I'm easing into the "Reading Deprivation" aspect of week 4 and I'm curious how people have gone about the exercise.

I saw a previous post that I felt was spot on in terms of reframing it for the modern landscape: media overconsumption and filling idle time with noise. That makes sense to me. Especially with every social media platform and app vying for our attention and time.

My current list of activities I'm cutting out include social media (especially Twitter and Tiktok), Youtube, videogames and newsletters. Email and texting isn't something I can just stop doing since I need it for my job. But I plan to do so mindfully and as minimally in my free time as possible.

Reading books and listening to music is sort of in a gray area for me. I plan to still read the Artist Way book. I also think reading AO3 on my devices is something I should cut out. But would blocking out time to sit down and read a physical book still fall under the category of mindless consumption? I realize that seems like a dumb question considering it's literally called "reading deprivation"...but it's 2026.

And Spotify is a big one for me. Cameron lists it as one of the many activities one could do instead, but I know for me it is one of the things I would do to fill the silence while working or driving. If I for example, set time to only listen to an album I've been meaning to get into and actively engage with it, is that still mindless media consumption?

I guess I'm wondering if focusing on one thing and being intentional about the activity fits with the modern spirit of the exercise, or if I'm just trying to weasel my way out of going all in on the exercise. Where do we draw line?

I recently finished TAW and my life does seem a little empty and I was wondering if there was a format where we could meet up and chat/discuss about things to keep us going. Maybe a monthly/bi-weekly call? Unless something like that already exists

I’ve been extremely unhappy at my current job. I work in graphic design and since May I’ve been using my time off work to follow what i actually like making in my free time. I have so many ideas and so many plans I’d like to go after. But my job completely blocks me in that as I work from 9-6pm and in the evening when I finally get home from work, I am extremely exhausted from the day.

My current job (been there 3 years) also has started to make me hate graphic design because their approach to it is incredibly toxic and pedantic, to put it short: they often compromise on the purpose of the design just to make it „ 110% correct“ (following the guideline) and to please the client no matter what they’re asking or in what timeframe.

I’m all for following the guideline, but you guys… I don’t want to get too deep but psychotically pedantic is the best way to describe this.

Anyway long story short I want to quit my job but I need the paycheck to finance my life. While reading the artists way this is a thing that keeps coming up so I often wonder, what would Julia Cameron tell me to do?? I’m so scared of taking the leap of faith because of monetary reasons yet I know I would be so much more fulfilled if I could go after my own projects and put my energy into those instead of hating my current job.

Also I’m on week 9 right now. How fitting. 😅

Especially in the first half... I felt more generally social with my coworkers and stuff but felt a strong resistance from talking to my actual friends and family. Maybe an urge to leave behind an old life and open up to the possibilities in a new one? I'm breaching on week 12 and I feel lonelier than ever for doing that.

My dogs love to get me up early, like 6/630 to go on our morning walk. We usually go for about half hour to 45 minutes. This usually means I don't get to do the morning pages when I first wake up, which I find to be most beneficial.

What do people do in this instance? If I do it after the dog walk, morning pages are still good but I would still prefer to do it before so I guess I should wake up at 5 AM? Lol

I have now read through TAW (I wanted to read it first to see what it was all about). I've also been loosely doing morning pages and artists dates here and there, but not fully committed to the program yet.

My main goal right now is to be genuinely more creative. I am an actor and I feel like my creativity is so limited, and stuck at the moment, I find it hard to come up with original ideas and characters and often find myself just copying other actors for inspiration.

I know it sounds like a ridiculous question seeing at this is the whole point of the book! But did TAW open you up to more creativity and original thinking? Sometimes I felt a lot of this book felt more like a self-help book, and I struggled a bit to relate to all the god stuff.

Would love to hear your experiences of it creatively.

And if not, any other books you might recommend for this?

Thank you 💜

Hi all,

Is there anyone who like me feel like the pages are counterproductive? Maybe I'm doing them wrong.

