In his response to my post from yesterday, my friend, CJ Chilvers, made this fantastic comment:
I’ve always stressed constraints in creating art, not necessarily sharing art.
This instantly makes me think about the challenge between creating the work and sharing the work…. a topic I could write about all day long. Because, well, as someone who creates things for a living and then puts them out there, I kinda need to nail it when it comes to both creating and sharing.
Earlier this year for my book club, we read through Show Your Work, by Austin Kleon. And in that article I wrote about how I have two modes of work: Monk Mode and Publishing Mode.
When I’m in Monk Mode, I have a tendency to go dark to the outside world. All of my working hours are spent with my keyboard, some books, my team, and a whiteboard. I don’t publish much to my websites, nor do I update Twitter or Instagram all that much.
But when I’m in “Publishing Mode” then it’s somewhat the opposite. Most of my working hours are spent publishing things to my sites, tweeting, etc. But I’m not focusing on any particular project or product.
A goal of mine has been to operate in both of these modes simultaneously. And, to be candid, it’s a huge challenge.
You’ve no doubt noticed that for the past few weeks I’ve been publishing here every day. Which I have loved (and I will share more about it next year). But this “publishing mode” has been, in part, made possible because I am not head down in “monk mode”.
Relatedly, Austin Kleon recently wrote an article about “how to hide and still be found”.
In which he states that his book — Show Your Work — was “for people who were great at hiding, but not so great at being findable.”
So but what about for those on the other side? The side that needs help hiding?
Austin doesn’t have the answer (yet?), but he does write this:
We seem to have being out there nailed. We’re all of us, it seems, out there. Maybe we need some help learning how to hide again?
For me, that’s what this year has been about: Learning how to hide and still be found. How to stay connected overall, but how to disconnect in crucial ways that allow me to recover some calm, some privacy, some inner sense of self, so that I can make great things to share. Because if you don’t hide, at least a little bit, it’s hard to make something worth being found.
As I wrote about back in August, I was in search of a workflow and rhythm that supported (a) doing deep work and creating huge pillar products while also (b) frequently publishing articles, podcasts, ideas, links, inspiration, etc.
It’s now December and I’m not there yet. But I think a big piece of the puzzle is what CJ said, and what I quoted at the beginning of this post…
Use constraints when creating, not when sharing.