Podcasts about daily rituals how artists work

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1676: Marc Chernoff reveals seven powerful habits practiced by highly creative individuals, offering practical rituals that boost inspiration, clarity, and productivity. Learn how small daily routines, like intentional solitude and reflective journaling, can unlock your own creative genius and keep it flowing. Read along with the original article(s) here: http://www.marcandangel.com/2014/12/14/7-rituals-you-should-steal-from-extremely-creative-people/ Quotes to ponder: "Solitude is required for the unconscious to process and unravel problems." "Creative people journal to get clarity about what they think, feel, and want." "Creative people don't wait for inspiration; they act in anticipation of it." Episode references: The Artist's Way: https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252 Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience: https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202 Daily Rituals: How Artists Work: https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1676: Marc Chernoff reveals seven powerful habits practiced by highly creative individuals, offering practical rituals that boost inspiration, clarity, and productivity. Learn how small daily routines, like intentional solitude and reflective journaling, can unlock your own creative genius and keep it flowing. Read along with the original article(s) here: http://www.marcandangel.com/2014/12/14/7-rituals-you-should-steal-from-extremely-creative-people/ Quotes to ponder: "Solitude is required for the unconscious to process and unravel problems." "Creative people journal to get clarity about what they think, feel, and want." "Creative people don't wait for inspiration; they act in anticipation of it." Episode references: The Artist's Way: https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252 Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience: https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202 Daily Rituals: How Artists Work: https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if inspiration didn't have to arrive in rare, dramatic bursts? Inspired by Mason Currey's “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work,” I've learned that simple routines can nurture creativity in ways we don't always expect. By creating rituals, we can stay energized, connect more deeply with patients, and prevent burnout.   For me, a daily writing routine became a powerful tool for self-expression and healing during a difficult time. This wasn't about waiting for the perfect moment to write; it was about showing up consistently and letting creativity flow. I believe rituals help us turn everyday practices into grounding moments that open us up to creative energy. What small, intentional habits could make a difference in your own life? I think they just might, especially in medicine, where creativity is often hidden in the art of patient care and problem-solving.   In this episode, I'm sharing practical ways to stay inspired, like finding dedicated workspaces or discovering your best times of day for focused tasks. Whether you're a physician or simply looking for ways to invite more creativity into your life, I hope my journey reminds you that inspiration can be woven into the fabric of our daily routines through purposeful rituals.   Quotes “I believe that a career in medicine is one of the most creative careers. You see, you're energetically engaged with a patient. You're using all five senses, which means you're putting yourself in flow.”  (01:00 | Dr. Lara Salyer) “Routine matters... Structure actually helps creativity. But really, it's about consistency, and our brain is a predictive machine.” (07:28 | Dr. Lara Salyer) “Constraints actually will fuel creativity... the more constraints you apply, your brain works a little harder to be creative.” (20:44 | Dr. Lara Salyer) “Persistence over perfection… We need to have a ‘BM' once a day—one bare minimum daily. Done is better than perfect.” (22:12 | Dr. Lara Salyer) “Medicine should be fun. It should be a self-expressive act. It should be a creative act where you're helping your patient heal.” (23:11 | Dr. Lara Salyer)   Links Free Catalyst Calendar planner: https://healthinnate.activehosted.com/f/49 Take the Archetype quiz to find your ideal play activity: https://3nb09zv7070.typeform.com/archetype Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey: https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601 Right Brain Rescue Book: Amazon store front: https://www.amazon.com//dp/B08JCKBWK5/   Connect with Lara:  Website: https://drlarasalyer.com The Catalyst Way: https://drlarasalyer.com/catalyst Instagram: @drlarasalyer Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/ YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

In this episode of "Save That Spark," Lisa Welsh tackles a pressing issue many couples face: what to do when your spouse doesn't want sex. Addressing the complexities of declining sexual desire in relationships, Lisa provides insightful strategies to bridge the gap between emotional and physical intimacy. Discover how to enhance connection without blame, explore the interplay of emotional support and sexual intimacy, and utilise practical tools to reignite the spark. Whether it's overcoming distractions like technology, understanding different types of libido, or improving communication, this episode offers a compassionate guide to navigating a sexless marriage and revitalising your connection. Links: Recommended sex therapists: https://mysexualhealth.co.za/pages/consultations Daily Rituals by Mason Currey: https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601 A Man's Guide to Sexual Confidence: https://savethatspark.com/confidence-guide

Hey, welcome back to The Switch! Eric and I are hanging out again at JuJuice, diving into Creative talk about launching ideas. In this episode, we're tackling the idea of creative urgency—how to keep pushing even when it feels tough. We shared insights from our own experiences about how setting the right intentions can really drive your projects forward. Switch-it-up Steps: Launch It: Got an idea? Don't just sit on it. Launching is the first big step to bringing your creative vision to life. Stay Fired Up: Keep that creative energy high. If you're feeling low, switch up your routine or workspace to reignite that spark. Collect and Use Ideas: We talk about practical ways to save and organize your ideas, like using your phone to take screenshots or bookmarking posts that inspire you. This helps turn those sparks of inspiration into something real. We also discussed some must-read books that fuel our creative drives. One book is Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, which dives into the routines of over 150 creative greats, offering tons of inspiration for anyone looking to boost their creative output. As we wrap up this session, remember: being creative takes courage, and sometimes, you just have to go for it. Stay connected, stay creative, and let's keep switching it up! Stay Connected: Catch Eric: @infinitetalkspod Catch Oscar: @happyoscarstudio

Would you be more adventurous if you had more structure? Do you multitask while brushing your teeth? And what would Mike's perfect brother Peter do?  SOURCES:David Brooks, opinion columnist for The New York Times.Colin Camerer, professor of economics at the California Institute of Technology.James Clear, writer.Mason Currey, author.David Goggins, ultra-endurance athlete and retired U.S. Navy SEAL.Jesse Itzler, entrepreneur and author.Katy Milkman, professor of operations, information and decisions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and host of the Choiceology podcast.Aneesh Rai, professor of management and organization at the University of Maryland.Tony Robbins, author, motivational speaker, and life coach.Sydney Scott, professor of marketing at Washington University in St. Louis.Cass Sunstein, professor and founding director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School.Elanor Williams, professor of marketing at Washington University in St. Louis. RESOURCES:"A Field Experiment on Subgoal Framing to Boost Volunteering: The Trade-Off Between Goal Granularity and Flexibility," by Aneesh Rai, Marissa A. Sharif, Edward H. Chang, Katherine L. Milkman, and Angela L. Duckworth (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2023)."What's Next? Advances and Challenges in Understanding How Environmental Predictability Shapes the Development of Cognitive Control," by Yuko Munakata, Diego Placido, and Winnie Zhuang (Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2023)."A Neural Autopilot Theory of Habit: Evidence From Consumer Purchases and Social Media Use," by Colin Camerer, Yi Xin, and Clarice Zhao (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2023)."In Goal Pursuit, I Think Flexibility Is the Best Choice for Me but Not for You," by Sydney E. Scott and Elanor F. Williams (Journal of Marketing Research, 2022).Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, by James Clear (2018).Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond (2016).Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet, by Jesse Itzler (2015)."The Good Order," by David Brooks (The New York Times, 2014).Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by Mason Currey (2013).

The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World (Volume 2) by: Iain McGilchrist The World Behind the World: Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science by: Erik Hoel Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by: Beth Macy American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by: Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin  Younger Next Year, 2nd Edition: Live Strong, Fit, Sexy, and Smart - Until You're 80 and Beyond by: Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge M.D. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by: Mason Currey Meditations on First Philosophy by: Rene Descartes Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by: Plutarch Neuromancer by: William Gibson Aftermath: Expeditionary Force, Book 16 by: Craig Alanson

In this episode I briefly discuss the bullshit that is war of any kind and I pay brief homage to Matthew Perry (R.I.P.) before reflecting on some favorite passages from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet and Mason Currey's Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. In reflecting on what Rilke calls "the happiness of being a beginner," I announce my intention to begin writing a novel this month—and to complete 50,000 words of it—as a first-time participant in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). And in sharing some gems from Daily Rituals, I discuss some of my own sacred routines, as well as some words of wisdom on discipline and inspiration from Gustave Flaubert, Steve Reich, Samuel Beckett, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Bernard Malamud.

