Hey there!

Couple notes before we jump in.

First, thank you so much for the support on the (accidental) Product Hunt launch yesterday! Even with the mishap, we ended the day at 12th position with 60 upvotes and 22 comments. 🎉 We also added 7 new subscribers, so if you're new here, welcome!

Secondly, I want to share something with you! I put together a Twitter list of all 23 makers who have been featured on Maker of Habit so far and it's awesome. I've been checking it everyday because it helps me feel more connected to the maker community than my normal timeline. I highly recommend giving it a follow.

Alright, now let's get into it!

Aletheia Délivré (@delivreal) - Building an audience while working full-time

WHY SHE'S FEATURED:

• Building an audience through her amazing illustrations and writing that comment on design and the creative process

• Over 5,390 followers on Twitter where her illustrations get over a hundred retweets on the regular

• She finds time to make even though she's working full-time leading a new design team for the Canadian government. (How cool is that?)

• Recently wrote this great thread + article about building a design team

Aletheia is a great example of how you can be a maker while still working full-time. By consistently creating illustrations that resonate with her audience, and writing the occasional long-form article, Aletheia is slowly, but surely, building an audience of creative professionals. And based on how often her work gets shared, I wouldn't be surprised if she has over 10k followers by the end of the year.

I'm not quite sure what Aletheia's long term strategy is, or if she's just doing this because she enjoys it. Regardless, she has an engaged audience of enthusiasts willing to share her work far and wide, which can be leveraged at any time if she chooses.

But finding time to make and be creative while working full-time can be hard. How does Aletheia find the time? How does she keep up the consistency? And what are her current strategies and tactics?

You know the drill 👇

3 Strategies that Aletheia leverages in her work:

• 🔁 Consistency of Form - Aletheia's illustrations follow a certain style, and how she tweets them out follows a certain form too. Her form makes them sharable, and the consistency makes them recognizable. Great combination.

• 🔍 Focusing on one topic - Scrolling through Aletheia's timeline is like scrolling through her gallery. There's not a lot else that she's tweeting besides sharing her illustrations. If she tweets something that's not an illustration, 99% of the time its about design or the creative process, which is again, on topic.

• 🐢 Slow and steady - At a glance, it seems Aletheia is sharing about 1-2 illustrations a month. She's not trying to do it every week, or every day, which I think is smart. She's in it for the long haul, and this pace seems less likely to burn her out.

In terms of habits, I asked Aletheia what 3 habits changed her trajectory as a maker. Here's what she said 👇

3 Habits that Changed Aletheia's trajectory:

• 🧪 Biohacking my creativity - Honestly, my creative ideas peak when I fast during the day and also during the post-run high. Especially very cold runs during the winter. There's probably a science to the endorphins and the flow of information. I really think a healthy body = a clear and creative mind.

• 🏡 Being part a community - Twitter has opened up an entire universe of people from all over the world who are reading, doing, writing, making and sharing super interesting things. I love learning what others are up to—it informs so much of what I enjoy drawing and writing about.

• ✍️ Writing more - Though most people on Twitter remember me most for the illustrations, I actually really like stringing words together. I also like sharing and working with the garage door open. Last year I set an intention to write more. I haven't been as consistent with it in recent months, but I'm getting back into it slowly :) I've found that crafting threads, combined with visuals, has given me an outlet to share how I'm thinking and working out loud with others. I get unspeakable satisfaction from being able to formulate an experience that's useful, relevant or insightful to others. Hopefully it encourages them to do the same so that I can keep learning from them! :)

Thanks for sharing with us, Aletheia! We love your illustrations and how they motivate us on our creative journeys.

Follow Aletheia on Twitter here 👉 @delivreal to get her amazing work on your timeline. 😊

And be sure to follow the Maker of Habit Twitter list to stay updated on all the cool work of our past makers too.

Build new habits + stick with them

Looking to build some new habits? Harold is a quirky text-messaging bot that helps you build new habits with one text message a day. 

You can use Harold to build habits like Aletheia, for example:

• Writing for 10 minutes everyday

• Fasting

• Going for a run

You'll be surprised what can happen with just 1 text message each day.