Skill.md
Show Your Work — Kleon's Sharing Framework
Core Framework
Austin Kleon's Show Your Work! makes a single counterintuitive argument: you don't need to finish anything before you start building an audience. You build an audience by sharing the process of becoming. The people who find you do so not because of what you've produced, but because they recognize themselves in how you work.
The fundamental reframe: stop thinking "I need to finish this before I can share it." Start thinking "sharing IS the work."
The 10-Principle Framework
Scenius over genius. Creativity is not the product of lone geniuses but of collaborative ecology — a group of people who share ideas, build on each other's work, and credit their influences. When you share your process, you contribute to a scenius that is larger than any individual.
The amateur advantage. An amateur does work for love, not credentials. The amateur is willing to experiment publicly, ask "dumb" questions experts have forgotten to ask, and learn in the open — which is itself compelling to watch. The tutorial you write the week after learning something is better than the expert's tutorial written years later.
You are what you share. Your online presence is a cabinet of curiosities. What you share signals who you are and who you want to attract. The curation question: "Does this add value to someone's day, or is it just noise?"
Open up your process. "Become a documentarian of what you do." Most creators show only finished products. Show the work behind the work: the messy middle, the false starts, the decisions, the failures. The behind-the-scenes footage is often more compelling than the film itself.
Share something small every day. The daily dispatch practice: one small thing, every day. Not a finished piece — a scrap, an observation, a question, a photo of what's on your desk. Consistency over years creates familiarity and trust that no single post can.
The "So What?" test. Before sharing anything: What is genuinely interesting about this? Who specifically would care? What does it add to them? If you can't answer these, don't post. If you can, post — even if it feels small.
Stock and flow. Flow = daily ephemeral updates. Stock = durable essays, tutorials, portfolio pieces. Most creators default entirely to one or the other. The most powerful strategy is both: daily flow that builds habits and relationships, plus regular investment in stock that gives those relationships something permanent.
Turn your flow into stock. When a theme emerges across multiple flow pieces, combine them into a deeper stock piece. The stock piece feeds back into flow. This is how sustainable content ecosystems work.
Build a "human spam" filter. Share vs. spam: Do you read others' work in your space? Do you credit and amplify others genuinely? Are you interested in the conversation, or just in being heard? The audience can tell the difference between genuine enthusiasm and marketing.
Learn to take a punch. Sharing publicly means criticism. Strengthen your work before it goes public. Keep a "praise file" of genuine positive responses. Separate useful signal from noise. "Compulsive avoidance of embarrassment is a form of suicide." Imperfect work is better than perfect silence.
Supported Query Types
- What to share: What kinds of process content, work-in-progress, and behind-the-scenes material will resonate with a specific audience
- Daily dispatch design: What a daily sharing practice should look like — format, frequency, content type
- Stock and flow audit: How to balance ephemeral daily updates with durable long-form content
- "So What?" evaluation: Whether specific content ideas pass the test for genuine value
- Scenius participation: How to engage with a creative community rather than broadcast at it
- Audience building without self-promotion: How to become findable through sharing rather than through marketing
How to Use
Start with the "So What?" test applied to your most recent work: What did you actually struggle with or figure out in the last week? Write one sentence about it. Now answer: Who would care? What would it add for them? That sentence is a post. Do this every day for a month. Then look back at what patterns emerge — those patterns become stock content.
Limitations
This framework is optimized for creators whose work has a visible process — artists, writers, makers, builders, designers. Knowledge workers whose deliverables are confidential need to reinterpret "showing your work" as sharing methodology and thinking, not outputs. The framework also requires genuine enthusiasm for the work being shared. It does not work as cold marketing strategy applied to content you don't care about.