How to Keep Yourself Accountable with Personal Creative Projects

There’s nothing worse than finally setting your sights on a creative project that you genuinely feel like is The One, only to let the idea dissipate into the abyss of boredom weeks later. As a creative, I’m all too used to this cyclical pattern. Our minds can be somewhat of a circus filled with endless ideas that are typically only given a minute or two of thought. Some of the better ideas might turn into daydreams, and at best, they start to bleed into our real lives. Proving to be an idea worthy of reality is no easy task, but most of these wind up in that excited-to-fizzle-out dance. So how do you get off this round-about and bring an idea to fruition?

Take Ownership of Your Work

It’s often so easy to brush off the work you do on a personal project as small and insignificant, but this isn’t the case at all! In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

No matter what you’re working on, it’s important to continually remind yourself that you should be proud of the work you’re doing. One way I keep myself accountable is by showing my friends what I’m working on. If I don’t feel proud enough to show them my work, then that signals to me that I haven’t been trying hard enough.

I also upload a lot of my work to my design Instagram account and Dribbble, where Likes and Follows reinforce the good work I’m doing (however, be cautious with this method as it’s useless to be caught up with vanity metrics).

At the end of the day, it’s very motivating to contribute in a meaningful way to cool projects, and think, “Hey! I did that!” It’s even better when you can say, “Hey! I did that, and I did it well.”

As a remote worker, you should be accountable for your work and proud of it. Make this part of your routine and see your motivation soar!