5-Day Micro-Creativity Challenge: Train Your Eye for Everyday Magic
Join the Creative Play Break Club!
Hi Noomies, I’m feeling inspired with so many new folks joining us here, so spontaneously kicking off our first micro creativity challenge. I know I’ve sent 3 emails this week — promise that won’t be the norm, I’m just feeling in flow and excited!! Hope you’ll join us to bring some play into your week! Wheeeeeee
Here’s what I believe: creative living is less about the grand feats (the novel! the film! the 5-course meal!) and more about the tiny daily acts that make ordinary life ooze with juicy possibility. It's choosing to notice the shadows dancing on a wall, braiding whimsy into your morning routine, or recognizing that boring moments can be breeding grounds for inspiration.
NoomaLooma is here to help you cultivate that kind of expansive, everyday creativity. And this is our very first micro-creativity challenge together (whoot!). We're starting with something simple but powerful: learning to find wonder in the mundane. Over the next five days, we’re cultivating our powers of NOTICING — and we hope you’ll join us!
The Deal: This challenge requires about 5 minutes a day. No special skills required. Just your curiosity and willingness to see ordinary moments differently.
Throughout the week, I’ll be dropping the daily challenge into the chat, along with encouragement, inspiration, and my own discoveries. Join, cheer each other on, and see how tiny pockets of creative play keep the blahhhs away.
5-Day Micro Creativity Challenge
First, Introduce Yourself
Before we dive in, introduce yourself to the group in the chat with your name and 5 words that capture your creative spirit. Don’t overthink it, just flow with the first words that feel right.
Examples:
Piera: Pink partying silly improv mommy
Viva: Reader snuggled with a book
Lakshmi: Curious crafting questing lifelong kindergartener
Sam: Colorful cool joy-boosting pixie babe
Day 1: Find A Face
The Challenge: Hunt for accidental faces in your environment. Look for things that could be eyes and something that could be a mouth—electrical outlets, car fronts, whatever catches your eye (and winks back at you ;-)
How to do it: As you move through your day, let your eyes wander with the specific mission of finding faces. Take a quick pic when you spot one and share it in the chat. (Or if you want to make a face out of two blueberries and an orange slice — or anything else — be my guest.)
Why: This gives your pattern-recognition powers something fun to do instead of cycling through your mental to-do list. It's like hide-and-seek for your noggin.
Day 2: Color Collecting
The Challenge: Pick one color that represents the mood or energy you want to bring into your day, then collect 3-5 examples of that color throughout your day.
How to do it: Choose your color in the morning (maybe it's the calming blue you need, or an energetic orange to juice you up). Then document every time you spot it—your coffee mug, a street sign, someone's jacket, a flower. Quick phone pics work perfectly. Share your collection with us at the end of the day in the chat.
Why: When you're hunting for one specific thing, you suddenly notice dozens of details you usually miss. It's like suddenly finding a treasure map to follow.
Day 3: Sensory Field Notes
The Challenge: Spend 3 minutes writing down every sound, smell, feeling, and taste you can sense right now, from obvious to barely-there.
How to do it: Sit wherever you are and make a list by hand (something magical happens when you write with a pen). Try to go beyond "traffic" or "music" and get specific and playful. "Car alarm symphony," "melting coffee aftertaste," "elbows melding with wood desk." (Maybe it will read like a poem or an album track list). Share your field notes with us in the chat.
Why: This is meditation disguised as a creative exercise. Three minutes of active sensing is more refreshing than three minutes of scrolling, and it trains your brain to notice subtleties everywhere.
Day 4: Framed!
The Challenge: Make a viewfinder and look through it until something catches your eye in a new way.
How to do it: Use your hands to make a finger frame, cut a shape out of paper, or grab any object with an opening (a toilet paper tube works as a great telescope!) Move it around your space—look through it at different angles, distances, and subjects until something looks surprisingly interesting. Snap a pic through your makeshift frame and share it with us in the chat.
Why: Framing helps you to see new compositional choices. Plus, it's impossible to frame something without slowing down and really looking, so it’s an instant mindfulness hack.
Day 5: Imaginary Award Ceremony
The Challenge: Find an object around you and declare it an award. Give yourself a trophy for participating in this week of creative noticing.
How to do it: Grab anything—a coffee mug, a star sticker, a houseplant, your stapler. Hold it up and announce what you're being awarded for. Find something specific you want to celebrate yourself for. "This coffee mug goes to me for most creative use of dead time this week!" or "This stapler represents my achievement in finding faces where none existed before!" Share your award in the chat so we can celebrate with you.
Why: Celebration rewires your brain to notice what's going well instead of what's missing. Plus, giving yourself credit for small wins builds momentum for bigger creative risks. (Also, it's silly fun.)
All illustrations by Abbie Winters for NoomaLooma
Join the Creative Play Break Club!
Head to our NoomaLooma Substack chat to share your discoveries, cheer each other on, and see what creative treasures everyone finds. No judgment, just curiosity and celebration.
The only rule? There are no rules. Just five days of paying attention differently.
Ready to turn ordinary moments into creative goldmines? Let's go!
Drop your 5-word creative autobiography in the chat and let’s get started...
Reetu : dreamy, warm, writer, alive, sparkly 🤍
Thank you for creating this challenge Piera 🙏🏼 I am so excited to play in this space!