The Best of Austin Kleon
10+ most popular Austin Kleon articles, as voted by our community.
NYTimes bestselling author of STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST and other books. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter & log off this hellsite: http://austinkleon.substack.com
Austin Kleon on Art
Quantity leads to quality
On the origin of a parable in the book ART AND FEAR.
«The frequency of my work — showing up at regular intervals, without worrying about results — has actually lead to better results. > Quantity leads to quality.»
Austin Kleon on Books
Books that suck you in and books that spin you out
Some books are centripetal - they suck you in - and some books are centrifugal - they spin you out.
«Some books are centripetal — they suck you in from other books. Some books are centrifugal — they spin you out to other books.»
Austin Kleon on Patience
The principles of patience
Some thoughts on patience from Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks.
«Embrace radical incrementalism»
Austin Kleon on Productivity
The 30-minute noticing workout
Thinking about walking and attention with a little help from my friends.
Austin Kleon on Writing
Leonard Cohen on perfectionism
“I found that things got a lot easier when I no longer expected to win.”
A blog post is a search query to find your people
How to find your people by being super specific and enthusiastic with your writing.
«A blog post is a search query. You write to find your tribe»
Popular
These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
I’m not languishing, I’m dormant
The reason that so many of us feel like we’re languishing is that we are trying to flourish in terrible conditions.
«We tend to see what we’re looking for, so if you hear the name for something, you start seeing it everywhere, and your eyes get trained to see that particular thing, while you miss everything else. (That’s why Paul Valery said that real seeing “is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.”)»
Not knowing what’s impossible
Q: You got away with enormous technical advances, didn’t you? A: Simply by not knowing that they were impossible. Orson Welles on the genius in not-knowing: pic.twitter.com/uikbK3Q5ry — Austin Kleon…
Austin Kleon's Weekly Newsletter
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33 thoughts on reading
Shared by 80, including Kevan Lee 👋, Andrei Luca, Andreas Spiegler, ̗̀ ̗̀Manuel Marquina, Mark Kaigwa
Explore or exploit?
Thinking about the unique tension between using what you know and discovering what you don’t know.
«Periods of exploration can be like winter farming; nothing is visibly growing, but a subterranean process is at work and will in time yield a bounty.»
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