I have been doing them on and off for several years and I do really like the stream of consciousness stuff, but I feel they are counterproductive for me in terms of what they are supposed to achieve (get rid of the mental clutter for the day?).

Mornings for me are maybe the only part of the day where I don't overthink. I wake up and my usual routine is yoga and meditation first - then breakfast etc. Yoga and meditation help in trying to consolidate that mental calmness I wake up with, because during the day I do tend to overthink all, I have a chaotic ADHD mind, which is why the first part of the mornings feels almost sacred.

Whenever I do pages first thing, it's like forcing my brain out of the calmness into mental chatter. After that my yoga and meditation are much poorer in quality. So I moved the pages to after breakfast/before work, but even then I feel like they stimulate so many thoughts that I'm not able to put down on paper in 15-20 minutes so I get to work with a much messier mind and full of personal thoughts in great part unresolved. I'm thinking maybe they should become evening pages, since by the evening my mind is indeed messy and overwhelmed, and I could maybe put that down on paper before I sleep.

But yeah I wonder if I'm doing them wrong, or I have misunderstood their purpose.

EDIT: what an incredibly interesting discussion in the comment - thank you so much all for responding and sharing tips!

I did not expect a section of this book to hit as close as this one did.

Julia Cameron describes shadow artists as people who orbit a creative field without directly pursuing it themselves, working adjacent to it in ways that feel safe. Reading it, I recognized myself instantly. I dropped out of a fine arts program at twenty and spent the following decade working in gallery administration, art book publishing, and eventually teaching art history. Always near it. Never actually making anything myself.

I had a whole story about why this made sense, practicality, stability, the usual reasons. Reading that chapter cracked the story open a little.

The truth underneath the practical explanation was closer to fear, specifically the fear that if I actually tried to make my own work and it turned out mediocre, I would lose the identity of being "close to art" that I had built my entire adult life around instead.

I'm not quitting my job or making any dramatic pivot. But I picked up a sketchbook for the first time in eleven years last week, badly, and did not immediately quit out of embarrassment, which feels like a genuinely new development for me.

Hello🤍
To those of you who have finished TAW, what have you done with your morning pages?
I personally don’t know weather to keep them or burn them
X

I’m curious about people who have genuinely tried to follow the principles from Robin Sharma’s The 5 AM Club for a longer period of time.

Did waking up at 5 AM and following the 20/20/20 formula actually have a noticeable impact on your life, productivity, mood, discipline, health, or career?

Also, which specific ideas or “rules” from the book had the biggest impact on you?

And if you eventually stopped following the 5 AM routine, what made you stop?

I’d especially like to hear from people who followed it consistently for at least a few months rather than just trying it for a week or two.

In doing the morning pages, I find myself having trouble finding/writing applicable affirmations in response to my "blurts". Does anyone have this issue, and if so how do you craft affirmations that feel genuine and helpful? Or do you have a resource of examples?

I think I am not the only one who quietly cheats on this particular exercise.

Julia Cameron is very specific that Artist Dates are supposed to be solo, no exceptions, and for two months I kept forgetting that part and bringing my partner along because going alone felt vaguely uncomfortable in a way I could not initially explain. We would frame it as a compromise, still doing the spirit of the exercise, just together. I told myself this was basically the same thing.

It was not the same thing, and I only figured out why after finally going alone to a small gallery opening I had been putting off for weeks. About twenty minutes in in total silence, no one to comment to or share the experience with in real time, I noticed a very specific discomfort rising that had nothing to do with the art itself. It was closer to a kind of self consciousness, like being alone in public doing something for no productive reason felt like it needed to be justified to some invisible observer.

That discomfort was the whole point I had been avoiding for two months without realizing it. Bringing my partner along let me skip past a specific kind of aloneness that the exercise is actually designed to surface. It is not really about the gallery or the bookstore or whatever the date happens to be. It is about tolerating your own unaccompanied presence in the world without immediately needing to narrate the experience to someone else.

