Not Overthinking Austin Kleon on Writing, Creativity and The Importance of Idleness
Share Learning, Not Expert Status
- Present yourself as a fellow student rather than an expert to free yourself from perfection pressure.
- Share what you're learning and let enthusiasm, not credentials, build connection with your audience.
Write Daily To Find Your Voice
- Write daily to discover what you actually have to say rather than waiting for ideas to appear.
- Use short, regular writing sessions as a way to communicate with yourself and unearth thoughts.
Assume The Book Already Exists
- Treat a book as something you've already written and only need to discover and reorder from your existing work.
- Use a daily 'power hour' and playful rituals to make sustained writing manageable and fun.
This is an 'inbetweenasode' and features an interview Ali did with Austin Kleon as part of his Deep Dive series last month. Austin Kleon is the bestselling author of a trilogy of books about creativity and originality in the digital age. His three books - Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work! and Keep Going - have sold millions of copies around the world and inspired thousands of people, including myself. In their conversation they talked about Austin’s books, the value of writing daily and also the important balance between idleness and creativity.
Books Mentioned
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Documentaries Mentioned
Supermensch - The Legend of Shep Gordon
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Not Overthinking is a podcast about happiness, creativity, and the human condition. We talk about things to help us think, do, and be better. Things like social interaction, lifestyle design, mental models... Things that are hard to examine, but important to explore. And hopefully, things that make for a fun and interesting chat every week.
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Ali is a junior doctor and YouTuber working in Cambridge, UK. He makes videos about medicine, technology, productivity and lifestyle design. His links: YouTube, Blog, Newsletter, Instagram
Taimur is a data scientist and writer, working on his own startup Causal. He writes on his blog and as a columnist for Medium. His links: Blog, Twitter, Medium, Instagram
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