Discipline for the Sake of the Art

In my experience as an artist, humility and discipline breed creativity. I believe discipline is an underrated means to foster creativity. Although I hear often that artists wait to be in the mood or for inspiration to strike before beginning to draw, etc., in my experience, it is the exact opposite: sitting down to draw regularly brings out the creativity. Books like The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron go into much further detail about this old concept. Here are a few things I do to stay disciplined with my artwork, which in turn means I am more prolific and have more product to sell.

• Having a regular schedule. It benefits my art if I train myself to always work on my projects either a certain time of day or for a certain amount of time each week.
• Making time for the hard parts. If I have to get something difficult done, I often set a timer for fifteen minutes. This tricks my brain into being creative because starting is the hardest part. Once I am going, I'll usually finish the job or go longer than the fifteen minutes and end with some momentum of thought or design that will be easier to jump into the next time.
• Setting a deadline. If I want to finish a project instead of leaving it undone, I will sometimes give myself a deadline. Working backwards from there, I can calculate approximately how much time I need to work on it each week which then gives me an automatic plan to be creative. It's amazing how the mind will rise to the challenge and pleasantly surprise with the results.
• Learning something new. This not only gives me direction during my drawing time, it keeps me excited to create. That excitement helps me sit down in the future also. This can be as simple as drawing a subject that's different than my normal ones or watching a quick youtube about one of my favorite artist's creative shortcuts. 
• Keeping it balanced. Even though I advocate making time to create, my goal is to balance work, art business, and home life so I'm not burning out or getting tired of drawing because that would put me back at square one: making excuses to not create.

I hope my experiences/practices can help fellow artists, especially those who own small businesses, even if for no other reason than to know someone else struggles with discipline too. Let me know if you tried any of these and how it went!