Judith Donath is a design thinker for some of the most important theory for how people interact in online spaces, drawing on evolutionary biology, architecture, ethnography, cognitive science. She just might be the voice we need for the multi-media multiscale world we're walking into. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Tsundoku (09:00)The cost of honesty (09:30)theory of mind, MIT Media Lab, and Marvin Minsky (13:00)Roger Schank (13:30)cultural metaphors (14:00)Ocean Vuong (17:15)The Architecture Machine by Nicholas Negroponte (19:30)Bell Labs (20:15)Vienna Circle (20:20)Sociable Media Group (22:40)The Social Machine by Judith Donath (23:05)Fernanda Viégas (35:20)Chat Circles (35:30)Gossip, Grooming, and the Evolution of Language by Robin Dunbar (39:00)The Strength of Weak Ties by Mark Granovetter (43:20)Berkman Klein Center (47:00)Signalling Theory (49:00)Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey (56:00)The Experimental Novel by Émile Zola (59:00)C Thi Nguyen Origins (59:20)Lightning Round (01:00:30)Book: The Lord of the Rings by JRR TolkienPassion: Crossfit's way of thinking about metricsHeart sing: Street photographyTeju ColeScrewed up: Traditional academiaFind Judith online:Website'Five-Cut Fridays' five-song music playlist series  Judith's playlistFlourishing SalonsLearning Salon AIArtwork Cristina GonzalezMusic swelo

Our book this month is definitely worthy of the book of the month. Our book is Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. I was put onto this book by Tim Ferris who has been recommending it for some time. Daily Rituals is a fascinating book by Mason Currey that delves into the daily habits and routines of some of the most creative minds in history. From writers and painters to composers and scientists, the book provides a captivating look at how these artists structured their lives to maximize their creativity and productivity. If you are involved in a creative endeavor in your work, you are an artist. The author has compiled a wealth of information on the daily habits of creative geniuses, providing a unique perspective on how they managed to accomplish so much in their lives. --------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Ciao Ragazzi,in the second part of this series about habits, we talk about HOW to shape good language habitsHere is the link to my website, where you'll find the transcript in Italian:Go to https://italianstorieswithdavide.com/....Support the podcasthttps://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HJF6KQ4BY27Y2.Hope you enjoy and...Ci vediamo presto!Music by Andrea Danuzzo: https://soundcloud.com/andrea-sven-danuzzo...Sources:James Clear - Atomic Habits (book):https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break-ebook/dp/B07D23CFGR/.https://www.amazon.it/Piccole-abitudini-grandi-cambiamenti-Trasforma-ebook/dp/B07VHQWKXK/..Masson Currey - Daily Rituals, How Artists Work (book):https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work-ebook/dp/B009Y4I4OM/.https://www.amazon.it/Rituali-quotidiani-%C2%ABInfinite-imprevedibili-inimitabili-ebook/dp/B0156J2HSM/

This week we talk about burnout which can be a serious productivity / health issue. We luckily have not had it but at times we've come close to it. Over the years we've learned how to pick up on signals that we're getting burned out and developed some tips to better prevent falling into its insidious traps. All of which we cover in this episode.Enjoy and we hope it helps you.Resources / links:- The One Thing - from Gary Keller, one of our productivity staples!- The Pareto principle - 20% effort -> 80% yield.- The Reality of Developer Burnout - Kenneth Reitz' essay on burnout.- A Mind for Numbers - from Barbara A. Oakley, we learned about the diffused mode from this book.- Daily Rituals: How Artists Work - from Mason Currey, a fun / relaxing book tip. - Btw, a great Dutch book on burnout is De lessen van burn-out, however we could not find an English edition yet.---If you are struggling with productivity, check out our Practical Productivity With PyBites Video Course.To check out our community of passionate Pythonistas (where a lot more than just Python is going on).And to learn more about what we do at PyBites, head over to our website.

Author Mason Currey knows that for most writers, the biggest obstacle to writing is making the time to write. After getting interested in the routines of famous artists who do manage to find the time to create consistently, he began cataloguing their daily habits and routines. His books Daily Rituals: How Artists Work and Daily Rituals: Women at Work delve into the helpful (and sometimes odd) rituals that well-known artists use in their creative process. On the pod, Jon and Mason talk about the importance of forming a ritual as a creative and some of the helpful advice he's gained after his research. Mason also talks about the wackiest rituals he's read about, and how you don't necessarily need to embody the stereotypical habits of the struggling artist to produce great work.

Is there a writer alive who hasn't wondered at some if they would ever be able to finish a book or some other writing project? Maybe it was your first book and you didn't know if you had it in you. Maybe it was your tenth book that you wrote while raising three kids and wrangling wild mustangs for a living. Or maybe it's the book you're working on right now and you're stuck, and you're not sure how to get unstuck.What is the secret to finishing those books? Writing takes all kinds of of talents, but probably the single best predictor of wether a person is going to finish a book - any book or project - is how gritty they are. Are you willing to keep your eyes on the prize long enough to see things through? Are you willing to keep going when the going gets tough? Today we're talking about grit, and most importantly, how to build your grit muscle so you can get your writing done.LinksAngela Duckworth's Grit ScaleAngela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and PerseveranceMason Currey, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

Trying to understand some of the details of the Theranos case, how frame-rates might alter the perception of truth, thoughts on the Wu-Tang TV show, possibly the best Ted Lasso episode, the mechanics of daily repetition in habit, learning a bit about shaving, and switching CDB. Journalhttps://trycaliper.com/ (Caliper) https://www.charlottesweb.com/cbd-melatonin-sleep-gummy (Charlotte's Web - CBD Sleep Gummies) https://youtu.be/ps88RU_BXlA (Tutorial - Learn How To Shave With a Safety Razor) Technicalitieshttps://youtu.be/EvGOlAkLSLw (Sep 2021 Apple Event) https://agiletortoise.com/tally/ (Tally by Agile Tortoise) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009Y4I4OM/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=reawitrazbla-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B009Y4I4OM&linkId=e09e5765b7bb4dbea0d80f8e29532dad (Daily Rituals: How Artists Work) https://www.itmattersbutitdoesnt.com/43-guts-for-brains/ (IT0043 - Guts for Brains) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743235274/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=reawitrazbla-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0743235274&linkId=ec4a75627ceebb0d6d940308bd5a8f1d (The Creative Habit: Learn In and Use It for Life) https://www.newphilosopher.com/ (New Philosopher) Recommendshttps://reelgood.com/show/wutang-an-american-saga-2019 (Wu-Tang: An American Saga) https://reelgood.com/show/ted-lasso-2020 (Ted Lasso) https://open.spotify.com/show/70a5obPALvMVMPSzxYelik?si=h9u5BvxFRwmKxUXkOY-D8g&dl_branch=1 (Long Shadow) Marginaliahttps://open.spotify.com/episode/0Ko1OSrsHC9DpXz0poLhKO?si=dNnlH067TTGXbQG9ONy6eA&dl_branch=1 (The Blindboy Podcast - Jim Sheridan) Further Questionshttps://www.threeuncannyfour.com/show/bad-blood/ (Bad Blood: The Final Chapter) https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/the-dropout/ (The Drop Out) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525431993/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=reawitrazbla-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0525431993&linkId=407e3ac4771702747e3bc21bbb2b8dba (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup) Dig it? https://www.patreon.com/Chadhall (become a patron) Have something to say? https://www.itmattersbutitdoesnt.com/contact/ (voice it) Support this podcast

This week's guest is New York-based makeup artist Jonet Williamson. I've been a fan of hers for a while now and love her approach to makeup. Watching her apply makeup on her Instagram Lives is often like watching a scientist or perhaps an architect, as she's clearly viewing her face - her canvas - with an analytical mind. In this episode I wanted to find out how Jonet's hometown of New Orleans informed her career choices and set her on the path to artistry - even though she had already decided on studying pre-med. Jonet shares advice for budding makeup artists trying to hone in on their style and breaks down what a Southern ‘beat face’ really is. She also discusses the differences between makeup in the South and makeup in New York. Be sure to head to my Instagram @beautymepodcast to see some outtake videos and follow Jonet @jonetwmakeup to see all of her amazing looks and regular Lives on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Products mentioned: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601 Rosen Skincare Earth Mask: https://www.rosenskincare.com/products/earth-mask Weleda Skin Food Light: https://www.boots.com/weleda-skin-food-light-30ml-10262723 Eve Lom Cleanser: https://www.evelom.co.uk/collections/cleanser/products/cleanser-50ml MAC Cosmetics Lipglass in Oyster Girl: https://www.maccosmetics.co.uk/product/13853/309/products/makeup/lips/lipgloss/lipglass#!/shade/Oyster_Girl MAC Cosmetics Lipglass in Oh Baby: https://www.maccosmetics.co.uk/product/13853/309/products/makeup/lips/lipgloss/lipglass#!/shade/Oh_Baby Lancôme Juicy Tubes: https://www.lancome.co.uk/makeup/lips/lip-gloss/juicy-tubes/115012-LAC.html Alex Wolf Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0pXc7mMC0L3wpvzmUHhLNV?si=9K_N5gslR4ePbZXwE4lWjw --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/beautyme/message

Arielle Austin is an abstract painter from Austin, Texas whose work radiates graceful energy. In this conversation, Arielle generously shares her experiences with transitioning from an unfulfilling career, re-establishing her art presence in a new city, and the recent transition— leaving her "day job" to devote her energy full time to being an Artist. Comparing her work to a "visual diary," Arielle offers candid insight into the role art has played in her life journey. "Start where you are with what you've got." Find Arielle:Website:   https://www.arielle-austin.com/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/arielle_austin/Mentioned:Princeton Catalyst Tool: (available here)Blanton Art Museum, Joan Mitchell's "Rock Bottom" (see)Ninth Street Women, Mary Gabriel (book)Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, Mason Currey (book)BBATX / Boss Babes (learn more)Maverick City Music (listen)ATX Gals (learn more)Six Square, Austin TX (learn more/visit)Austin Art Garage (visit)Aimée Everett (see work)Find Me, Kristy Darnell Battani:Website:   https://www.kristybattani.comInstagram:  kristybattaniartFacebook:  kristybattaniartDid you enjoy hearing about Arielle's plunge? If so, please take a moment to leave a rating and a comment: https://lovethepodcast.com/artishplungeMusic:"Surf Guitar Madness," Alexis Messier,Licensed by PremiumBeat.comSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/artishplunge)

