I’m reading Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey at the moment. It’s a compilation of short pieces about individual artists: writers, composers, poets, painters, sculptors, philosophers, architects, photographers, and their work days: “how they made the time each day to do their best work, how they organized their schedules in order to be creative and productive.”
I’ve been fascinated, and amazed that for these supremely creative people, the way they’ve produced some of the most amazing works is just by daily hard slog. I suppose I’ve had this romantic notion that it’s all about amazing flashes of inspiration, et voilà! Talent has a lot to do with it, of course, but the point that is made is that it’s about regular, constant work, without waiting for the muse. Oh, and they all worked damn hard.
What was most interesting to me is the fact that the majority seem to have had a routine they followed. Which of course has made me ponder my own:
0500 Alarm goes off. Let the chihuahuas out. Give the chihuahuas a treat (they go back to bed after this.) Put the kettle on, make a cup of tea.
0510 Read
0530 Write
0600 Hopefully have a blog post. Another cuppa. More reading.
0630 Get ready for work. Shower, dress, make lunch, etc.
0730 Walk to train station with M.
0800 Train to the office. More reading (usually Twitter and feeds)
0830 Arrive at station. Walk to campus.
0840 Arrive at the office. (The work day varies)
1700 (or thereabouts) Travel home. Online chat.
1800 Arrive home. Play with the chihuahuas. Make/obtain dinner.
1900 Dinner. Usually watch some TV while eating.
1930 Feed the chihuahuas. Reading, writing (usually drafting a post), music.
2130 Bed.
What amazing work am I going to produce out of this? Hmm.
On weekdays I do like having a routine. I have to think more about what the weekends are like. They vary a lot more.
There’s more on the book itself at Brainpickings.
Clock image by Twm on Flickr.
3 Comments
Excellent reading material. And publishing your own routine has made me reflect on my own – I’m currently between routines!
I love that you make time at the beginning and end of your day for reading and writing. My days are filled with both, but not the kind that I’d like to be doing. Once the thesis is over, I hope I still make time to write, and rekindle my love of (non-thesis-related) reading. Most of my blog posts spew out of my brain at 3am these days.
I’m a chronic day-scheduler; as I go through things I actually enter them into my gCal (wake up, eat, shower, work, gym, study, etc – although, who am I kidding? I’m a student; I don’t shower until after lunch). There are vague ideas of things that I want/need to achieve, and a very detailed list of things I absolutely must do in order to one day finish uni, but rarely do they meet. I find it really helpful, however, to be able to reflect on my day and how productive it was, but I’m far from having any kind of routine. I’ve gone from being someone who needed x amount of hours to tackle a task, to someone who finds ten minutes here and there for the little things.
I suppose what I am saying is that your creativity is probably to be found in the time in between the routine-y things 🙂
/end ramble
Ya, I do try and leave time for Nothing Planned. This seems to happen mostly on the weekends. I think I need the routine and the discipline of the routine to get me through my work week!
Thanks for stopping by, Erin 🙂