Reflections on the #30DayChartChallenge
What is the 30 Day Chart Challenge?
The 30 Day Chart Challenge is a community driven event, with the goal to create a data visualization on a certain topic each day of April. It’s tool and social media platform agnostic , participants share their visualizations on various platforms under the hashtag #30DayChartChallenge.
To find more about this year’s challenge — visit https://github.com/30DayChartChallenge/Edition2025
Why did I participate last year?
The 30 Day Chart Challenge had been on my data viz project bucket list — I like that the project is tool agnostic with broad topics. My hope for the challenge was that I would get more comfortable with publishing work quickly, even if it wasn’t the “best” of my portfolio.
Will I participate this year?
No — for various reasons. The first is time. Even though I tried to limit myself to an hour a day, there were many times I went over that allotment (especially on days where I tried to work ahead). With my personal commitments this year, I don’t have the time this April to repeat it.
Another reason — I found that working on visualizations every day outside of work led to burnout. Since I was already comfortable in Tableau, I could churn out simple chart types fairly quickly, but aside from the time commitment, it took a lot of mental energy. I was constantly thinking about the next charts I needed to work on, and it took up far too much brainspace. By the end of the challenge, I felt I was going through the motions instead of enjoying the process. My non-Tableau hobbies suffered!
Should you participate?
It depends! Like I mentioned above, it’s a great opportunity to participate on a tool agnostic data visualization challenge. However, the heavy time commitment (even if you manage to timebox yourself to an hour a chart, that’s still nearly a full work week) makes this one not for everyone.
Also — for me I found that having the topic picked for me each day was an added struggle. For hobby vizzing, I find I do my best work with as less constraints (the days where the data was provided/the topic was narrow I ironically found the most challenging to complete), but some may find the structured nature of the challenge useful.
Tips for approaching the challenge
If you’re thinking about doing the challenge — start collecting data sources now! I kept a running google doc where I would paste links to interesting news graphics, articles, and other data sources that I could either use to build a graph from scratch, replicate, or make over.
Also — try to time box yourself. This challenge truly is a marathon, not a sprint. If you aim to complete all 30 days, even if you only spend a net hour on each visualization it adds up to nearly a full work week.
My last advice — don’t be afraid to pivot, or reuse data sources that you like. I used the same data source for several charts, and while by the end I had published 30 charts, I certainly had abandoned many more.
Closing Thoughts
On Popularity
If you approach this challenge (or similar ones) with the mindset of “this will be a great way to grow my following,” here are some metrics I collected over the course of last year’s challenge:
Followers:
- Increase in twitter followers: 1.8%
- Increase in Tableau Public followers: 1.7%
- Increase in Bluesky followers: 10.3% (not bad!)
Likes:
- Twitter: 633 (Max 50, Min 8, Avg 21)
- Tableau Public: 6 (Max 1, Min 0)
- Bluesky: 183 (Max 11, Min 2, Avg 6)
Note: while I had less likes on Bluesky, my engagement/follower ratio was much better there, which was data I visualized for the challenge!
I will say following along what others were doing for the challenge was easier on Bluesky, with less cluttered hashtags, and having a dedicated feed for the challenge was really handy. But overall for me the takeaway was if growing my following was a goal, this challenge was not the best fit.
On Everyday Practice
My other big takeaway / hot take:
Anyone who says you have to practice a tool every day to improve is a liar.
Now, can you improve your skills through dedicated, targeted practice? Of course! But simply working in a tool every day is no guarantee of that. Maybe it’s just my experience, but I feel like over the last few years I have seen no slowdown of the hustle bro / influencer culture that prioritizes output (or my latest least favorite buzzword, “content”) over all else.
Anyone who says you must do something a certain way, buy their course, complete a certain challenge, [fill in the blank here] is either selling you something, or had/has the support system around them when that allows them to do something a certain way. You probably don’t have their same time, money, or resources, and as a result may not see the same results!
As I mentioned above, I was already competent in Tableau when I started this challenge. So there’s an inherent limit to how much faster I can make a good looking bar chart. I’m sure if I attempted the challenge in a new-to-me tool, I’d probably learn a lot through regular practice. But I’ve found my best ideas, inspiration, and learning come when I have time to take breaks, step away from the computer, touch grass, generally just live life.
Progress is not linear, there is no one way to learn anything, and while I’m glad to have completed the 30 Day Chart Challenge and I’m glad it exists — do not feel beholden to it or other challenges to measure your skill or self worth.
I encourage you to find what level of participation works for you and your own goals!