This week, we welcome composer Alex Shapiro to the Band Room! Dylan and Cait chat with Alex about why she loves the band community, how her environment influences her work, overcoming creative blocks and anxiety, adaptable music, the future of music publishing, and much more. Help Support the Band Room Podcast by Becoming a Patron Through Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/bandroompod Help support the Band Room Podcast by getting your merch at the BRP Storehttp://www.bandroompod.com/store Music used in this episodeBRP Theme Music: Skyline by EKR HammellPerforming Ensemble: University of Toronto Wind EnsembleDr. Gillian MacKay – ConductorEpisode LinksAlex Shapiro’s websitehttps://www.alexshapiro.org/ The Horizon Leans Forward (Book)https://www.giamusic.com/store/resource/the-horizon-leans-forward-book-g10369 Alex’s Programming Resourceshttps://www.alexshapiro.org/ProgrammingResources.html Creative Repertoire Initiativehttps://www.creativerepertoire.com/ Other Shapiro Recommended ReadingThe Muse That Sings by Ann McCutchanhttps://www.amazon.ca/Muse-that-Sings-Composers-Creative/dp/0195127072Daily Rituals by Mason Curryhttps://www.amazon.ca/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/bandroompod)

Career changes have become commonplace in today’s volatile marketplace. Whether you’ve lost your job or are considering a job change, Phil Cooke offers tips to help you invest in yourself to have a successful career of your passion or calling. Bonus: if you have a creative career, you’ll especially appreciate Phil’s insight as a Hollywood producer and media consultant. https://philcooke.com   Subscribe to My Podcast for more good advice for leaders and creatives: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phil-cooke-podcast/id1439369056 Prefer video? Watch the YouTube edition here: https://youtu.be/VjztZDwcH5E   Get my new book: Maximize Your Influence – How to Make Digital Media Work for Your Church, Your Ministry, and You https://influencematters.com   Do you have a message or story the world needs to hear? As a Hollywood producer and media consultant, I offer advice for leaders and creatives each week on filmmaking, digital media, publishing, strategy, communication, leadership, culture and faith – to help you get from where you are to where you want to be in your career. Sign up for my blog and get a free eBook https://www.philcooke.com   Follow me: Twitter https://twitter.com/philcooke Facebook https://www.facebook.com/philcookepage/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/philcooke/ Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/philcookes-podcast/id1439369056  Find out about Cooke Media Group here: https://www.cookemediagroup.com   *More About This Episode* Staying Power: The Secrets to a Long and Successful Career As a Hollywood producer and media executive, Phil Cooke shares specific tips to help you manage a successful career or career change in today’s market.   Invest in yourself. Take your job and your dream seriously. Get the tools, the resources and the information to expand your knowledge and your skills. And, think about how you’re perceived and dress like where you’re going, not like where you’ve been.   Fix your resume. No matter how secure you think your job is, you should keep it updated.   If you’re in a creative career, that extends to your portfolio, your demo reel and your bio. Hollywood is a story-driven business, so consider what tells your story best?   When creating a demo reel in the film and television industry as an actor, film director or DP: show a finished project. Can you tell a story?   Create an elevator pitch for your career: Who are you? What do you do? Where do you want to go? How will you get there? How can you help them?   Think less about your job title or your business and more about your specific skill. While you’re waiting for your dream project to happen, think of other ways you could use your skill. Have a bigger vision for your life.   Stop talking. Being a listener can have a big difference in your career.   Learn to say no to good things so you can say yes to great things. Start being selective about the projects you do, the organizations you work for.   Understand your zone: where you’re most creative and productive and what time you’re most creative and productive.   Stop with the lame excuses.   Become an expert, an authority in your field. Study and work at it; become the go-to person.   Stop ignoring your story. Integrate your unique past and who you are into what you do.   Books Phil recommends: “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work” by Mason Curry https://amzn.to/3cIzw0T “One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do” by Phil Cooke https://amzn.to/2G6wHuM “Maximize Your Influence – How to Make Digital Media Work for Your Church, Your Ministry and You” available now with a donation of $25 or more to The Influence Lab here: https://www.philcooke.com/maximize-your-influence/  

DISCUSSED: Franz Kafka is considered one of the most creative and influential writers of the 20th century, but he actually spent most of his time working as a lawyer for the Workers Accident Insurance Institute. How did Kafka produce such fantastic creative works while holding down his day job? By sticking to a strict schedule. He would go to his job from 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM, eat lunch and then take a long nap until 7:30 PM, exercise and eat dinner with his family in the evening, and then begin writing at 11 PM for a few hours each night before going to bed and doing it all over again. Kafka is hardly unique in his commitment to a schedule. As Mason Currey notes in his popular book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, many of the world’s great artists follow a consistent schedule. Thanks for listening! Be sure to follow on Instagram and Twitter to see all the behind the scenes content for The Variable. We also have a website to listen to on. A blog is there as well. Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stephencodes/ Twitter https://twitter.com/stephencodes1 Website https://randstephen2.wixsite.com/variable --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/variable/support

Mason Currey is a writer, editor, and author living in Los Angeles, most notably known for his book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. He shares how he’s learned what works best for him, inspired by both his research and his own experiences. You can find Mason on Twitter @masoncurrey and on his website, MasonCurrey.com. Want more? Visit craftyourcontent.com/episode42 for links and resources. Sponsored by Coworker.com.

Find Nova on Twitter: @novaren and Instagram: @novaren. Her website is novaren.com. She is also the co-founder of the Foreshadow YA anthology, which is on Twitter @foreshadowYA and online at ForeshadowYA.Show Notes:Books, movies, TV, specials, and other media or institutions mentioned include:Daily Rituals: How Artists Work edited by Mason CurreyDistraction 99 - Nova’s blogVermont College of Fine ArtsA Room Away from the Wolves - Nova’s latest bookThe Walls Around Us - Nova’s previous bookThe Writers RoomA Room of One’s Own by Virginia WoolfFeathered by Laura KasischkeBoy Heaven by Laura KasischkeWinter InstituteThe Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. PanThe Poet X by Elizabeth AcevedoShirley JacksonThe Haunting of Hill House on NetflixHer Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria MachadoThe Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria MachadoAbout Truer Words:Truer Words is created and produced by Melissa Baumgart and Kathryn Benson. Our music was composed by Mike Sayre, and our logo was designed by Marianne Murphy.You can follow us on Twitter @truerwordspod and on Instagram @truerwordspodcast. Contact us via our website, truerwordspodcast.com, or email us at truerwordspodcast@gmail.com.

A solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and helps stave off the tyranny of moods. In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and I discuss​ Daily Rituals by Mason Currey. In this book, Currey edits together first-hand accounts from different artists and creative thinkers of how they went about their everyday lives. “I write when the spirit moves me,”  said, “and the spirit moves me every day.” – Faulkner. We cover a wide range of topics, including: The problem with lifestyle gurus. Whether drugs enhance genius. Coffee’s role in causing the Renaissance. How people in far-off countries let each other know they were alive before the internet. Beethoven’s perfect cup of Joe. Why you should pin notes to your clothes' Night Owls vs. Early Birds - who gets more worms. Hacks to become an morning person. And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson for more tips on how to order your day, as well as our episode on Elon Musk to discover what rituals a modern-day success keeps. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show: Sleep debt [8:00] Dymaxion sleep [8:46] Polyphasic sleep [9:05] Alt-right [11:55] Benzedrine [12:58] Ritalin [18:34] The Renaissance [22:26] Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – OCD [29:10] Franklin’s 13 Virtues [32:21] How to Plan your Ideal Day by Taylor Pearson [39:48] Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule by Paul Graham [40:05] Growth Machine [40:10] On-demand economy [44:58] 1099 economy [44:58] Peterson’s guide to essay writing [51:44] Mnemonics [57:10] Keto-adaptation [59:50] Hormetic stress [1:07:55] Night Owl Mutation [1:12:36] Gilgamesh Platform [1:20:50] Books mentioned: Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [12:28] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Come Again? by Nat Eliason [19:26] Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson [32:21] The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss [34:36] Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [34:47] Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller [48:42] The War of Art - Steven Pressfield [50:44] The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath [1:02:18] Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway [1:07:55] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand [1:10:50] Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [1:11:10] People mentioned: Francis Bacon [2:30] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [3:54] (Antifragile episode) Tim Ferriss [5:00] Jocko [5:08] Buckminster Fuller [8:46] Steve Pavlina [10:00] V. S. Pritchett [11:30] W. H. Auden [12:58] Immanuel Kant [13:58] Michel Foucault [13:58] Ryan Holiday [14:44] Beethoven [29:16] Nikola Tesla [29:34] Tom Cruise [30:37] Benjamin Franklin [32:32] Charles Darwin [36:30] (on this podcast) Henry Miller [48:42] William Faulkner [50:27] Ann Beattie [50:58] Haruki Murakami [52:37] Scott Britain [53:11] Ramit Sethi [53:11] Jonathan Edwards [57:10] Sylvia Plath [1:02:12] Woody Allen [1:02:37] Jean Paul Sartre [1:03:00] David Lynch [1:06:20] Paul Erdős [1:10:25] Ayn Rand [1:10:50] Show Topics 00:50 – Book covers daily rituals of a bunch of people, not just artists. Broad interpretation of artists, anyone who does creative or critical thinking work. 01:24 – There’s a surprising amount of drug-use in this book, lots of alcohol, and not sleeping. On the one hand this seemed undisciplined, but on the other these people did have very regular schedules. There was discipline to keep these activities in a well-worn groove. 01:53 – A hangover can make it easier to write – your brain can be more focused. In some ways it’s like the opposite of being caffeinated. 03:10 – The book has an interesting layout, there’s no attempt at narrative, each chapter is about a new person’s routine. 03:54 – Taleb keeps no routine, he doesn’t even use a calendar. 04:00 – Small gripe with books like this as these are idealized and narrativized versions of these rituals. None of them get drunk and yell at people on Twitter. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re only true 20-50% of the time. 04:55 – Problem with a lot of the lifestyle guru type people. They don’t do all of that stuff everyday. Except Jocko, he’s never overslept in the last 15 years. His morning routine seems to be the same wherever he is. 06:02 – Maintaining a normal schedule when you travel across time zones helps you adapt way faster. The minute you go back to your hotel you’ll crash, it’s game over! Jet lag is a strange tiredness, especially if you drink coffee, like you’re wired and drunk at the same time. 08:00 – Questioning whether you can save up a store of sleep for a rainy day. Apparently you can’t front load it, but when you get into debt you need to pay it back! 08:46 – Types of polyphasic sleep. Buckminster Fuller developed dymaxion sleep, he did it for two years and he’s the only one who’s ever been able to do it. 5-10% of the population legitimately need less sleep. Everyone else thinks they’re in that group but they’re not. 09:05 – When they tried one study on polyphasic sleep the subject just crashed and they could not wake him up. 11:43 – Is it quote or quotation? Don’t want to anger the grammar people! 11:55 – Download all of our episodes to find out whether one of our team is part of the alt-right. 12:58 – Auden was popping Benzedrine all the time. He regarded it as a “labor saving device,” a daily multivitamin. In the mental kitchen alongside alcohol, coffee and tobacco. 13:40 – Were these people great producers because of these habits or despite them? Question of whether the live-fast, die-young lifestyle enhances genius. 16:22 – Personal experiences and use of some drugs. Coffee for work and productivity, micro-dosing LSD for the same. Marijuana for an after wine session. Fear of getting hooked with tobacco vs alcohol. 18:34 – Ritalin/Aterol for effortless full-speed ahead concentration. 20:12 – Doctors overprescribe Aterol – 90% of people taking it don’t need it. It’s very hard to quit, people get frustrated at never hitting the same level of quality. In some ways similar to steroids. 22:26 – The Renaissance happened when people stopped drinking beer all day and switched to coffee. 22:36 – Drinking habits around the world. Beer used to be brewed as water wasn’t safe to drink. They would steep the same grains up to four times. In Asia they would drink tea all day, which is probably why they were historically more productive than Europe. 24:55 – In sushi bars in Tokyo they have a tap of green tea. In Germany they give you beer, Americans drink water and now they’re more productive because they’re hydrated. 25:53 – Tangent – Most people who are in America now, their ancestors were the risk-takers. The people who took the initiative to leave behind everything they knew. So culturally this is ingrained. 26:59 – People used booked calls to let family on the other side of the world know they were alive before Skype. 27:40 – The history of pokes on Facebook – they would let a non-friend see your profile for a few days without actually becoming your friend. 29:10 – A significant number of people featured in the book seemed to have OCD, they were trying to control chaos. Beethoven’s coffee had to have 60 beans a cup. Kant had an extremely orderly schedule. The clock tower in town stayed on time less passionately than Kant. 32:00 – Everyone has odd habits, especially artists who spend a lot of time in their heads. 32:21 – The general impression of Benjamin Franklin is “early to bed, early to rise” but he seemed to set his 13 virtues up as goals rather than things he’d achieved. Comparing Ben Franklin to Tim Ferriss. People disapprove of others not following their own advice to the letter. 35:53 – Controversy when one updates his opinions. 36:16 – It’s surprising how few hours people worked – the bulk of the creative work was 5-6 hours a day, max. Darwin was famous for having two 3 hour work blocks. It’s hard to do creative work for longer. But good for mental energy. 38:00 – Tangent. It’s hard to be spontaneous in New York. Phone calls are scheduled a week in advance.  Time management tips: set regular stand-ups, only book meetings at certain times. Color-code your calendar. 40:30 – Work environments are moving towards being more results orientated, moving away from people just sitting at their desks doing nothing. A relic of the production line. Schedule Tetris in large corporations. 43:26 – Hack. Schedule hour meetings for 40 minutes, or half hour meetings for 20 minutes. It forces people to condense. 44:58 – Data should make it easier for people to get paid based on productivity rather than time. For consulting jobs, it doesn’t make sense to charge based on time. Historically, time was the best way of measuring output and so this made sense. 47:43 – Education is also stuck in this time loop since it was originally influenced by factory organization. Most interesting ideas that end up leading somewhere come from play, from free time. 49:21 – After unsuccessfully trying for ten years in New York, Henry Miller had given up writing, when he finally wrote a novel in Paris it was published without editing, there’s sentences that just stop mid-way. Seeing from outside, it seems these creatives are able to follow a routine without anyone forcing them. 51:44 – Jordan Peterson says there’s no such thing as writer’s block. If you’re stuck it’s because you have run out of things to say, you need to unblock yourself. 53:10 – Sleep and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends, may make you feel much more energized. Sleeping in on the weekend it’s almost like changing time zones every five days. 56:41 – Giveaways are coming, sign up for the email list. 57:03 – To remember to do important things pin a piece of paper on a different piece of your clothing, a form of mnemonics. 58:15 – When you first wake up, that’s a different person. You have to find ways of tricking him into not hitting snooze. Routines and replacement can help you get past undesirable behavior. 59:04 – Sponsor time. Mushroom elixir from Four Sigmatic and bone broth from Kettle & Fire along with Perfecto Keto collagen. Use them to replace alcohol in the evening! 1:01:38 – Despite living in climate controlled environments, we still feel like it’s cold outside when it’s winter, even though it’s the same temperature where we are. 1:03:30 – Some people’s capacity for alcohol is so far beyond the average. If you’re regimented and disciplined you could physically drink a bottle of spirits a day. 1:07:15 – Sugar is like a mild form of cocaine. It’s a stimulant followed by a crash. Hormetic stressors are only “natural”. 1:09:20 – Psycho-active drugs don’t make your brain do things it can’t do, they mimic neural pathways. Maybe adaptation is down-regulating the amount of neurochemicals being released in response to the trigger. If you know, write in! 1:11:36 – Morning Working vs Night-time working theme. More of the creators were geared towards mornings but it wasn’t across the board. Evolutionarily, it doesn’t make sense for humans to want to work at night. 1:14:20 – Waking up hack. Trick yourself into getting up by telling yourself you can go back to bed in 30 minutes if you’re still tired. 1:14:45 – Wrap-up and sponsor time. Perfecto Keto is perfect for all your ketogenic diet needs. Exogenous coffee-flavored ketones. Their matcha MCT oil powder is highly recommended for focusing. You can use the MCT oil with a Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee or your hot chocolate, all 15% OFF through our sponsored link or use the coupon code mentioned. Kettle & Fire will give you 20% OFF on their delicious bone broths –beef recommended for cooking, and chicken for a good, hot wintery drink– and free shipping! Listen to know how to get a mushroom-flavored bone broth. And you can always support us by going through our Amazon sponsored link and checking out our Support page. 1:20:50 – The new Gilgamesh cryptocurrency is building a social network built on knowledge sharing. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a LegacyWelcome to Day 494 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomGet Motivated by Taking Action Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 494 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we hike the trails of life that will encourage and motivate us to live rich and satisfying lives this week. Today let us explore the trail called Get Motivated by Taking Action. We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. If all goes according to plan, we will have returned from our trip to Mesa, Arizona by now. I am recording a few episodes in advance while we are away from our office. We have several activities and goals planned for the remainder of this month, but we realize that to accomplish them, we must take action which will motivate us in the future to complete our tasks. As we break camp and head out on our trek for today, let us invest time exploring the concept of… Get Motivated by Taking ActionYou may struggle to find the motivation you need to achieve the goals you want because you are wasting too much time and energy on other parts of the process. If you want to make it easy to find motivation and get started, then it helps to automate the early stages of your behavior. 1. Schedule Your MotivationMany people never get around to starting tasks because they are always wondering what they are going to do next. You could apply this to working out, starting a business, writing a book, and building most habits. Here are some examples: If your workout doesn't have a time when it usually occurs, then each day you'll wake up thinking, “I hope I feel motivated to exercise today.” If your business doesn't have a system for marketing, then you'll show up at work crossing your fingers that you'll find a way to get the word out (in addition to everything else you have to do). If you don't have a scheduled time when you write every week, then you'll find yourself saying things like, “I just need to find the willpower to do it.” In other words, if you waste resources trying to decide when or where to work, you'll impede your capacity to do the work. Setting a schedule for yourself seems simple, but it puts your decision-making on autopilot by giving your goals a time and a place to live. It makes it more likely that you will follow through regardless of your motivation level. There are plenty of research studies on willpower and motivation to back up that statement. A personal example is that I get up at 5:30am every weekday to exercise. I rarely feel motivated when I get up, but I take action knowing that it is part of my overall goal for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Stop waiting for motivation or inspiration to strike you and set a schedule for your habits. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals set a schedule and stick to it. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired or motivated. 2. How to Get Motivated (Even When You Don't Feel Like It)The most successful creative people go beyond schedules to set up rituals that they stick to in order to accomplish what they desire. In his popular book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, author Mason Currey notes that many of the world's great artists follow a consistent schedule. Maya Angelou rented a local hotel room and went there to write. She arrived at [6:30] AM, wrote until 2 PM, and then went home to do some editing. She never slept at the hotel. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon writes five nights per week from 10 PM to 3 AM. Haruki Murakami wakes up at 4 AM, writes for five hours, and then goes for a run. The work of top creatives isn't dependent upon motivation or inspiration, but rather it follows a consistent pattern and routine. Here are some examples of how you can apply...

