. This habit of getting lost in thought has shaped both my artistic practice and the direction of this blog – a direction that’s about to change.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble with this blog, to be honest. For years now. I’d love to help creative people, but I really need to focus on my work as an illustrator and comic artist. For a while, I tried doing this blog on the side, but it never worked out the way I wanted it to.

Finally, I had an idea of how to get things going again. When I was thinking about my blog, I thought “Why not tell people what I think?” Because that is what this blog is. Even though I love helping people, I still think about creative problems because I have them too. And by researching and thinking about these problems, I also help myself.

That is why I decided to share my thoughts with you in a new and shorter format. You will learn what I did today, what I thought about, what problems I encountered, and what solutions I came up with. I will try to do this much more frequently, attaching a sketchbook page of the day to the writing. Yes, that’s five times a week.

I am going to call it “Creative Clutter“. It is a mixture of writing and my sketchbook, which may or may not be related to the content of the post.

Here is a list of topics I want to do:

Creative Process & Mindset

Insights In My Daily Work
Thoughts I Had
My Creative Process
Mindset and Motivation
Emotional & Mental Wellbeing

Projects & Problem-Solving

Problems With Personal Projects
What Helped Me Today
Productivity and Work Techniques
Storytelling

Resources & Inspiration

Skills & Resources
Inspiration
Note-taking
Cool Apps I Found

So basically everything I already have on my blog, but now in a more diary-like essay form and shorter.

What’s in it for you?

You will get more stuff on almost the same topics that were already on the blog and first-hand insight into my working process. These will be highly subjective and less researched than the other posts I have made on this blog. Still, it should be worth your while. And you’ll get some silly drawings along the way, so that’s a plus.

What’s in it for me?

I will be focusing more on a daily sketchbook, which I have wanted to do for ages. I am a bit of a “loose paper”-drawer and have a lot of sketchbooks lying around. Now, instead of drawing on every available surface, I will draw on one sketchbook page a day.

I love writing and this will help me learn to write better, something I still struggle with. I will be actively trying to learn to write better, so hopefully this blog will get better over time.

And finally, my blog is now more a part of my work as an illustrator and comic artist. So we’ll see how l will manage this because doing this more often than the old blog posts and adding a sketchbook page to it is a lot of work! But I like challenges.

The Daily Check-In

The Daily Check-In is a good morning routine I started a few years ago. It gets me in the mood for my creative work and sets me up for the day. The check-in is pretty much a checklist for getting started. It began as a simple checklist, but a few months ago I made a whole Notion page with several things I wanted to have every morning when I started working. Here’s what it looks like.

The Simple Check-In

This was the original check-in I used for a couple of years. It’s pretty much a routine or ritual you do before you start work in simple action steps.

Sit down at the workstation.
Flip the hourglass (this was my old ritual before work).
Time block / Plan the day. What do I want to accomplish today?
Summon my alter ego.
What do I do first?
Prepare your workspace for it.
Take three deep breaths and focus on the moment.
Do the task or warm-up.

Benefits of a Daily Ritual

Increased focus and clarity on what you need to do.
Increased motivation right from the start.
Gives you consistency and momentum every day.
Sets the stage for the flow state.

The Advanced Check-In

My advanced check-in evolved from the simple check-in because I encountered a couple of problems in my work life. Firstly, I forgot things I shouldn’t forget, such as my goals or what I wanted to achieve throughout the working week. Sometimes I test new work systems and need to remember them. I usually put things on my desk to remind me, but I always forget to look at them after a few days. So I made this change to an advanced check-in.

I created a visual page in Notion that I open every day before I start my creative work. It is divided into “Daily” and “Weekly” stuff, meaning things I need to look at daily and things I look at once a week. What I need or want to remember because they help me achieve my goals and dreams.

I update it every week with what I need for the following week and revise it quarterly in case I need to add other things or just goal updates.

Check-In — *Here’s the start of my advanced check-in in German*

The Daily Part

System Focus
The work system I want to focus on this week. Sometimes I change it up or try things out, and see how they help me in my creative life. Each week I focus on one or two parts of this system. This is where I remember them.

Weekly Goals
Top 3 goals of this week and a goal each day. Every Monday morning I update this.

