Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad

by Austin Kleon

Every day is like a blank page: When you’re finished filling it, you can save it, you can crumple it up, or you can slide it into the recycling bin and let it be. Only time will tell you what it was worth.

Airplane mode is not just a setting on your phone: It can be a whole way of life.

Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb. They want the job title without the work. Let go of the thing that you’re trying to be (the noun), and focus on the actual work you need to be doing (the verb). Doing the verb will take you someplace further and far more interesting.

One of the easiest ways to hate something you love is to turn it into your job:

If you want to change your life, change what you pay attention to.

“The purpose of being a serious writer is to keep people from despair,” writes Sarah Manguso.

“If you’ve never changed your mind about something, pinch yourself; you may be dead.”

Interacting with people who don’t share our perspective forces us to rethink our ideas, strengthen our ideas, or trade our ideas for better ones.

if you really want to explore ideas, you should consider hanging out with people who aren’t so much like-minded as like-hearted.

If you’re having trouble finding people to think with, seek out the dead. They have a lot to say and they are excellent listeners.

“Why not turn from this brief and transient spell of time and give ourselves wholeheartedly to the past, which is limitless and eternal and can be shared with better men than we?”

New ideas are formed by interesting juxtapositions, and interesting juxtapositions happen when things are out of place.

“The demons hate it when you get out of bed. Demons hate fresh air.”

“Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long.” —May Sarton

None of us know how many days we’ll have, so it’d be a shame to waste the ones we get.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom. Like art.” —Toni Morrison

Go easy on yourself and take your time. Worry less about getting things done. Worry more about things worth doing. Worry less about being a great artist. Worry more about being a good human being who makes art. Worry less about making a mark. Worry more about leaving things better than you found them.