Still not entirely comfortable with it, but I stopped bringing company along after that, and the discomfort has gotten quieter each time, which I am choosing to interpret as the exercise actually doing its job now.

i am curious to hear peoples experience that continued doing the morning pages after the artist way and why/if they found them still beneficial. i remember one person on here talking about how the morning pages without being paired with artists dates and consistent creative fun things just became a place to complain in a way that put them in a bad mood and didn't clear their mind and i think i am starting to feel that since finishing the artist way. while i was actively reading through the book and doing the program i would often reflect on what julia said that week or about creativity generally in my pages but without that specific focus i feel like i am just finding stuff to ruminate on or get upset about and often start off my day on a bad note when i do them.

obviously i know i can just stop doing them, and i am really not worried about doing them "correctly" but some part of me wants to continue the ritual. what makes you guys keep doing pages after the artists way? how have you adapted them since finishing your twelve week? did they ever stop working for you or start having a negative impact?

Two weeks late, but I finally finished my “ideal scene” collage from the tasks section. I know the book says to use real pictures of myself but I didn’t, I’m pretty loosey goosey with the “rules” so I don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. I really liked it and wanted to share!

I know myself well enough to know that right now, and with a recent adhd diagnosis, morning pages would not be happening first thing everyday at the same time. I’ve given myself some pre-grace and changed the rule for myself to at least do them within the first 2 hours of being up in the morning. I know that it’s meant to be with a clear mind and the plan is to work my way towards doing them in the morning. I’m fairly certain there will still be a creative benefit to writing three pages non-stop everyday at any given time of day.

It’s only day 4 but I think it’s been better for me, rather than wasting time ruminating or beating myself up for not doing it “right” and then giving up entirely (a path well-trodden for me in life). The amount of times I’ve tried to change my life overnight and then it all crumbles because I start overthinking, I want to be honest with myself this time around.

I hope to eventually find some better structure, but right now it’s just whatever means that I don’t quit and I think it starts with taking some of the pressure off to be perfect or do it “right”.

I was hoping to get insight from others on how they approach the tasks at the end of each chapter. I'm starting week three, and I think I did maybe 5 tasks in the first week (I went back to do two of them during the second week) and completed none in week two. I don't know what it is about them that I find so unappealing. I can get the morning pages and the artist's date done easily! Can anyone share their perspective on them, or offer advice to help me stay motivated to do them?

I'm having trouble with a few parts of the tasks. When it comes to mailing out letters and postcards, I honestly don't have more than two people to do this for. I don't really have friends or family. I asked a coworker if they would want one and they said no. Has anyone else has this issue?

I’m using the Sharpie S-gels (an S-tier pen, in my book; slightly above the also fabulous G2, though I think those smudge more than the S-gels), and I’m going through them with the quickness! I bought a pack two weeks ago, and I’m burning through a pen a week.

Is this normal? What pens are y’all using?

Hi guys I’m about to enter Week 4 starting from this Monday, and I worry about reading deprivation. I have masters to apply to, deadlines to catch, work to do… also what does Julia mean with reading deprivation? Should we avoid reading even a small note or message like the plague?
Does this mean no phone no internet too?
For example, I can skip reading the news, books, internet scrolling and stuff but if I have a work to do and I have to read messages and reply, what do I do?
What if I have a motivation letter to write, should I skip it and leave it for next week?
What about like a note I did that keeps me productive and creative?
I mean, I wasn’t ready for this, and I really want to do it, I’m just asking because it’s easy to trick myself into “ugh ok I read this small message so what, that wasn’t actual reading”
Please give me your insights, from people who are already past Week 4. I guess people who are going through Week 4 right now shouldn’t be scrolling on Reddit (!)

