Want to Improve Your Creative Skill Today? Here's How

When you are trying to develop a creative skill, small improvements every day beat sporadic epic bursts. Every time.

Imagine two creatives, Oliver and Amelia. Both are music producers at the beginning of their careers. Both have visions of really making it—working with interesting artists, producing music they can be proud of, and supporting themselves through their creative work.

In order to have the careers they want, they both know that they need to continuously improve their skills. They need to learn new production techniques, become better songwriters, improve their mixing skills.

The list of improvements seems endless. They feel a deep skill deficit. Like a chasm that stands between them and the career that they want.

Oliver sets out to improve his skills. He works in bursts, but sporadically. Marathon sessions on weekends and late at night. After a session, he feels burnt out, and then it takes days or even a week before he can muster up the energy for another session.

The gaps between learning sessions means that it’s hard for Oliver to build on his previous knowledge. Too much time has elapsed, and he’s forgotten what he learned.

Oliver feels stressed, overwhelmed, and burnt out. He’s getting better, but the emotional cost is high.

Amelia takes a different approach to improving her production skills.

Amelia makes a commitment to improve a little bit every day. She’s read James Clear’s Atomic Habits, so she aims to get ​1% better each day​.

Every day she choose one specific thing—a mixing technique, a delay effect, a keyboard shortcut—to add to her repertoire.

Because Amelia works every day, her knowledge compounds. She reinforces what she learned the day before, and keeps adding.

She stays motivated because every day’s work is manageable.

And when she doesn’t feel motivated, she operates out of the habit she’s built. A virtuous habit.

Olivia is benefitting from the power of compounding in skill development.

You’ve probably heard of compounding in finance, but it’s also true for learning creative skills. But how does it work?

Let’s break it down.

On day one of her skill development plan, we can call Amelia’s skill level 1. That represents her starting point.

On the first day, she will get 1% better, increasing her skill level to 1.01.

But the next day, she will be getting 1% better not of 1.00, but of her new skill level of 1.01.

On day two, that means she ends up with just a little more: 1.0201.

What seems negligible on day 2 starts to seem more significant after a few weeks. On day fifty, her skill is 1.63, and on day 100 she’s at 2.67. She’s 2.67 times better than she was when she started.

What if Amelia stuck with this plan for a full year?

After 365 days, improving at 1% per day, her skill will have increased not 10 times, not 20 times, but 37.78 times from when she started. (1.01^365)

Let’s compare the results of Oliver’s and Amelia’s approaches to improving their creative skills.

Amelia’s approach allows her small efforts to compound over time. Over the course of a year, she builds a foundation of skills that set her up for new opportunities in the field. She starts to get noticed. A positive feedback loop encourages her to keep going.

Oliver’s approach feels very different.

His sporadic approach robs the power of compounding skill development. There is just too much time between sessions for the momentum of compounding to work. He has to relearn techniques he once knew.

Who’s approach have you been taking? Who’s approach will serve you best in the long run?

If you are ready to change, it only takes 1%.

It takes 1% today.