I am often asked how I find the time to work in my visual journal, and the answer is simple. Some days, I can work nearly the entire day in the journal, other days I can only work for fifteen minutes, and some days I don’t work in it at all. But even when I only spend fifteen minutes, that’s time spent working, and that time adds up. This has gotten me thinking about how I can build my journaling practice even with just fifteen minutes a day. It kind of sounds like one of those infomercials for the latest exercise craze. “Just 15 minutes a day and you too can have a stronger journal and the pages of your dreams!” But it is so true that those little moments add up, so instead of spending countless minutes on my phone or vegging on the couch watching tv, I am dedicating myself to working at least fifteen minutes a day in my journal over the next 30 days, and perhaps afterward, it can become an ongoing habit. I want to invite you to share in my little experiment.
So, it is with great excitement that I announce the JFJ 15 for 30 Challenge. Each day over the next thirty days, I will share a challenge with the notion that participants spend at least fifteen minutes responding to the challenge and then share their results via blogs and social media. This challenge isn’t about having finished, glorious pages to share. It’s about connecting to a community and sharing with others as ways to nudge and inspire each other. Just remember that there are no rules for responding. Respond the way you feel is appropriate to you. I’ll give some suggestions, and share glimpses of some of the ways I have responded. But this is about how you respond. What strikes a chord with you?
I want to thank Arlene Shelton for inspiring me with her suggestion to do some sort of challenge. I am looking forward to seeing if I am up to the challenge and seeing what type of connections and community can result! So, if you want to join in, grab a journal or some paper, some pens, markers, and paint, and join me. It only takes 15 minutes a day!
Here’s how it’s going to work.
Each day I will post a simple challenge right here on the Journal Fodder Junkies blog and share it across social media platforms - Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The challenge will be a simple notion, technique, or idea to get something going in the journal or on pieces of art.
Working for at least 15 minutes with the challenge, engage your pages and papers responding how you see fit to the challenge. I plan on confining my work to the journal, but feel free to use these ideas to make more resolved pieces of art. I’ll be starting some new pages in my journal but also using pages that are already in process, and I’ll probably work on multiple pages (often the same pages) with each challenge as a way to build up layers.
Snap a picture of your response. Remember that it’s not about having a finished work of art. This is about the process, and you’re just sharing a glimpse of your humble actions. But if you work on the same papers or pages each day, these little actions can add up to richly layered pages and papers.
Post to your blog and your favorite social media sites and include the hashtag #jfj15for30 so that we can all see what you've been up to. Here’s a hint for Facebook, make your posts for the challenge public so that people can see them. You can even post to the Journal Fodder Junkies Facebook page.
Of course feel free to comment, praise, and encourage each other.
And that’s it!
I can’t wait to get started, and I hope that you’ll join me in this challenge. If you can’t do it everyday, do it when you can or do several in a day if you have a larger block of time! I want this to be simple, low pressure, and fun.
Want your friends to join in on the fun? Then share this with everyone you want to be a part of this endeavor.
Look for the first challenge to be posted tomorrow, June 1! Are you up to the challenge?