On this episode Mike is joined by Craig Ballantyne of Early to Rise. Craig is the creator of The Perfect Day Formula and during our discussion, they chat about Craig's thoughts on Stoicism, how the mind is the real gateway (or barrier) to establishing better days, how Craig handles email, and the rule Craig crafted that has been shared all over the web (and received its share of praise and criticism in the process). They also talk about rules Craig lives by, the power of a "not to do" list, and engage in a lively discussion about early rising versus being a night owl. Relevant Links http://www.earlytorise.com/ (Early to Rise - Health, Wealth, and a Life Well Lived) http://brettterpstra.com/ (BrettTerpstra.com) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591846358/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=vardyme-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1591846358&linkId=6f49e90066841cb85305337e1db4ac64 (The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday | Amazon) http://www.earlytorise.com/the-3-cs-of-the-perfect-day/ (The 3 C's of the Perfect Day | Early To Rise) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061286052/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=vardyme-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0061286052&linkId=5b25f840214fb64e84ed3e0c4ddd752f (Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness by Sharon Lebell | Amazon) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3593379/Is-10-3-2-1-0-method-REALLY-secret-good-night-s-sleep.html (Is the 10-3-2-1-0 method REALLY the secret to a good night's sleep? | Daily Mail Online) http://mymorningroutine.com/craig-ballantyne/ (Craig Ballantyne's Morning Routine | My Morning Routine) https://productivityist.com/podcast-one-year-no-beer/ (The Productivityist Podcast: The One Year No Beer Challenge) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979019710/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=vardyme-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0979019710&linkId=f5de48838aeb64ca1496e9bc6be1d062 (The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) by Hal Elrod | Amazon) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VYtiyjqx7E (Ralph E. Wolf and Sam Sheepdog - A Sheep In The Deep | YouTube) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307273601/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=vardyme-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0307273601&linkId=4f873ce5036a472ed5f82e4030466e4f (Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey | Amazon) http://www.earlytorise.com/your-not-to-do-list/ (Your NOT to do List | Early To Rise) http://www.earlytorise.com/10-big-ideas-2/ (10 big ideas | Early To Rise) http://theperfectdayformula.com/ (The Perfect Day Formula) https://twitter.com/EarlytoRiseHQ (Early to Rise (@EarlytoRiseHQ) | Twitter) https://twitter.com/craigballantyne?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor (craigballantyne (@craigballantyne) | Twitter) Thanks again for listening. Until next time remember to stop guessing...and start going!

Today I pull some quotes from "Daily Rituals : How Artists Work" By Mason Currey. We discus if there really is a way to schedule creative time. Subscribe on iTunes, Soundcloud and Youtube.

