Everyone is publishing something these days: either about their life or their work.

I get that people like to share about beautiful moments of their life: photos from a gathering, nice views from a hike, delicious food and drink.

But how about work? Should that be experts’s job to teach others? What’s the benefits for a beginner to share their work?

Do they feel insecure by putting their ‘intellectual babies’ (e.g. their code, their ideas) out there?

I have always been wondering about these questions. Luckily, this book Show your work by Austin answered most of these questions in someway.

My major takeaway: your work doesn’t have to be master piece to be sharable, it serves as a documentation/notebook of work in progress, it helps you find friends with shared interests.

I found this book resonates a lot with Philips Guo and many others: the only way to do good work is to do lots of work. They both quote Ira Grass’s words:

“Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?

And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?”

And sharing your progress will help you learn and get better.

Notes From: Kleon, Austin. “Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered.”

A new way of operating

Now it’s a good time to add sharing into your routine: posting about your work, your ideas.

This helps you practice expression of your ideas and find audience.

And don’t be afraid to share just as a beginner, since there are many possibilities in beginner’s mind.

1. You don’t have to be genius

Even if you are just a beginner, contributing your progress may help others learn from your failures and successes.

“The only way to find your voice is to use it. ”

2. Think process, not product

For us who are making art/craft/something, the process, the experience matters.

Sharing the process might be more valuable than the product. This idea is very important, usually what we learn most is from the process, not the end product.

The author offered a tip: document your progress everyday no matter you’re sharing or not

3. share something small everyday

“Don’t show your lunch or your latte; show your work.”

The author encourages us to stick with a blog, maintain it and let it change with us.

4. Open up your cabinet of curiosities

Find things you love and let others know how you feel about them.

5. Tell good stories

The author mentioned good work doesn’t speak for itself, it still need a good story.

And this is a way to build connections: “humans want to connect. ”

6. teach what you know

Share the steps you take to learn something.

7. Don’t turn into human spam

I think this part is about share what you love and try your best to make content of good quality.

8. learn to take a punch

9. sell out

I used to be sort of unhappy when I see people used to blog for pure joy start to monetize there work. Now I think I was wrong.

They have good stuff that people want and they have the rights to take the opportunities to monetize those.

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies. —Walt Disney”

10. stick around

Don’t quit.

Don’t be afraid to start over or begin again, what you learned before will still be valuable.