Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!

I am absolutely terrible at forming habits of drawing on a regular basis, especially as I’ve gotten older and life has gotten more and more hectic! If you’re like me and having trouble forming artistic habits, use these tips to help make any habits easier to make a part of your daily routine!

In this article we will cover the following topics:

Identify Distractions and Turn Them Off

Start Small And Work Up

Have Fun

Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones

Create A Routine

Stack Your Habits

Measure Your Progress

Be Flexible

Reward Yourself

Let’s get to work!

Identify Distractions and Turn Them Off

If you’re anything like me, you sometimes find that it's easy to get distracted by all sorts of things. I often find myself thinking “I'll get to work as soon as I find a video to put on for background noise,” and then 45 minutes later I'm still scrolling down YouTube looking for just the right thing. With social media it's easier than ever to get caught in a loop of answering instant messages, looking at photos, or watching videos of cute bunny rabbits. Before you know it, the time you set aside to work on art is gone and it’s time to do the next pressing thing. 

What things distract you and take away your creative time? Write down the things you do other than working on your art. Then find a way to turn those things off for your working time. If scrolling social media or reading news sites is your distraction of choice, there are browser extensions you can add to most browsers to block certain sites or either an entire day or for blocks of time. For instance, StayFocusd for Google Chrome allows you to block subdomains, specific pages, or entire websites. You can configure active days and hours, or use the “nuclear option” to block all websites for a certain number of hours.

If your distractions come from your phone, turn on airplane mode or do not disturb. If you’re worried about being reachable for an emergency, there is usually a way to configure certain numbers to make it through these modes with texts or phone calls for most phones. 

Start Small and Work Up

No matter how much you want to, you will not be able to suddenly ditch all your unwanted habits and be perfectly productive right off the bat. Start with one or two small habits at first and make those second-nature before adding more in to your artistic habits. If you barely can sit down to draw now, then suddenly being able to draw for eight hours a day, every day, is unrealistic. However, maybe you can find 15-30 minutes a day to sit and draw. Increase that time slowly over the next few weeks, and soon you'll be working your way up to a great habit!

You can use this for other things you need to add to your routine as well. It's unrealistic to start eating healthy, drinking nothing but water, and exercising for an hour each day all at once. But you can slowly start with just making better choices and working toward your larger goals.

Have Fun

Some things are inherently not fun for most artists. For instance, I really don't like doing my income and expenses bookkeeping (or really anything with numbers and money!) However, keeping up with my bookkeeping means that it's easier to do things like file taxes, so it's a habit that should be kept up with. If you're trying to make a habit of something that you don’t really like doing, try to find a way to make it a fun process. For instance, put on your favorite music, or a podcast or show you like but that you only put on while doing that task. This way, you have something to look forward to while doing something you don't really want to do.

Replace a Bad Habit with a Good One

This bit of advice can go hand in hand with starting small. In this case though, you need to identify one of your bad habits and then replace it with a good one. For instance, instead of scrolling on TikTok for an hour, sit and draw in a sketchbook. Or instead of mindlessly watching Netflix, watch art tutorials or look at artbooks for inspiration. 

Create a Routine

One of the best ways to get a habit to stick is to work it into a routine. You probably have a routine before you get into bed, or when you wake up in the morning. You can also work your creative pursuits into your routines. For instance, when you wake up in the morning you can add fifteen minutes of sketching to your normal routine somewhere - perhaps after eating your breakfast! You could also make your art into a routine itself. Maybe your routine would be to make a cup of tea, sit down at the computer, turn on your favorite music, and then open Clip Studio Paint and spend time working on art. Having a routine that you stick to can help get your brain into “work mode” because it knows that creativity is coming once these activities are being done. 

Routines are especially important if you are working as a full-time artist as well! For instance, maybe you know that you are most creative in the morning hours. So you would plan your day to work on creative tasks in the morning, and then do admin tasks such as answering emails and bookkeeping in the afternoon so that you could stay on top of all your duties and still get lots of creative work done.

Stack Your Habits

Stacking habits is really quite a simple concept. You simply take an existing habit and add a new habit either before or after the existing one! This could be something like reading an inspiring book after pouring a cup of coffee, or sitting down to draw for 20 minutes after doing the dishes. Identify a habit or habits that you already have, and then think of a way that you can “stack” the new habit you want to create with the existing one to make it more likely to stick. 

Measure Your Progress

You can’t know how far you’ve come unless you measure your progress! If your goal is just to draw more, this can be as simple as keeping a record of the amount of time you’ve spent drawing, or how many pieces of art you’ve completed. If your goal is to improve your art, you can look at a drawing from weeks or months ago and see how your skills and techniques have changed over that period of time. 

However, if you’re trying for some more ‘abstract’ changes, such as gaining more followers or engagement on social media, you will want to keep records somehow of those changes over time. Being able to look back in months and see that you’ve increased your followers by hundreds, or that you are now getting 500 comments on each piece of art you post, will keep you motivated and like you are continuing to move forward toward your goals. Write these achievements down somewhere and review them often so that you can look back on them and see how far you’ve come.

Be Flexible

No matter how well you plan things out, the unexpected is going to happen from time to time. Whether you just have a day where you have no energy, or a day where it seems like everything is going wrong, sometimes you won’t be able to get all your habits done that day. And that is totally okay! No one is perfect after all! The important thing is to not beat yourself up over a stumble and to get back on track as soon as possible. Try not to miss more than one day, especially when you are just forming new habits. The more days in a row you miss, the easier it will be to fall back into old routines and get off track for a long period of time. Tell yourself that it’s okay and that tomorrow will be better, and get back to your habits when you can without feeling guilty or like you need to “make up” the missed time. 

Reward Yourself

Finally, make sure that you take time to reward yourself for your hard work! Do something that brings you joy and is relaxing but that isn’t related to the habits you are trying to build. I personally like to do coloring book pages because they are a way to be creative without me having to think about drawing something. I also like to read and have been learning Japanese for several years, so I try to spend some time reading in Japanese each day to relax but to also work toward that goal as well. 

Taking time to reward yourself, whether it’s with a book, watching some Netflix, or by taking a walk, is a great way to recharge your creative batteries and keep from getting burned out. Make sure to take time to relax!

Conclusion

Making a new habit of any sort can be difficult unless approached with a plan. Make sure to take it slowly and don’t try to change everything all at once, track your progress, and make forming a new habit an enjoyable process!

For more information on CLIP Studio Paint, please visit https://www.clipstudio.net/en or https://graphixly.com