RD x's Key Ideas from Steal Like an Artist
by Austin Kleon

• Films
• Music
• Books
• Paintings
• Photos
• Poems
• Dreams
• Random Conversations
• Architecture
• Street Signs
• Trees
• Clouds
• Nature
• Water
• Light
• Shadows
• Anything

Steal that touches your soul, this theft will be Authentic

Chew on 1 thinker/role model you like, Study everything about him & then find the 3 people he follows/loves and now study them like you study him and repeat the process as many times as you can.

Climb up the tree as far as you can go. Once you build your tree, its time to start your own branch.

• School is one thing/education is another.
• Be curious about anything, then go deeper into one thing than anybody else, that’s how you’ll get ahead.
• Google everything from your dreams, problems, solutions, foolish questions. This way you’ll either get your answers or you’ll come up with a better question.
• Always be reading- There is a magic in being surrounded by books, collect the books and read them. Get lost in the stacks.
• “Nothing is more important than an unread library” - John Waters

• Always carry a pen and paper or any tool with you wherever you go to collect ideas and put them into a ‘Swipe File’ (Open this whenever you need any inspiration)

If you are ready for creating something, just start making. Don’t wait for the specific or perfect time, just start

• Start copying as we learn almost everything by copying e.g. Writing by copying alphabets, music by playing scales repeatedly.
• Those who don’t want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
• Figure out about who to copy and how to copy.

Draw the art you want to see,

Start the business you want to run,

Play the music you want to hear,

Write the books you want to read

Build the products you want to use.

Step away from screen, do some work/art, but perform physically.

Go through the motions, Screens should get ‘on’ after you plan or think about any idea completely.

Bring your body into work, art that only comes from the head isn’t any good

We must have 2 or more projects at hand, so if we bored from one, move to other and if we get sick of other we can switch to third or start the first where we left.

Bounce between these side projects and hobbies to practice this productive procrastination.

Combine all your hobbies/passions and make your real masterpiece.

In the beginning, obscurity is good as you are unknown, so there is no pressure of performance and no image to maintain in public.

GraduallyDo good work and share it with people, wonder at something and invite others to wonder with you.

Leave home at least once to see the change in your everyday surroundings. Make your brain 🧠 uncomfortable by going to different places, meeting different kind of people who do things differently than you.

If you want to complain about the way other people make software, then complain by making a better one.

Money

• Make yourself a budget
• Live within your means
• Get educated for as cheap as you can
• Say no to consumer culture

• It gives you money
• Connections to the world
• Routine

A Day Job put you to the path of other human beings, learn from them, steal from them like

• Library job can teach how to research
• Web design job can teach how to build website
• Copywriting job can teach how to sell things with words.

Worst thing a day job can take away is your time, but it makes that up by giving you a routine.

” Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time”.

So,

• Keep a calendar to cross ✅ your work daily and
• Get a logbook to record and see your past events.

HAPPY STEALING-

RDx.