All The Tips — Season 1

Hey everyone, it’s Mike Rohde, and I’m here with another All The Tips episode, this one wrapping up Season 1 of the Sketchnote Podcast. One of the most popular episodes is “All The Tips.” I think hearing tips from all the guests in one single episode with a little inspirational music is a great way to wrap up the season. It’s always one of my favorite episodes to put together because I know how well it’s received by all of you listening or watching. Danny Gregory Embrace constraints and personal projects. Constraints challenge your mind and spark problem-solving. Limit yourself to drawing only food on your next trip, or use only two colored pencils. Create a daily list of ten ideas, such as dishes you could cook with radishes or dead people you’d like to have dinner with. Do this for a year, and you’ll have 3,650 ideas (maybe five of them are great). Combine constraints with personal projects to create a sense of obligation and purpose that keeps you motivated. Break through plateaus with a beginner’s mind. After a year of drawing, you’ll hit a plateau where your improvement stalls. To overcome this, try new subjects, tools, or styles, breaking your routine. Danny’s weekly YouTube stream, Draw With Me, encourages this by drawing 40 different items in an hour, upside down, with your non-dominant hand, or watercolor. Redefine practice: drawing exercises like eggs, grids, cubes, and shading charts are just tools, not fun activities. Think of practice as professionals do… something you simply do and apply. To improve at drawing noses, fill a sketchbook with varied portraits of interesting noses. Keep it engaging and relevant to what you care about. Sarah Greer Learn to navigate the shitties. The creative process is a roller coaster. Every project (whether it takes a day or a year) will have a low point. The shitties are real, but they’re also just part of the process. Go for a walk, step away, hang in there. It’s always darkest before the dawn. Knowing that the low is coming means you won’t be surprised when it arrives, and you’ll know it will pass. Challenge yourself often. Growth comes from discomfort. Sarah’s example: picking up an iPad for the first time and going straight into a live client meeting with it a week later. Or diving into Mental Canvas with no experience. Whatever tool or skill you’re curious about, dive in. Don’t wait until you feel ready because you won’t. Just go. Find inspiration outside your daily practice. Go to museums, plays, musicals, and shows. Get fresh eyes on the world. Even crawling around on the floor with a grandchild and seeing things from a different height can shift your perspective. Inspiration rarely comes from staring at the same thing every day. Adrian Peryer Set the environment up right. If you want to do more and do it better, create the conditions for flow. Figure out what space, setup, or ritual gets you and others into a productive, creative state. Don’t leave your environment to chance — design it intentionally. Find your wise mind every day. Try to be balanced, level, and check your ego at the door. For Adrian, that path led to yoga (inspired by Sarah), and it’s been the single best way to start each day in the right mode. Your path may be different, but finding something that centers you before creative work matters. Remember that emotions are a wave. It never goes according to plan. Under pressure, when things don’t go the way you expected, pause. Remember that emotions — frustration, disappointment, overwhelm — are a wave. They will pass. It will get better. Give it time before reacting. David Armano Use AI to get unstuck, but push it. AI is sycophantic by default and will tell you what you want to hear. But if you know yourself well enough, you can push it to give you genuinely useful counsel. David has found it a surprisingly good substitute for a human career coach when used selectively and with self-awareness. The key is knowing what you want from it before you ask. Protect your ability to be intentional. Step away from screens regularly. Consider going analog: David switched from an iPad to a Remarkable tablet that feels like paper and found it helped him be more deliberate and focused. Our biggest nemesis these days is technology and distractions that erode our ability to be intentional with our time. Watch out for brain fry (the opposite of flow state) that comes from multitasking across too many AI tools at once. Make yourself memorable in person. Find ways to be experiential, distinctive, and ownable. Remote work and podcasting are great, but when there’s an opportunity to show up in person, take it. Face-to-face connection is more valuable than ever. Find your thing — wear the unusual sport co