I recently learned about Beeple. He is a digital artist that has been making one-piece of artwork every day for the past 13-and-a-half years and posting it online.
His digital collage, "Everydays: The First 5000 Days", was sold for $69.3 million through an online auction in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT). This is the third-most-expensive artwork ever sold by a living artist at an auction (Brown, 2021), and Beeple got to keep around $53 million after fees and everything (Sriram, 2021).
This is not going to be an article talking about how Beeple got so rich.
I was more curious about how Beeple is able to produce so many great works consistently while most creators struggled.
When we hear about someone like Beeple, we think he is either a productivity machine, or he has a factory in China making the artworks for him.
That's not the case.
Beeple was a guest on a YouTube Channel called The Futur in 2018.
After watching that interview, I was very surprised to learn that Beeple actually struggles with discipline, is easily distracted, and has trouble managing his time.
So what are the secrets to his productivity?
The Power of Habits
When Beeple was asked about how he is able to find the time to work on his daily art projects, here is what he said:
"I get that question a lot, but I don't think there is any like magical answer to it. I think it's just one of those things that if you get into the habit of it, you'll keep doing it. I had gotten lucky that the momentum of doing it so long just makes it completely feels like it's not a choice at all. It's just something I have to do, most days I do not want to do it." (The Futur, 2018)
Habits are great. When you invest the time to build a habit of doing something, it will require less willpower to do it in the future.
According to research, it takes on average 66 days to form a new habit (Lally et al, 2009).
Beeple got the idea to start making art every day because he saw another artist, Tom Judd, doing it. After Beeple made artworks for 66 days straight, I imagine he probably established a habit, which made it easier for him to continue to make artworks every day without relying on motivation.
Put Out Work Consistently but Don't Take Each Day So Seriously
Beeple thinks there is only a small correlation between the amount of time he spends on creating the artwork versus the quality of the artwork.
On average, Beeple spends around two hours a day making his personal artworks.
There are times where he put in 10 hours into making artwork, but the result comes out like crap. There are also times where he'll get lucky, and the art looks great after only spending 30 minutes working on it.
Here is the advice Beeple would give to artists struggling with perfectionism:
"It's a tough sort of mix between taking the entire thing [putting out artwork every day] super fu[&#]ing serious[ly] that you are going to commit to putting in like hours a day but not taking each day so seriously that it paralyzes you from putting out work. It's like hey today sucked, tomorrow is another day." (The Futur, 2018)
Setting Reasonable Public Deadlines
Beeple is easily distracted, and there have been times where he is scrambling to finish a piece of artwork at 11:50 pm.
When an interviewer asked Beeple how does get himself to focus, here is what Beeple said:
"Deadline[s]. Having a deadline forces you to focus. When the clock hits 10:00 pm, and you know have to get the art done by midnight, it forces you to focus." (The Futur, 2018)
Public deadlines are more useful than personal deadlines. It means there will be people holding you accountable when you don't finish your work by the deadline.
In Beeple's case, because he has been putting out digital artworks for the past 13-and-a-half years on his website and social media, his fan expects him to keep putting them out every day, and his reputation is on the line.
Deadlines also have to be reasonable.
Before Beeple became a multi-millionaire, he made the majority of his income doing artworks for clients. He also had to set aside time to help his wife take care of their two children.
Life can be pretty hectic, so you need to set up a reasonable deadline for your personal projects.
Creating a personal artwork every day is a reasonable deadline for Beeple because it takes two hours on average. But if he had to create 10 or 20 personal artworks every day, then that would be pretty hard.
Research has shown that deadlines induce stress which increases our performance, but this only works up to a certain point. Too much stress will hinder your performance (Burnett, 2018), so it definitely takes self-awareness and experimentation to find a reasonable deadline for your own projects.
Check out more of Beeple’s artwork here.
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Thanks for reading!
-George 🐙
References
Brown, A. (2021, March 11). Beeple NFT Sells For $69.3 Million, Becoming Most-Expensive Ever. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2021/03/11/beeple-art-sells-for-693-million-becoming-most-expensive-nft-ever/?sh=65d7ef592448
Burnett, D. (2018, February 14). The power of deadlines. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2015/apr/20/the-power-of-deadlines-voter-registration-election
Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2009). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
Sriram, S. (2021, March 24). Beeple Converted All Crypto Earnings From $69M NFT Sale To USD: “I’m Not Remotely A Crypto Purist.” Yahoo. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/beeple-converted-crypto-earnings-69m-183207118.html
The Futur. (2018, June 8). The Importance of Being Creative Every Single Day— Beeple livestream [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Ge9s-6Jgxxk
Love your mention on public deadlines, as that helps motivate me a lot. Definitely a mix of that and personal deadlines is a sweet spot. Keep up the great content! Love what you're putting out 🙂