Writing can be lonely, y’all. It can be a very long slog with not a lot of recognition and no small wins along the way. I can be awash in a sea of ideas one day and swamped in petty author “to-dos” the next. Need to make an author website. What about that sequel to my memoir rattling around in my brain? Often, when I sit down I feel so overwhelmed by the amount of things I could be doing that I freeze up and do nothing at all.
But I’ve found something that’s helping. It’s not a magic pill, but it feels like I am training myself to be more purposeful in how I spend my days, and making it just a little bit easier to sit down and get started. And I feel these little nudges making a difference.
What is HB90?
HB90 stands for Heart Breathings 90. It’s a 90-day planning system designed for writers and creative entrepreneurs. It uses a lot of psychological principles to help you keep motivated and take actionable steps toward your dreams.
It includes a planner and a whole support and motivation system, with kanban boards, rewards, community for accountability, and a whole process to bang out your hopes and tasks for each quarter.
For me, this system works on two different levels. It’s nice to have a planner that is geared for writers, but the reason this works is that the process is based on proven principles from psychology. It actually looks a lot like cognitive behavioral therapy, but in the form of a planner (hello, markers and washi tape!).
Sarra Cannon, the creator of this system, is an indie writer who has published more than 25 novels. She’s also very open about the fact that she has dealt with depression and anxiety; this planning system was born out of that struggle. So HB90 is geared toward writers and creative entrepreneurs, but I personally have noticed that it is especially helpful in dealing with depression and anxiety. The system that Sarra has developed to help her through mental health issues is also helping me!
A Planner for Writers
HB90 is first and foremost a planner system that’s designed with writers in mind. There are pages to plan your work in progress and keep track of your word count, etc. A lot of Sarra’s videos explain things from the point of view of a writer, using writer’s goals and tasks as examples. But, I do think this would work for any kind of creative or entrepreneurial endeavor.
If you are trying to create a writing life, you know it can be hard to find the time, pick the projects, think about publication or marketing. This is a system that takes the lonely, scattered bits of being a writer and helps you shape them into a puzzle that can reveal your ideal life.
It’s a planner that takes into consideration both the artistic side of writing and the goal-oriented business side, and creates a balance between the two. There is a part of me that feels like my writing is somehow sacred and should not be measured. However, I’ve found that, for me, the advantage of using this kind of goal-oriented approach is that it gives me milestones along the way down the long, lonely road of writing a novel so that I can see the progress I’m making and celebrate my wins. This has been keeping me motivated and more consistent in my writing routine, which is a boon for my creativity and the muse.
A Planner to Help with Depression and Anxiety
Sarra Cannon is graciously candid about her struggles with mental health issues on her youtube channel and also on her instagram account. Though the HB90 system is not specifically billed as a system that helps with depression and anxiety, I have found that it helps with mine, and I suspect that Sarra has developed this system as a way to deal with her own struggles.
I have been working through the Cognitive Behavioral Theory Workbook (which I also high recommend to help with anxiety and depression) and some of the most practical and useful aspects of HB90–thinking of how to refill your well, identifying low-energy tasks, and taking time to really identify what you value, overlap with CBT. Of course, I’m no mental health expert and this isn’t medical advice. This link is pure conjecture on my part, but it’s helped me enough with my own mental health issues that I think it’s important to mention.
What is HB90 Bootcamp?
HB90 Bootcamp is a seven-day course that walks you through a detailed process of envisioning your long term goals, prioritizing the things you need to do, looking realistically at your time, and creating a system that will support you in actually following through. It’s a course that teaches you step by step how to take on the HB90 method.
The course takes place over seven days, and each day contains a couple of hours of video and homework. The homework is all encapsulated in the planner that comes with the course, so it is very much like a workbook that you can look back on throughout the quarter. Each step of the way, the videos and workbook show you the reasoning behind the process and alternative ways to think about each step, which helps make the system very customizable.
Things I Love about It
It actually comes with a lot.
I have seen other five-day or weeklong courses that only come with a bit of instruction or work each day. This course comes with more than an hour of video every day, the planner, the facebook accountability group, a workbook to envision your ideal life, and a live kickoff call.
The value in this really comes with the fact that you are then welcome to join every quarter. So every quarter, you can go through the process again, re-examine your goals and your vision for your life, and plan out the next 90 days so you can take the steps you need to to get there!
The system is flexible.
I have been doing the HB90 system for over a year now and every quarter I have been able to tailor it to my specific needs that quarter. I have done digital kanban boards, in-planner kanbans for when I travel, checklists, different kinds of reward systems. Each quarter I can see better which parts of it motivate me and which parts I can leave by the wayside.
One thing that I really love about Sarra Cannon is that there are tons of levels at which you can engage, like just buying the planner, or following some of the planning advice on her youtube channel, all the way to going through the bootcamp.
It really does get better each time.
This is something I’ve heard Sarra say a few times, and I have to admit I rolled my eyes the first time I heard it. This month, I will be doing the course for my fifth time, and it really has gotten better each time. Each quarter I can say that my vision for my life becomes more clear, what I am trying to do and why becomes more clear, and the things that will help bring me toward those goals become more clear.
What’s Difficult about It
It asks hard questions.
Honestly, I struggled with whether to list this as a thing I love or a difficulty. The hard questions are good. Taking a big, eagle-eyed view of where you are and where you want to be is an important step in creating the life you want, but it is difficult. If I’m being honest, this has been the most difficult part of the HB90 course for me every time I do it. It really asks you to dig deep and think about why and how you are heading in the direction you are heading. And sometimes, the answers to those questions are uncomfortable.
It takes time.
The course is structured so that it takes about a week to complete, and I would say you do need that whole week. You could watch the videos all at once, but there’s a lot of thinking and processing between videos which I think is really important.
You don’t necessarily need to do it at the same time as everyone else. In the Facebook alumni group there are often people going through the course the first week of the next quarter or several weeks after the quarter begins, and they still get the support of the group. However, you definitely need to set aside about a week’s worth of time to do it.
The Verdict: Is It Worth It?
Sarra Cannon has a suite of courses for writers. In addition to HB90 Bootcamp, she also has a course called Publish and Thrive; you can read my review of that course here. The thing I find interesting about Sarra’s courses is that they are packed full of information, but what is really valuable about them is the way they empower you to envision and create a writing life that sticks with you long after the information is forgotten.
So, for me, it’s been totally worth it. I was at a point in my life where I knew something had to change. Actually, I knew everything had to change, but I had no idea where to even begin making the changes. After a year of working with this planning method, I can definitely say that I am working toward the life I want on a daily basis and thinking often about the direction I’m heading and what I want my life to look like. That has definitely been worth it.
Note: This post contains affiliate links to Sarra’s courses, which means if you choose to enroll after clicking my link, I will receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. That being said, I am recommending this course because it really has changed my thinking on my writing career and helped me manage my mental health issues, so I want to spread the word!