New York Times bestselling author Austin Kleon has been called one of the most interesting people on the Internet by The Atlantic Magazine, and he stopped by The Writer Files to chat with me about creativity and the writing life.   Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By   Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! Austin is the author of three illustrated books — Steal Like An Artist, Newspaper Blackout, and Show Your Work! — guides I recommend to all writers seeking insights for tapping into your endless reserves of creativity and innovation. In addition to being featured on NPR s Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, and The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Kleon speaks about creativity in the digital age for organizations as varied as Pixar, Google, SXSW, TEDx, and The Economist. In the first part of this two-part file, Austin Kleon and I discuss: Why You Should Read More Than You Write How a Paper Dictionary Can Improve Your Writing The Difference Between Little Writing and Big Writing Why You Should Research Out in the Open How Your Daily Ritual Can Save You from Failure 3 Symptoms of Writer’s Block and How to Cure Them Why You Should Print Your Work and Read It Aloud How to Harness the Power of Productive Procrastination Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes How Bestselling Author Austin Kleon Writes: Part Two Here s How Austin Kleon Writes AustinKleon.com Clive Thompson, The Pencil and the Keyboard: How The Way You Write Changes the Way You Think Elizabeth Gilbert: “Your elusive creative genius” Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey Austin Kleon on Instagram Austin Kleon on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Bestselling Author Austin Kleon Writes, Part One Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. Kelton Reid: These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers, from online content creators to fictionist, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host Kelton Reid: writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week, we’ll find out how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. New York Times bestselling author Austin Kleon has been called one of the most interesting people on the Internet by the Atlantic magazine, and he stopped by The Writer Files to chat with me about creativity and the writing life. Austin is the author of three illustrated books: Steal Like An Artist, Newspaper Blackout, and Show Your Work!. In addition to being featured on MPR’s Morning Edition, PBS NewsHour, and The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Kleon speaks about creativity in the digital age — organizations as varied as Pixar, Google, South by Southwest, TEDx, and The Economist. In the first part of this two-part file, Austin Kleon and I discuss why you should read more than you write, how a paper dictionary can improve your writing, the difference between little writing and big writing, how your daily ritual can save you from failure, three symptoms of writer’s block and how to cure them, and how to harness the power of productive procrastination. Austin Kleon, welcome back to The Writer Files. Austin Kleon: Thanks for having me. Kelton Reid: You were in the written series, and I’ll point to that in the show notes. That was a really very inspiring interview Q&A. Geez, we’re off to a great start. Thanks for coming back, man. I can’t wait to pick your brain and get into your updated Writer File here. Austin Kleon: I’m stoked. Kelton Reid: For listeners who aren’t familiar with your work, who are you, and what is your area of expertise as a writer? Austin Kleon: I call myself ‘a writer who draws,’ which means that I make art with words and books with pictures. I’ve put out three books. They’re all illustrated books. The one I’m known best for is a book called Steal Like An Artist, which is a list of 10 things I wish I’d known about being creative when I first started out. The other book I’m more well-known for is the sequel to Steal Like An Artist called Show Your Work!, which is a book about self-promotion for people who hate the very idea of self-promotion. It’s all about sharing your work and getting yourself out there. Steal is all about taking influence from others, and Show Your Work! is about influencing others by letting them steal from you in a sense. Before those two books, I did a book called Newspaper Blackout, which is a very strange poetry book — that’s why no one knows about it, it’s a poetry book. It’s made from newspaper articles, and it looks like the CIA did haiku. I pick a few words out of a newspaper article. Then I blackout the rest, and they read like these weird haikus almost. That was my first book. If there was a Venn diagram of my work, I think about it as pictures, words, and the web, and I’m in the middle. The web part is that my whole career has been based on me being active online. I’m actually coming up on my blog’s about 10 years old. When I got out of college, I really didn’t know what I was doing, so I started a blog. In 2005, that was a great idea. It was pretty easy to get started and stand out, especially if you were doing something interesting. I guess less and less I think of myself as a web guy and more of just an author, which is a very strange transition. I had day jobs for a long time, and now I just do this full time. Kelton Reid: You came from a background of graphic design as well. Austin Kleon: Yeah, that’s the weird thing about me. I identify mostly as a writer in terms of where I feel centered in the world, but I have this visual side, this design and art side. I made a living for several years as a web designer. I’m not formally trained in graphic design or art, but that’s always just been part of my life. Kelton Reid: I love those blackout poems. They are very cool. Austin Kleon: Thanks. Kelton Reid: I keep your books by my desk just as inspiration because I feel like I can just flip open Steal Like An Artist anytime I’m feeling I need creative juice. There’s just so much in there. It’s perfect for those moments when you just need a jolt of quick, creative inspiration, so thank you for those. Austin Kleon: I’m glad to hear that. They’re designed that way. You’re supposed to be able to just flip them open and start reading and get something out of it. A lot of people have them as ebooks, but they really shine as print books. Kelton Reid: I agree. The ebook would not do it justice. I think having it in your hands and being able to touch it, and the artwork, is really great. It’s really, really fun. Where can we find your writing out there in the world? Austin Kleon: The best thing to do is to go to your local bookstore and ask for one of my books. That’s the easiest. Otherwise, just go to AustinKleon.com or Google me, and you’ll drop down the rabbit hole of my stuff. Kelton Reid: Yeah, totally. Austin Kleon: I’m a Twitter junky and an Instagram guy, too, so I’m AustinKleon on those. Kelton Reid: Cool. What are you presently working on over there? Austin Kleon: I just finished up something I was not excited about when I started, and now I’m super excited about it. My publisher, Workman, wanted to turn Steal Like An Artist into a journal. It’s really cool. It’s got one of those elastic bands and the envelope in the back, so it’s basically a prompted journal. It’s like an interactive version of Steal Like An Artist that you can carry around and do all kinds of exercises. It’s supposed to be something that you carry around with you and you open up every day. It gets your juices flowing. I just finished that up. That’s coming out in October, and I’m going on a 12-city tour. I don’t have all the cities quite yet. Book tour for me is like I have to get stoked up for because it’s a marathon-type thing, but I’m super excited about the journal. Like I said, I’m so particular about my own journals that the idea of making a journal that other people would use was daunting, but then it turned into this really fun thing. I’m looking forward to doing the exercises myself, along with everybody else. Kelton Reid: I can’t wait to get a hold of one of those. Austin Kleon: I will send you a copy. Kelton Reid: Cool. That’s the best news ever. I’d like to dig into your productivity a little bit and just pick your brain. Austin Kleon: Sure. Kelton Reid: I know that you do some pretty extensive research on stuff. How much time per day would you say you’re just researching for creative inspiration? Why You Should Read More Than You Write Austin Kleon: If I had to put an hour, I’d say anywhere from one hour a day to five hours a day. It so depends on what project I’m working on or not, but for me, I probably read at least three to four times as much as write. That’s a really important thing for my own practice. I know folks like Stephen King, he writes in the morning, and then he reads all afternoon. I’ve always aspired to that. I’ve never really got that done because I like to read and then putter around. If I’m on deadline, I’ll have to sit down and actually bang something out, but I would say probably at least a third to half of the day is based on trying to fill the tanks, so to speak. Kelton Reid: Before you actually sit down and get working, do you have any pre-game ritual or practices that you do? Austin Kleon: I wish I had more. For me, the hardest thing is to get my butt in the chair and sit down and open the file and go for it. I do a lot of free writing by hand. I take a lot of notes by hand, and I really believe in keeping a journal and that kind of thing. But when I’m actually sitting down to make a piece of writing that someone else is going to read, I feel like I have to be in front of the computer. My friend Clive Thompson, if you Google Clive Thompson or search Clive Thompson on my tumblr, there’s a brilliant talk he gave about writing by hand versus typing on the computer. The research he found showed us that writing by hand is great for taking notes and for synthesizing ideas and coming up with new ideas, but when it comes to actually producing writing for a reader, typing on the computer or on a typewriter is better. That’s certainly true on my own practice. It feels like I’m not actually really writing until I’m hitting the keys. Kelton Reid: I love that research — and I’ve always been fascinated. I know you talk about that quite a bit — that synthesis and then the formality, or at least the ritual of actually getting it down. Do you have a most productive time of day or a place where you are most productive for your writing process? Austin Kleon: I have converted my garage into my studio, so I have what I call ‘the 8-foot commute’ from my backdoor of my house to the garage. You know that Weezer song? “In the garage, I feel safe.” That’s what happens. I go in. I flip on the lights. I crank the air conditioner, the window AC. I say hi to my lizard that likes to hang out on my air conditioner. He’s right there right now, actually. There’s something about the actual physical transition between going out the house, being out in the heat, and then coming into the garage, flipping on the lights, that gets me in the mode. I should probably mention that I have a weird setup. Last time we talked, I had two desks. Now, I actually have three desks. Kelton Reid: They’re multiplying? Austin Kleon: It’s getting a little out of control. I have one desk that’s the analog desk, and I talked about this in Steal Like An Artist. The analog desk, nothing electronic is allowed on there other than pencil sharpener. That’s for where I make my newspaper blackout poems and where I come up with ideas and letter stuff and that kind of thing. Then I have a digital desk, which is where I have my computer and my scanner and all that stuff. That’s where, like we said before, the real writing happens. How a Paper Dictionary Can Improve Your Writing Austin Kleon: Now I have another desk that’s more like a standing desk, which is my attempt to recreate a library carrel at the library. It’s got a bunch of reference stuff on it. I’ve got all my files above, so I file stuff. Then I have an actual paper dictionary there that’s this big honkin’ American Heritage. I go over there, and I look up words. I really recommend to folks use the dictionary and get a paper one. The dictionary on the Mac is pretty good, but a paper dictionary, there’s something about having to turn to the page and read the entry. Then you see all the words around the entry. You always find something interesting. That’s something I stole from John McPhee, the writer. He did this brilliant series of articles for The New Yorker about how he writes, and his big advice is never use a thesaurus. Never use a thesaurus. Always use a dictionary. Look up a word in the dictionary, and it’ll give you ideas for better phrases to use and that kind of stuff — so, yeah, three desks: analog desk, digital desk, and then my reference desk. I just dance between the three all day. I hate standing. I know there’s a big vogue right now for standing desks. I hate standing desks so much. I cannot write when I’m standing up. Part of the fun for me of being a writer is leaning back in my chair and staring out the window and then typing and then looking at the squirrel out my window, this lizard. That’s the fun for me, and I have a really nice office chair. That, for me, is the good stuff. Death to standing desks. Kelton Reid: It’s interesting you say that because I use my standing desk mostly just for correspondence stuff or when I’m just surfing Twitter or whatever. I can’t write at the standing desk, anything of any import. Austin Kleon: What you just said, that’s what happened to me. I have my computer on the standing desk, and I just found myself always walking over there and answering an email, blah, blah, blah, and doing that little light work. Then I never really was able to just zoom in and do stuff. Kelton Reid: Yeah, I’m with you. Are you a night owl, or do you get out there? Austin Kleon: I’m sorry. I didn’t even answer your question. Kelton Reid: That’s okay. Austin Kleon: I really like to work when the world is sleeping. I love early morning, and I love late nights. The problem with that is I have two kids. I really love to sleep, and that’s the only time they’re asleep. I cannot make myself get up that early anymore. I’m really lucky my wife stays home with the kids. It’s amazing that we’re able to do that. It’s also kind of insane, or drives my wife insane, but I basically keep 10 to 5 hours. It’s like working in an agency or something. It’s like 10 to 5, so I’m doomed to the afternoon, which Dickens called ‘Mongrel time’ — it’s neither day nor night. I hate the afternoon, but there’s something about being in the garage in the afternoon and losing track of what time it is that kind of helps — so afternoons for me. I hope, eventually, that I can just get up in the morning and write 1500 words at 5 am, but I just can’t do it yet. Kelton Reid: Are you cranking music in the garage, or do you prefer silence? Austin Kleon: It just depends on what I’m trying to do. If I’m researching and reading and just messing around or blogging, I’ll just listen to soul music or garage rock, just the stuff I like. If I’m really trying to come up with ideas and really write something, I’ll either put earplugs in — I know Dan Pink writes with earplugs. There’s something about having complete silence. You can hear your blood pumping. I love that. I also like music I can ignore, so I put on classical or jazz or Brian Eno or something like that. Then if I’m on deadline, if I’m doing something I hate that I know I have to finish, I will play the most meatheaded, loud stuff I can, like Soundgarden, ACDC, or Led Zeppelin, just the most meatheaded rock I can possibly muster. I’ll turn that up as loud as I dare, and I’ll just crank through. It’s almost like a punishment — it’s not funny but at Guantanamo, I think they play Metallica when they’re torturing people — and that’s kind of how I feel. It’s like, “Let’s play this metal music and torture yourself until you’re done.” The gun to your back, so to speak. That’s a horrible metaphor, but that’s kind of how it works. Kelton Reid: Hook up the electrodes. Austin Kleon: Yeah. Kelton Reid: You’re just an incredibly prolific online publisher by your blog, so when you’re working on a book at the same time, are you alternating between things, or are you getting out there every day and just cycling between stuff? The Difference Between Little Writing and Big Writing Austin Kleon: I try to post a few things every day. If you do that, it just seems like a lot. When I’m really working on a book, I’m pretty heads down on the book, and you’ll see the online stuff slow down. The one thing I want to make a point about is I just don’t really see a big difference, particularly with my process, between what we call ‘little writing’ and ‘big writing.’ Whether you’re making a Tweet, or you’re tumbling something or writing a blog post, or you’re writing a book, to me, it’s all typing in the boxes. I’ve had Tweets that led to blog posts that led to book chapters, you know what I mean? It’s all just kind of this stew. Why You Should Research Out in the Open Austin Kleon: The one thing that you can do — if you’re insane and you have too much time on your hands — is you can watch me. I’m researching in the open. You can see what I’m interested in, and you can get an idea of where I’m going without me telling you. That’s the ‘show your work’ thing is that I’ve been really interested in letting people watch me as I go, and then what happens is that all these stuff comes back at me. I’ll Tweet out something, and then somebody else will say, “Oh, well, have you read this?” I say “No,” and I look that up. It’s this cycle between publishing and receiving. It is, it’s a cycle. I know a lot of writers do it differently, but I like researching out in the open and letting people help me along. A lot of my books could probably be reconstructed from my online output, but in that nice little package. You pick up the book, it’s all there. It’s all been edited. It’s all trying to make this coherent argument, and it’s just not the same. I just like that — researching out in the open. Then eventually you get a book at the end of it. Kelton Reid: Just a quick pause to mention that The Writer Files is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take a free 14-day test drive at Rainmaker.FM/Platform. I love how you talk about creativity not being linear and the importance of the daily practice. You are practicing what you preach, but it’s cool. How Your Daily Ritual Can Save You from Failure Austin Kleon: It’s the only way I can see … when you’re young-er, because I’m not that old yet, but when you’re younger, you just think, “I’ll just arrive at some point. I’ll get to this point, and people will notice me, they’ll know me, and I can just sit back.” If you’re lucky enough to have a little bit of success when you’re younger like I did, it scares the crap out of you. You realize suddenly, “Oh, I’ve been talking a big talk about how I want to be a writer and how I want to be an artist and all that stuff, and now it could actually happen. I might have to do this the rest of my life.” Elizabeth Gilbert, I’ve never read any of her books. I love her. She’s done a beautiful profile of Tom Waits, and I’ve read a little bit of her non-fiction. She did this TED talk where, after Eat, Pray, Love came out, she said, “I probably have 40 years of work left, and it’s very possible that my biggest success is behind me.” Kelton Reid: I love that TED talk. I’ll link to it, but it’s so good. Austin Kleon: It’s so good, and it was so honest of her to get up there and be like, “I know. I know I was lucky. I know this might never happen again, but I have to keep going.” It’s funny because I think her next book actually wasn’t a very big success, and then she gave another TED talk, because she’s Elizabeth Gilbert, and talked about failure. For me, I just put this post up online recently. It was a little talk I gave about how everybody thinks creativity is like Don Draper closing his eyes and then having a big revelation. I never feel like Don Draper. I always feel like Phil Connors in Groundhog Day. Phil wakes up every day at 6 am, and he’s got to do something with his day. He knows there’s no tomorrow. He knows all he’s got is this day. I love that movie because, at first, he cheats, he fritters away the day, and then he falls into despair. Then, at the end, he realizes, “I just have to work. I have to practice a craft, or I just put the work in every day,” and that’s when his life gets better. As an artist or a writer, you really just have to get in to the dailyness. You have to figure out a daily routine in which you go out and you do your work, and then, if you have a daily practice and a ritual, you’re insulated from success and failure because they’ll both screw you up. Failure, we all know about. Success will do the same thing. It will knock you off your game, but if you have this dailyness to your work, that will pull you through so many situations. That’s why I love Mason Currey’s book Daily Rituals. Kelton Reid: Me too. That’s a good one. Austin Kleon: That’s like writer porn, right? You open it up, and it’s like, “Ooh.” The thing I really liked about that book is my books are prescriptive — I’m telling you what to do, like do this, do that. It’s bossy, and that has its place — but I like Mason’s book, Daily Rituals, because it’s just this big collage of what other people have done before you. Then it’s your job to pick and choose from what you want. But you get the sense when you read that book, it’s like, “You got to go in and make the doughnuts, every day.” You know what I mean? “You got to go in to the garage and make something happen, and it’s going to be the same tomorrow and the day after that, until you die.” If that seems daunting, you’re in the wrong work. Kelton Reid: That’s why I love Show Your Work!, where you’re talking about the incremental process. One of my favorite quotes, I don’t know if it’s from that book in particular, but where you say, “Writers aren’t born. They are made.” Austin Kleon: That’s something I have to believe for myself because I’m not superhumanly talented. I’ve got a decent amount of talent, but I’m not like James Brown. I’m not Miles Davis. But the funny thing, I just mentioned James Brown — there’s a great documentary about him out right now called Mr. Dynamite — and the thing about James Brown is you just realize this is a guy worked every day. He just never stopped. You’ll find that with all these geniuses. Not only were they superhumanly talented, they also worked all the time. I’m a lazy person. I always think of myself as a lazy person. I don’t like to work, but I know that if I don’t, I will do nothing. I had a really good creative writing professor named Steven Bauer, and his thing was, “Apply ass to chair.” “Apply ass to chair.” He’s like, “Write it on an index card and put it above your desk — apply ass to chair.” He was like the Allen thing. You just show up. If you show up every day and you do the work, those little bits and pieces of effort, over time, they add up into something. You write a page a day, it doesn’t seem like much in the day, and then at the end of the year, you got enough for a novel, 305 pages. Kelton Reid: Just veer from the script for a minute — do you feel like that transparency, where you’re giving your audience a window into your creative process, that has almost a psychological effect on you? Why Sharing Is the Most Powerful Thing You Can Do as a Writer Austin Kleon: It does, and you have to be careful with it. One thing I didn’t touch on, Show Your Work!’s supposed to be a pep talk. It’s supposed to push people who are afraid to open up a little bit — just try one little thing every day, but the thing about being transparent is you have to really gauge what and how and how much you show. You have to really look at your process and what’s really close to you that you can’t share. Then you have to think about what you can. The point I want to make with that is that I think people get this idea that I’m like, “Yeah, sure, everything dude. Put your novel on GitHub.” That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying find the little bits and pieces of your process that you think might be interesting or helpful to someone else, and push out those little bits and pieces as you’re working on something. In that way, you are around, first of all. People don’t forget about you. Then you’re able to keep your head down and do your work while you’re just sending out these little transmissions. That was really the idea behind Show Your Work!. When I’m really working on something that’s really important to me, like I didn’t share the journal when I was working on it. I knew I had two months to finish it before my son was born. I could not conceive of any way in which me sharing my work would benefit me in any sense, but the things I was sharing were like I was looking at other people’s notebooks, and I was Tweeting and tumbling out that stuff. Novelists will come to me, or fiction writers, they’re like, “Should I put drafts of my stories online?” I’m like “No. Don’t put drafts of your stories online. Save your drafts for your really close readers and for your writing group or your wife or whoever. What you should be doing is write about the books you’re reading, talk about a writing tool that you found really helpful, or talk about structure in a Hemingway story you’re reading.” Do that kind of stuff, that process-y stuff that you think no one cares about. Every fiction writer should be posting a list of books they’re reading. That’s the easiest thing in the world to do. From a marketing perspective, throw an associate’s code in there, and anyone who buys the book, get something back from it. I’m always amazed at writers who don’t tell people what they’re reading. I think a lot of people think that reading’s a personal thing. The reason people read you is that they’re hungry for the types of books you write, so if you read those types of books, too … The interesting thing about my genre is that I think a lot of people think I sit around and read creativity books all the time, which is not true. The reason that my books are interesting is because I read all kinds of different books. This has always been a personal thing for me. I have always felt like if I was true to the things I was really interested in and sharing the things I was really interested in, people would follow along just because, in the act of sharing things, that’s how I can either find my people or I can introduce people to new stuff. I don’t really like the word ‘curator,’ but I like sharing. In this day and age, one of the most powerful things you can do as a writer is to share stuff. Kelton Reid: Definitely. I love that. All right. Let’s just wrap up productivity with the writer’s block question. Do you buy in to it? Do you ever get it? 3 Symptoms of Writer s Block and How to Cure Them Austin Kleon: I feel like writer’s block is just exhaustion, laziness, or fear — or some combination of them. A lot of times when I’m blocked, it’s just that I don’t want to sit down and write. I just don’t want to because it’s just not my favorite thing to do. I would rather read. Fran Lebowitz, she’s like, “If you ever feel like writing, just lay down on the couch and read a bit. It will pass.” That’s how I feel. I also think that people hit walls, and a lot of times when nothing’s coming, when the output doesn’t happen, that’s because there’s problems of input. A lot of times problems of output are problems of input. If you don’t have anything coming out, that means there’s not good stuff going in. That could be anything from you need to take a trip, or you need to just walk away from your desk, or you need to stare at a wall for a while or read — just something to get something jump-started. A lot of times with block, some people try to power through a block, and I’m just like, eh, walk away for a bit. Everybody’s had that experience — you’re in the shower, you’re on a walk, and that’s when the juices start flowing. With that said, you need a time and place every day to do the work. Kelton Reid: Yeah, I like how you talk about the bliss station. You’ve been known to mention it. Austin Kleon: That’s a Joseph Campbell thing. Everybody’s heard the ‘follow your bliss’ thing from Joseph Campbell, but the one thing Joseph Campbell talked about in that, too, was having a bliss station, having a place where you can go, and no one’s going to bother you, and you feel very much at home, and you can do your work without the world impinging on it. For me, that’s the garage. Kelton Reid: What about workflow there in the garage? I know you did mention that you’re working on a Mac. What particular hardware are you presently working on? Why You Should Print Your Work and Read It Aloud Austin Kleon: I have two computers. I splurged and bought myself a big iMac. I write on that in the garage. I also have a 13-inch Macbook Air, which I think is probably one of the greatest laptops ever made. I had a 12-inch PowerBook in the early aughts that was wonderful, but this one, it’s about the same form factor actually. The Mac Air is such a fun computer to travel with and write on, but I don’t use anything fancy. It’s just off-the-shelf Macs. I write Google Docs, or sometimes I use Word. A lot of times now, I just type into a text file that’s getting saved to Dropbox. Dropbox is probably the one piece of software I couldn’t live without these days because it keeps everything. I even look at stuff on my phone. Macs with Dropbox on it, pretty much, you could do whatever you want. I just think so many of the writing programs, they’re just everything else. They’re just way too complicated. Just open a box and type in to it. That’s why I love TextEdit on the Mac. I just open that up, make the font really big, and start typing. Kelton Reid: That’s cool. Austin Kleon: I would like to see a series in which people actually talk about their nuts and bolts of what’s on their screen when they’re writing. I’ve noticed that, if I’m just trying to free write, if you make the font super, super big so you can’t see any of the other words, that’s a great mental tool to use on the word processor. But then if you’re editing, it’s really important to be able to see paragraphs and the shape of writing, so use the zoom tool, too. That’s a very underrated tool. Of course, the other thing I think is super important is you have to print your work out, look at it on a piece of paper, and edit it with pen. I also think everyone should read their writing aloud. Kelton Reid: I love both of those methods, honestly. Austin Kleon: Both of which are going out of fashion because everyone’s like, “Oh, paperless,” and it’s like “No.” And everyone works in an open office now, so it’s like you’re going to feel like a moron if you read your writing out loud. Those two hacks — printing stuff out, editing by hand, and reading aloud — are super easy ways to improve your writing. Kelton Reid: Love that. Do you have any methods of madness for staying organized over there? How to Personalize Your Organization Process Austin Kleon: I love Dropbox, like I said. Dropbox and really having a folder system in Dropbox helps. I just write stuff. I’m going to sound such a goof. I have three notebooks going all the time. One of them is a pocket notebook which I write down to-do lists and stupid ideas that I’m having and stuff like that. That just stays in my pocket. I have a sketchbook that I keep in the house and in the studio where I’ll collage stuff in there and then I’ll draw and that kind of thing. Then I have another notebook, what I call my logbook. It’s a 365-day moleskin diary, and every day at the end of the day, I write down — I don’t talk about my feelings or anything like that — I simply list what I did all day. Like “Went here for lunch,” “Went in and got my TSA pre-check application,” “Took the dog for a walk” — dumb stuff like that. I just list things, or what I was reading, or what I watched on TV. One of the things I’ve noticed — because it’s so hard to keep a diary — but if you just simply list, start to finish, the things you did every day in the list, when you’re flipping back through that, it recalls the whole day for you. You can remember how you were feeling. I have a terrible memory, so I love being able to go back. I have seven years of logbooks now, so I love being able to say “When did I replace the air filter in the attic?” I can go back six months and find it, or “When’s the last time I got a haircut?” That was really practical, but I can also say “Hey, how did I write the last book?” I’ll flip in to my logbook, and I’ll be like “Oh, well, here was a day where I did 4,500 words,” and “Here’s a day where I did nothing,” and “Here’s a day where I said I was going to give up and give the advance back.” You know what I mean? I have such a terrible memory that I just forget what it’s like to be in these projects. Having these books that I can flip back through, even with my kids, it was very helpful for me to look back on how I felt after two months of having my first kid. I was like “Oh, this existential dread and angst, this is how I felt last time, and it got better.” I think keeping a record of your day is something that a writer, we’re recorders of memory anyway, so that helps me a lot. Kelton Reid: I like that. You talk about ‘productive procrastination’ quite a bit, and you’ve written about it. Do you have some best practices for beating procrastination yourself? How to Harness the Power of Productive Procrastination Austin Kleon: Yes. The best thing to do is to practice what you said, productive procrastination, which means have one or two or three things going all at the same time. When you get sick of one thing, you can work on the other thing because you hate the other project so much. Then when you get sick of project two, you can move back to project one. You have to work, but you basically use procrastination as a way to get things done. For me, it’s like, “I don’t want to write this talk that’s coming up, so I’m going to do a blog post,” or “I don’t want to do this blog post, I’m going to go make a poem.” As long as you’re getting something done, you can use procrastination to be productive. Kelton Reid: Love it. How do you unplug at the end of a hard day there? Austin Kleon: Right now, about 8 o’clock at night, my wife and I, after we get our kids down, we just look at each other, and we give each other a hug. We’re like, “You did it. You did it again.” We sit down, and we just watch stupid television — just bathe in the glow of Louie or Hannibal. I love Broad City. Broad city is probably my favorite show. Then if we’re really wiped out — we only get a few channels because they changed to digital and we didn’t get one of those boxes. We only get a few channels and HGTV, so we’ll just turn on House Hunters and just watch the dumbest TV imaginable for 30 or 40 minutes. Then we just go to bed, and I read. That’s basically our ritual. That’s what TV’s for. It’s such a vogue thing that, “Oh, I don’t own a TV,” and I’m like, “That’s what TV is for, is to turn your brain off.” Everyone’s like, “I got to be productive. I got to do this.” Dude, sometimes you need to just not think about anything, and when you need to not think about anything, that is what television is there for. Kelton Reid: Yes. Austin Kleon: The Wire’s great and everything, but House Hunters is like therapy. Kelton Reid: At least you know how to buy a house in Caracas now. One great reminder from Mr. Kleon: writers aren’t born, they are made. Now it’s up to you to do that daily work it takes to get there. Thanks for tuning in to the first part of this interview. The second half will be published early next week, and I think you’re going to want to check it out. For more episodes of The Writer Files and all of the show notes, or to leave us a comment or a question, please drop by WriterFiles.FM. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes. Leave us a rating or review, and help other writers to find us. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. See you out there.

