When it comes to the creative process, patience is accepting that the majority of the work we do is out of our control. - Rick Rubin

If you make the choice of reading classic literature every day for a year, rather than reading the news, by the end of that time period you’ll have a more honed sensitivity for recognizing greatness from the books than from the media.

Small Steps To create movement for a musician who was blocked, we offered him a small task: write just one line every day. It didn’t matter how good or bad he felt about the line, as long as he committed to writing it. If more came through, that was fine but not necessary. By breaking down what seemed insurmountable into single lines, he was able to reopen the creative channel and eventually began composing entire songs again. This happened much more quickly than expected.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace,” Charles Mingus once said. “Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.