A 4-week creative practice for the already-full life
September 7 to October 4, 2026
A friend told me recently: ‘I need convenience in my life in order to do the things I want to do.’
She’s not lazy. She’s not unmotivated. She’s a midlife adult with a full life. Work, commitments, the people she says yes to, the running list of things that have to get done. But she wasn’t talking about those– the errands and the appointments get done.
She was talking about the things that are just for her, the ones that aren’t on anyone’s list, including her own.
The truth she landed on was this: if she has to think about it, plan for it, or set it up, it doesn’t happen.
I’ve been turning that sentence over for weeks. Because it explains something I keep hearing, in different words, from almost everyone I talk to about creative practice.
You bought the sketchbook. You saved the article. You watched the video. You meant to do the thing. By the end of the day, it’s still sitting there — waiting for a version of you that has the time, the energy, or whatever quiet that creative practice seems to require.
The trouble is, that version never arrives. Because between work and the laundry and the appointments and the dishes and the texts you owe and everything else you said yes to, creative practice doesn’t fit. Or so it feels.
Here’s what I built for that. It’s called Between the Chores…
It’s a small daily practice that arrives in your inbox each morning for four weeks. Five to fifteen minutes. One prompt. A sketchbook, a pencil, an eraser, and a few markers.
Each prompt adds one specific piece to a single page you’re building over the month. The title goes up first. Then, slowly, one moment at a time, you capture about five to seven small things from your actual life onto the page. Pencil sketches and handwritten words at first. Color in stages. By Day 28, that page is a complete snapshot of the moments that made up your month, built by your own hand in the bits of time you found between everything else.
A page you can open a year from now, when the months have blurred together. A record of what your days actually held.
Here are some examples form my own sketchbook. These are for specific days, for Between the Chores, we’ll be focusing on a month because that’s a great way to build a practice.
That’s the page you’ll build, in tiny pieces, over four weeks, by your own hand.
You don’t need to be ‘good’ at drawing for this to work. Stick figures count. Simple outlines count. Words on their own count. The pages work because they capture something real from your life, not because the rendering is impressive.
Along the way, you’ll start to develop your own visual shorthand. Your own style. Yours will look completely different from mine. That’s the point.
Some days you skip, because life is loud, and tomorrow’s invitation still arrives. The door doesn’t close. There’s no streak to break. A skipped day means a smaller page, not failure.
It’s not a course. It’s not a challenge. It’s the structure that finally makes it happen, in the life you already have.
Here’s what’s included:
- 28 daily 5-to-15-minute prompts, one each morning
- A printable creativity guide with the four-week rhythym, the page setup guide, and quiet reflection space
- A small private online community for us. A dedicated app where you can share your work, see what others are making, and chat as much or as little as you want
- A ‘no need to catch up’ check-in if a few days slip by, never with pressure
- A closing ritual on Sunday October 4 to close the four weeks together and begin your next page
What you’ll need:
A sketchbook, a pencil and eraser, some markers or colored pencils — basics you may already have. The welcome creativity guide lists both a barebones kit (works perfectly with what you have) and a fuller kit (if you want to invest in some supplies). Nothing too fancy.
Runs Monday September 7 through Sunday October 4.
Daily emails at 7am ET.
$79
Limited to 15 people.
What you’re buying isn’t the 5 minutes a day. It’s the structure that finally gets those 5 minutes to happen. And the quiet pride, at the end of the month, of holding something you made yourself. In the middle of everything, you did this.
If you have questions, just reply to any of my emails. They come straight to me.
xo, Nicole