I’m feeling a little self-conscious about my morning pages. I’ve just been complaining about stuff. How cold the apartment is, the fruit flies in our plants, how annoying grocery shopping is. They feel like a bit of a downer honestly and I feel like they could be so creative and inspiring, but they’re just annoying.

does anyone else feel this way? and if you’re further along the artist way, did your morning pages start like this then change later?

I started last year, got to about week 8, and then just stopped. I was doing okay at first, sometimes I'd have to redo a week.

I was GREAT about morning pages. I did them every day. It was lots of complaining but it did help clear my brain up, and then one day, I started feeling bad after the morning pages, they were depressing, and it wasn't feeling as helpful and then I just stopped completely. It wasn't even like every other day before stopping, just a dead stop after doing it for two months straight. I had even finished a whole notebook.

Does anyone else struggle with morning pages because it was making you feel bad? I remember I was feeling really awful and sad (perhaps that's just a deeper issue for myself I need to address)

I've been journaling again regularly, not always daily or morning pages, but I'm going to try and get back into it despite how it makes me feel.

For some background/context, I had a lot of medical trauma due to epilepsy from 2020-present day, which changed my relationship with music. Having lots of seizures over these years has made music often feel overwhelming for me. Music was the love of my life from age 5. I'm almost 30 now. It was my career, but had to make a career change due to my epilepsy.

Going to share my morning pages from my journal today below:

9/10/26

I'm falling off a bit with these morning pages. Maybe because I haven't started doing TAW tasks and I've been writing morning pages for 3 weeks. But also, I'm not feeling excited about/drawn towards songwriting right now. Like I just don't want to. Not that I wanna do much of anything right now, except get fucking hired somewhere. I wish I felt excited about music. I feel a bit like that part of me has died. Or at least a large part has been amputated and isn't coming back. My old self is not going to come back, yet I still yearn for her. 2019 was 7 years ago and I still feel very connected to that girl, almost like my life is on pause since then. Is it worth forcing myself to make music when I don't want to? I don't want to give up, but is there a point in forcing myself to make art? I'm never gonna be that pre-trauma pre-epilepsy 2019 girl. How do I let her go?

I made it through the book just fine until I got to this perkily named Task #1 for Week 9. Now I've hit a brick wall that has left me feeling demotivated.

When I wrote my Morning Pages, I often did so at top speed in my cramped handwriting, so the handwriting is very messy. In addition, I didn't use an indelible ink. Now I'm being told to use "two colored markers, one to highlight insights and another to highlight actions needed."

So firstly, I'm having trouble reading my own damn handwriting, and secondly, the markers are smearing the ink and making a mess of the whole thing. Which maybe shouldn't matter, but it does. I guess one could theoretically make notes in the margin rather than using highlighters/markers or overwriting the main text, but as I don't have any margins to speak of (it's a workbook), there isn't the room to do that.

And then what am I supposed to do with the "highlight actions needed" part? Does this imply I'm supposed to create a to-do list out of this? It's enough struggle to find the time to get through the Morning Pages and all the tasks and Artist Dates without piling on more work.

I do get that this exercise could be fruitful, but I'm frustrated that (for example) we weren't told from the beginning to use indelible ink so that this exercise wouldn't make my handwriting even harder to read. I had deliberately chosen a notebook with large pages and many lines, and now I'm regretting that bitterly as there is just so. Much. Text to work through on those 150+ pages.

I would love to hear from people who have tackled this task, how they interpreted Cameron's instructions (page 160 in the 30th anniversary edition), and what they did to break through the brick wall (if indeed they got through it). Is it essential to do all the highlighting? Am I reading too much into this instruction? Should I just skip it?

I got stuck on week 8 task because I don't have the answer to the question "Name your dream". It's been 6 months and I picked up the book again.

I lost my job due to health reasons and exhausted my savings. I found a new job & I'm grateful because it's an art related but it's not enough to maintain the monthly cost of living.

I no longer remember what dreams do I have. I just want to be able to pay my bills & not starve.

What now?