Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is well-known among creatives for his “don’t break the chain” strategy. It’s simple. To get better at almost anything—fitness, art, business, ditch digging, whatever—you need to do the work. In Seinfeld’s example, to be a better comedian, you need to create better jokes. To create better jokes, you need to write every day. So, his recommendation, his practice, is to put a year-long calendar on the wall and put a big red “X” on the days when you do the work (like writing jokes). You create a chain of X’s as you do the work each day. Your job is to not break the chain. No matter what. No excuses. Do the work when you’re tired or unmotivated or not feeling creative or busy with other things. And here’s what I think is key to this strategy…you don’t focus on “good” or “results.” You just focus on being consistent in doing the work. Doing the work is what makes “good” and “results” show up.

Bonnie Christine, the artist and creative entrepreneur I met earlier this year, has a similar mantra to “don’t break the chain.” She speaks about gaining success by doing “one thing a day.” It doesn’t matter if it’s five minutes or ten hours, as long as you’re doing work that’s contributing to the goal. Of course, if you’re only doing five minutes a day, it’s going to take a long time to reach the goal, but progress is progress. Five minutes will get you farther than zero minutes.

I’m sure countless others use a “work as habit” strategy to achieve their goals. I’m proud to say that since March, I’ve done at least a few minutes of work to advance my art and/or Pondering Acres as an online business every single day. It usually means getting up at 5:00 to write or design before starting my full-time, mortgage-paying job. It means my house isn’t as clean as I’d like it to be. It means my butt’s in a chair in front of a computer a lot. Some days, like when I’m on vacation, it’s nothing more than making a few sketches in my sketchbook. I count all of this—doing the work—as success. Sure, I have a long way to go before I’m able to be a full-time artist and creative business owner, but I’m also much closer to that goal than I’ve ever been. So I will keep doing the work every day until I succeed or until the work becomes something that I don’t care about. When that happens, it’s time to re-evaluate life and find out what the next kind of work looks like.

Here's my take on how to make the “don’t break the chain/ one thing a day strategy” effective:

• Be clear about your big goal. Know what you’re trying to accomplish. You have to be able to describe what it looks like when you succeed. “Be better at drawing” isn’t a goal. “Make enough money from my art prints to fund a Hawaiian vacation every year” is a clear goal.

• Decide how important the goal is to you. If it’s low on your life’s priority list, then you probably don’t need a strategy. Simple does not mean easy. Does your goal matter enough that you’re willing to give up time, money, or things to work on it?

• Do work that makes a difference. Some days that might be reading or learning, but those are passive actions. Most days, like 90% of the time, do something active; something that results in tangible or measurable progress. For example, reading through a book of healthy recipes doesn’t make you healthier. Going shopping for fresh produce that you can eat instead of potato chips will make it possible for you to be healthier.

• Have a focus. To support your big goal, you need to know the small steps it takes to achieve it. Focus your daily work on one small step at a time. For example, I need to create a portfolio of my art and I need to create an online presence with my business. If I’m jumping back and forth, working on the portfolio for a bit and then my website and then back to my portfolio, I won’t make meaningful progress on either. So, one week, my daily work might be focused on improving my website so that by the end of the week, I have a new page set up to engage customers. The next week I might focus on making art so that I have new designs to add to my portfolio or a new product to sell on Etsy.

• Make your progress visible. It’s not enough to just think about doing the work every day or to keep a mental checklist. Use a paper or digital calendar or tracker of some kind so that you can see how many days you’re doing the work. Tracking your daily dedication is key to this strategy. Trust me, you’ll get a nice dopamine hit every time you put a big red X on your calendar.