If I want to make a project ongoing – of indefinite length – here are the most important aspects it needs to have.
My passion. If I’m not passionate about it, I won’t be able to keep going. Passions change over time, and so do the projects I work on. But my core passions remain constant and will help me maintain connected projects for as long as I care to.
Sustainability. I need to be able to do the work, time and again. If sickness, tiredness, expense, or shinier things to do can stop me from doing the work, then I need to let the project go. Recognizing the state of sustainability of a project is hard but necessary.
Connection. I need to reach people with my work. I don’t want to be a novelist who locks manuscripts in a drawer. While fame, fortune, or “likes and shares” is not and should be the goal of the work, it must reach someone.
The chance to learn. Every project I do gives me the opportunity to be better tomorrow than today. There are projects that we can take on and reach a comfortable plateau of excellence; these are not the projects I aim for. Every project must teach me and compel me to learn.
I wrote this all in the descriptive first-person, rather than the prescriptive second-person, because I want it to feel personal to you. Can you use these four aspects to describe the projects you spend the most time on? What would need to change to make that the case?
I also wrote this because I am today celebrating an anniversary of an ongoing project of mine that takes on all four of the above aspects. I haven’t missed publishing for a single day on this website since November 4, 2014. During that time, I have learned how to make it sustainable and learned so much else as a writer, as a musician, and as an educator. I have made connections with many people through my writing and I have of course made this a reflection of my own passions for creativity, choral music, and teaching.
Since I started, I’ve written over 1,500 posts, comprising more than 300,000 words. A little drip every day does, in fact, fill a big bucket. At this point, the streak of four years motivates me to write even when nothing else does, and I am grateful for that.
I am also grateful for you. Thank you for reading.