· By Andre Woolery
Austin Kleon, Curating Creative Nourishment
Austin Kleon's Media Diet
Austin Kleon transformed his creative practice by deliberately curating his "inspiration diet." "You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences," Kleon writes. While working on "Steal Like an Artist," he realized he needed to treat his inputs as seriously as his outputs.
He developed a system of "media dieting," selecting what enters his awareness and treating attention as a valuable resource. He maintains an analog desk disconnected from digital inputs where he processes inspiration. His diet includes library visits for serendipitous discoveries and a curated social feed of diverse perspectives. A swipe file of images and quotes gets regularly purged of anything that no longer energizes him.
When struggling with a project, Kleon doesn't force output. He adjusts his inspiration diet, recognizing that quality input precedes quality output. Curating consumption deliberately, choosing quality over quantity, diversity over homogeneity, and depth over distraction, directly impacts creative vitality.
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Steal This Ritual
Principles of a healthy inspiration diet:
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Quality Over Quantity: Choose depth over distraction
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Source Diversity: Curate across different mediums and cultures
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Processing: Reflect on what you consume
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Detoxing: Eliminate influences that no longer serve you
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Project Specific: Adjust inspiration based on current needs
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To explore the full approach behind this story, pull card #32 in the Creative Mastermind Deck
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