Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad (Austin Kleon)

“Suckcess” is what poet Jean Cocteau was referring to when he said, “There is a kind of success worse than failure.”

In her ongoing project Seat Assignment, artist Nina Katchadourian uses long, disconnected plane rides to make art using only her camera phone,

you need a good place to have some bad ideas.

What your daily routine consists of is not that important. What’s important is that the routine exists.

Your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess, which is why everyone wants to steal it from you. First you must protect it, and then you must point it in the right direction.

“There is no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as th

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

Rather than restricting your freedom, a routine gives you freedom by protecting you from the ups and downs of life and helping you take advantage of your limited time, energy, and talent. A routine establishes good habits that can lead to your best work.

I keep a daily diary for many reasons, but the main one is that it helps me pay attention to my life. By sitting down every morning and writing about my life, I pay attention to it, and over time, I have a record of what I’ve paid attention to.

You have to pay attention to the rhythms and cycles of your creative output and learn to be patient in the off-seasons. You have to give yourself time to change and observe your own patterns. “Live in each season as it passes,” wrote Henry David Thoreau, “and resign yourself to the influences of each.”