Do Interesting: Notice. Collect. Share. (Do Books Book 36)

Research is formalised curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. Zora Neale Hurston

Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager. Susan Sontag

James Bridle is an inveterate read-arounder too: Something seems interesting enough to make a mark about it, but you also leave the door open: you don’t see that thing in isolation, you start to notice other things that are like it in some way. Or, crucially, you start to notice a territory that is defined by these apparently disparate but actually

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Octavia E. Butler

antharris.co/challenges.

Create a ‘limited edition’ version of something you’re making. Give it a name. Finish it.

You can make your work — and the world — more interesting by practising three things: — Noticing — if you pay more attention to the world, it starts to look more interesting — Collecting — if you bang together the things you’ve noticed, they get more interesting again — Sharing — if you get good at sharing all that stuff with people, it gets even b

Pursue more than one interest. Stick things that look different next to each other. Move things around. Make something a fixed point and move other ideas/objects/pictures around it to see what happens. Make your interests messy. This is how slow hunches happen. It’s also a really good creative shortcut.

‘Mindfulness is the process of actively noticing new things. When you do that, it puts you in the present. It makes you more sensitive to context and perspective. It’s the essence of engagement. And it’s energy-begetting, not energy-consuming.’