My guest for today's show is Elena Lipson, a Divine Self-Care Mentor who helps conscious mamas take care of their most important asset: Themselves! Women work so hard in their businesses and in their lives as mothers, friends, wives, etc. But what is it all worth if they are too tired, sick and stressed-out to enjoy it? That's the focus of Elena's programs & retreats. Elena's passion is to help tune the mind, body & spirit into income, balance & inspiration. In this episode, Elena tells us about coming out of the intuitive closet, the transition from corporate life to coaching, and how she incorporates intuition with her work with clients. Keep up with Elena on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Her feed is always inspiring! In this show, Elena references a great book that I also highly recommend, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by Mason Curry. (If you don't feel like adding another book to your pile here's the gist of it: go for long walks.)   I also mention The Transformation Game, a game of intention and intuition that originated at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. I've been playing it since I was 15 years old and host a monthly game night in my community. Warning: once you start, it's hard to stop. It's a wonderful way to spend a long evening but stock up on snacks and wine!

For more info visit http://lessdoing.com/ Check out Ari's book http://www.lessdoingbook.com Sign up for Entheos Conference https://www.entheos.com/The-Art-of-Less-Doing-and-More-Living/ari-meisel In this episode Ari talks with author Mason Currey about the daily rituals of some of the most creative people of all time. Currey's latest book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, goes into details about the practices that help get artist's creative juices flowing. From the bizarre to the mundane, Currey tells what worked for brilliant creatives, and how you can harness some of their creative power by creating your own daily rituals. ------- [Get the FREE Optimize, Automate, Outsource Blueprint here.](https://go.lessdoing.com/blueprint?utm_campaign=blueprint-ari&utm_medium=link&utm_source=podcast) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lessdoing/message

In an effort to understand his personal optimal rythm and flow, Mason Currey set out to amass as much information as he could find about the routines “brilliant and successful” creators adopted and followed. The result of his research was a book titled Daily Rituals: How Artists WorkHow Mason started developing rituals for his own craft of writingWhy Mason left a job at a library for a crash course in publishingBalancing a day job with a creative project that is fulfilling Finding the motivation and fire inside yourself to create Why the stuff you do for money isn't always your best creative workBuilding a bridge between your creativity and making a living How imitation of other artists destroys your creativity Finding your optimal rhythm and flow for your work Why you can't sit around waiting for inspiration to strike The reason most successful creative people have a very strict routineWhy doing the work gives you the ideas A look at the creative process across multiple art forms Avoiding distraction and carving out space for creating How correspondence use to be a useful corollary to creative workBecoming obsessed with your creative problem Mason Currey is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles. His first book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, was published by Knopf in April 2013 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.