Quarterly Goals
Every three months I figure out where I want to improve in my life and work. I use these as quarterly goals, updating them every three months. I often forget them because they’re on a different Notion page that I don’t check regularly. So I added a link to my goals page and now I see them every day, can remember them, and, more importantly, do them.

Why Am I Doing This?
When I’m not in the mood, this reminds me why I’m doing all this stuff. A daily motivation list to get the job done.

Check-In Checklist
The checklist I do before I start working. This is the simple check-in from above.

Check-Out Checklist
Yes, I have a check-out too. It is a checklist for reflection and to remember to do a bit of networking on social media, but unfortunately, I have been too lazy to do the social media part lately. hehe.

The Weekly Part

Daily Priorities
To remind me of what I need to do every day. I read it every week in case something changes, but I don’t look at it daily because that should already be on my list of daily goals.

Freelance Projects/Commissions
Current freelance work I’m working on, so it doesn’t get lost when I’m waiting for feedback for example.

Weekly Schedule
How I want to work every day of the week. I seldom stick to it at the moment, but in an ideal week, I do exactly that. Lately, I just go with the flow or what I need to do at different times of the day.

Projects
My creative projects and the links to the Notion pages. It is a fast way to get to my project management but also helps me to remember them because sometimes some get lost in time. I have several projects at the moment, so I’m focusing on different ones, therefore some projects get a bit lost sometimes.

General Business Goals
General Goals from my business plan. What I need to do daily, weekly, and monthly to reach my business goals and where I see myself in the next few years.

Additional Benefits of an Advanced Daily Ritual

You won’t forget important things throughout the week.
Keep your goals in sight.
Clarity about what to work on each day.
A central place to put things you need to remember.
Helps to stay on track with your creative business.

Conclusion

A daily check-in as a morning routine can jump-start your creative work day. It will get you faster in the zone and align you with your short and long-term goals every day. It makes it easier to stay on track and keeps you motivated through the tougher mornings of the week.

This ritual has become my way of staying clear, motivated, and consistent in my creative life, and maybe it can help you too.

Interested in a check-in template? Let me know!

How Positive Affirmations Unlocked My Creative Potential

I cannot be creative if I am too stressed or not in the right emotional state. In today’s world, many people experience stress but still manage to be creative, and I’m no exception – even when I’m stressed. So what do I do to deal with it? Or rather, what do I try to do?

I call it “poor man’s Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” because it works pretty much like CBT. At least that is my understanding as a layman who has read a summary of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy once. That means don’t take this as a definitive source or professional advice.

Anyway, here’s how it works: When you’re emotionally upset, tell yourself how you want to feel in the present moment. For example, if you’re stressed and tired and don’t feel like working on your drawing, you’d say: “I am relaxed and awake and in the mood to work on my drawing”. Repeat this several times. Try to avoid negative words like “not” (for example, use “relaxed” instead of “not stressed”).

These are positive affirmations that can help challenge and overcome self-sabotaging and negative thoughts. Repeating them often and believing in them can lead to positive changes. I’ve included below some scientific research showing that this practice can improve your creative problem-solving, even under stress, and increase your overall creativity.

How To Do Positive Affirmations

Identify the problem that is bothering you.
Say the complete opposite of it without using negative words like “not”.
Repeat it as often as possible throughout the day and whenever the problem arises.
That’s it.

It may or may not help you as much as it helped me. But it is worth a try. As a tip, try to believe it. Only if your mind believes it will it come true.

A Few Of My Go-To Self-Affirmations

I’m having fun – In situations where I’m struggling to work on something that isn’t fun.
I can do it – When I doubt myself. I say it every time I meditate (I do autogenic training)
I am calm and relaxed – In stressful situations. Often needed in public places because of my anxiety.
I’m a pro – I got it from “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. Just so I take myself more seriously when I create things.
It’s the fixed mindset – from the book ‘Growth Mindset’ by Carol Dweck. I use it when I try to avoid things, procrastinate or have self-doubt.
I’m fit and awake – When I’m tired and still want to focus on something.
I am a patient person – When I lose my patience.
This effort is pleasant – When I am doing something really hard. Should release some dopamine after a while, according to a podcast by Andrew Huberman.
Mistakes are OK – When I’m drawing crap again.

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