In his book, Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon says “Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.”
Although his advice is directed primarily toward those who are “creatives” (writers, artists, and such), it’s good advice for all humans who want to be continually growing and improving.
Sometimes advice about self-improvement and creativity is complicated and involves setting up elaborate systems. I like this advice because it’s simple and straightforward, and I can do it.
One of Kleon’s main points in his book is that “nothing comes from nowhere.” All creative work is built on work that has come before. So as creatives, it makes sense for us to collect good ideas to build upon.
4 Great Reasons to Collect Good Ideas
1. Good ideas can serve as inspiration for your creative projects. Good ideas that I’ve read and highlighted (and saved in Readwise) are the basis for about 80% of my blog post ideas.
Like most people, I’m not great at sitting around and just dreaming up creative project ideas on my own. I need the help of good ideas that others have written to spark my inspiration.
2. Good ideas can inform and influence the projects you are working on right now. While collecting good ideas reading or listening to podcasts, I often find ideas that apply to one or more projects I’m working on. These help me to gain new insights or directions to take a project, and sometimes provide quotes for a blog post.
3. Good ideas can improve your personal growth. If you read material about personal growth topics like ethics or life hacks, they can help you grow.
I’ve been reading about Stoic philosophy daily in The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, by Ryan Holiday. Almost every day, I find principles and practices to help me become a better person. Just this morning, I read a mini-lesson about how we are what we do, not what we say. It reminded me that my actions speak much louder than my words.
4. Collecting good ideas provides you with building blocks you can use for future projects.
If I read a good idea, even if I have no use for it right now, I save it. I don’t know what I’ll be working on in the future, and it may prove useful then.
Instead of starting out with just an idea, I’ll already have some material to build on.
What Good Ideas Should You Collect?
There’s an almost infinite number of “good ideas” floating around. How do we know what to keep?
Don’t keep every good idea you encounter. Hoarding information soon becomes unmanageable and limits its usefulness. When you have a mass of information, it is almost impossible to find what’s useful for any given project.
You don’t need to keep what’s generally available on the web. With a Google search, you can easily find statistical information and encyclopedia-type material.
Here are 3 suggestions for determining what to keep and what to discard:
1. Collect what you love. Austin Kleon suggests, “Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love.” Steal Like an Artist .
In other words, don’t just collect “good ideas.” Collect good ideas that you really like or spark interest in you.
2. Collect what resonates with you. Tiago Forte has popularized a system for keeping good ideas in his book, Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential.
In his book, Forte warns about the danger of trying to keep everything that, we think, might be remotely useful. He suggests, “The solution is to keep only what resonates … and to leave the rest aside.”
“When something “resonates with you,” it hits you on an emotional level because you can relate to it. It moves you and evokes a feeling of familiarity within you. On some occasions, it might even inspire you to take action.” “Resonated with me”: Meaning, Usage & Examples.
Forte suggests four other specific criteria for deciding what to keep:
• Does it inspire me? It’s something that motivates you or sparks your imagination.
• is it useful? You know it might come in handy in the future.
• Is it personal? My own thoughts about what I read.
• Is it surprising? If it’s surprising, it’s likely new information and maybe lead to change. You don’t need to keep good ideas about things you already know.
3. Collect what you can use on projects you’re working on right now, or plan to start in the near future. If you see a good idea that applies to a project you’re working on, or a project you intend to start soon, keep it. You know you’ll be using it.
Where Are You Going to Keep All Your Good Ideas, and How Are You Going to Find Them?
You won’t remember the good ideas you encounter.
Because our memories fail, we need a system for preserving the good ideas we want to keep. A useful system allows us to retrieve ideas when we want to use them or find them when we’re working on a project where they’d be helpful.
Digital vs. Analog Storage
You could keep a record of your good ideas in a paper notebook or journal. But good luck finding that one specific quote or idea months or years later.
Storing, retrieving, and using good ideas in digital storage is superior to analog storage.
• Digital storage allows for electronic searches. This alone makes it the format of choice.
• Digital storage accepts all types of file formats. It’s impossible to store a PDF, movie, or audio clip on paper.
• Digitally stored files can be easily manipulated, copied and pasted, and reproduced for use in other contexts. When I’m writing a blog post I often find quotes I want to use in my post.
Digital storage makes it simple for me to copy a quote, the author, and the source, and paste it into my Craft file when first considering a post, paste it into a MindNode file while researching and organizing my writing, and paste it into my blog post draft. The quote from Austin Kleon that this post is based on and appears in the featured image and opening line went through this process.
Readwise Highlights
I do almost all of my reading of books, articles, and blog posts on the Kindle app on my iPad. I find digital reading works best for me both to do the actual reading and make saving good ideas easy and practical. See my post, Digital vs. Analog — Is Analog Reading Less Distracting Than Digital Reading?
When I highlight a good idea in a book or article, the Readwise service I subscribe to automatically saves it for me. I can browse the highlights by book or article, or I can search for highlights when I’m doing research.
Readwise delivers to me every morning 15 random highlights. I’ve typically forgotten about these good ideas, and they often spark an idea for a creative project. To me, this is an invaluable service.
The Readwise service isn’t cheap (A lite version is $4.99 per month and a Pro version costs $7.99 per month; there are 50% discounts for students, military, and first responders), but I gladly pay the subscription cost. It’s one of the most valuable and useful apps I use.
A PKM System
I use a PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) system to maintain and retrieve the good ideas I want to preserve.
Readwise serves as an important part of that PKM system. However, not every good idea I find is a highlight in a book or article.
A PKM system needs to be able to include good ideas in all kinds of formats:
• Notes I make of my ideas or ideas I obtained from others.
• Highlights from books and articles I read.
• Photos, audio clips, or videos.
• Diagrams.
• Complete articles, not just highlights.
You want a PKM system that can easily accept and display all types of files, not just plain text or markdown. Good ideas come in all digital formats: PDFs, images, movies, mp3s, emails, MindNode files, and different text formats.
Another requirement for a PKM system is great search capabilities, so you can find good ideas when needed.
I use a combination of Readwise, DevonThink, and Craft as my PKM system. Using these three apps, I can store any good ideas that resonate with me in whatever file format they are in. And more importantly, I can find them when I require them. I don’t use notes apps like Obsidian because they don’t easily accept and display file formats other than markdown.
Start Collecting Good Ideas Now
All of us who are creatives build our work on the ideas of others. To inspire new ideas and projects, our job is to collect new ideas.
Read widely in the areas that interest you, and preserve the good ideas that resonate with you in a PKM system that works for you. Find a system that takes all file types and has effective search capabilities.
This may be a combination of Readwise and another note-taking app or two. Use what works best for you.