The 100 Day Project: ideas, rules & tracker

The 100 Day Project is a free creative challenge where you pick one small action and repeat it every day for 100 days. Graphic designer Michael Bierut started it in 2006 as a graduate assignment at the Yale School of Art, and artist Elle Luna brought it online in 2014 as #The100DayProject.

The idea is to decide what you're making once, before Day 1, so you don't waste time staring at a blank page every day. You pick one tight rule—like sketching a coffee mug in five minutes, mixing a two-inch watercolor swatch, or writing one haiku—and number each piece from 1/100 to 100/100.

Rules of the 100 Day Project

You set the scope of your own project. There are only four rules:

1. Pick one specific action to repeat. Choose a single medium and rule rather than a broad goal like "practice art." In Michael Bierut's essay on the Yale workshop, student Zak Klauck asked 100 people for a word and designed a poster for each one in strictly one minute. Another student, Hilla Katki, found 100 different uses for one folding chair.
2. Do it every day for 100 days. Most people pick an action that takes 5 to 15 minutes so it fits into a normal workday.
3. Number and save every piece. Date or number each piece from 1/100 to 100/100, including the rushed or messy ones. Half the fun is laying all 100 pieces out at the end to see how your work changed from start to finish.
4. Share it or keep a private log. Thousands of people post daily photos on Instagram or Substack with #The100DayProject and a personal tag like #100DaysOfTinyMugs. If you don't want to post on social media, you can keep your work in a sketchbook or track it privately in an app.

100 Day Project ideas

The easiest projects to finish pair one material you already own with a short time limit:

Category	Project idea	Daily rule	Time per day
Drawing & ink	Blind contour objects	Draw 1 desk item	5 minutes
Watercolor	Two-inch color swatches	Mix 3 pigments	10 minutes
Fiber & craft	Embroidery sampler	Stitch 1 small motif	10 to 15 min
Writing	Micro-poetry	Write 1 haiku	5 minutes
Music	Four-bar sight-reading	Play 4 new bars	10 minutes
Photography	Shadow and light log	Take 1 shadow photo	5 minutes

More ideas by medium:

• Drawing and painting: Draw one kitchen object in ink without erasing, paint a two-inch watercolor square on a poster board divided into a 10×10 grid, sketch a 5-minute figure pose, or glue three paper scraps onto an index card. If you want to work on drawing fundamentals across the 100 days, see our guide on how to get better at drawing.
• Fiber arts and crafts: Add one small stitch to a single embroidery hoop, knit or crochet two rows of a scrap blanket, mend clothes with visible stitching, fold one origami animal, or make a thumb-sized clay pinch pot.
• Writing and lettering: Write a six-word story or haiku on an index card, describe one memory in a single paragraph, hand-letter one word each morning, or freewrite for 10 minutes before checking your phone.
• Music and daily skills: Record a four-bar melody on voice memos, practice one chord change for 10 minutes, hold a 60-second wall handstand, or solve three chess tactics puzzles.

Getting past the Day 20 slump

After running the assignment for five years at Yale, Michael Bierut noticed that almost everyone hits a wall at the same point.

Week one is easy because the project is new and you have plenty of ideas ready to go. The slump almost always hits between Day 10 and Day 20, once the novelty wears off and your first batch of ideas runs out. That matches what researchers see in how long it takes to form a habit: the first three weeks take the most effort because the routine isn't automatic yet.

Students who pushed past Day 30 to Day 40 hit a second wind where the daily work became automatic. If you start stalling out around week two or three, three small changes help:

• Switch to smaller paper: If a full sketchbook page feels too big on Day 18, cut your paper down to 3×5 index cards or draw inside a two-inch square.
• Use a 10-minute timer: Set a timer and stop as soon as it rings so you don't overwork the piece.
• Skip the Day 1 reset if you miss a day: Unlike strict fitness challenges like 75 Hard, The 100 Day Project has no reset penalty. If you miss a day, just make the next number the following morning.

How to track your 100 Day Project

You can use timespent to count your 100 pieces or time your daily sessions without having to post on social media.

Create a Simple Tally with an all-time Do More goal of 100 (and a daily goal of 1) so each finished piece moves your counter toward 100 and fills in that day's square on your calendar heat map. If your project is timed—like 10 minutes of sketching or sight-reading—set it up as a Timed Activity and use the Interval Timer for a 10-minute countdown. You can also add a quick note in Mood & Reflections when you find a color mix or idea you want to save, or group your project into an Unscripted Arc to track your total days active and hours logged without a streak resetting to zero if you miss a day.

Common questions

When does the 100 Day Project officially start?

The official group cycle starts once a year in late February (usually the third or fourth Sunday of the month) and runs for 14 weeks and 2 days into late May or early June. Organizer Lindsay Jean Thomson announces the exact start date each winter in The 100 Day Project newsletter on Substack. You don't have to wait for February, though—you can start your own 100 days whenever you want.

How many hours is 100 days of daily practice?

Even a short daily time limit adds up fast over 100 days (14 weeks and 2 days):

Daily pace	Weekly time	100-day total	What you finish
5 minutes a day	35 minutes	8 hr 20 min	100 quick sketches
10 minutes a day	1 hr 10 min	16 hr 40 min	100 small pieces
15 minutes a day	1 hr 45 min	25 hours	Full beginner skill
30 minutes a day	3 hr 30 min	50 hours	Large body of work

At 15 minutes a day, 15 minutes × 100 days = 1,500 minutes, or 25 total hours. That puts you past Josh Kaufman's 20-hour rule—enough time to learn the basics of watercolor, hand-lettering, ukulele, or daily sketching in 15-minute blocks.

Do you have to post on Instagram to do the 100 Day Project?

No. Sharing on Instagram with #The100DayProject is optional. Many people find that taking photos and writing captions takes longer than making the work itself, so keeping your 100 pieces in a sketchbook, a photo album, or a private tracker works just as well.