A new project needs a place in your real week before it needs a place in your identity.

New projects arrive with an identity attached, and the identity is far more appealing than the Tuesday evening it will actually require. Announcing what you are becoming costs nothing, while finding two real hours in an already full week costs something. Projects fail at that gap much more often than they fail on ambition or talent. The calendar is the honest test of whether a thing has started.

Before telling anyone what you are taking up, find the hours in the week ahead and put them somewhere visible. Do one session before you give the thing a name.