Famous Daily Routines
Daily Routines is the web’s largest collection of the working habits of writers, philosophers, artists, drinkers, drug users - and just about every other weird and wonderful alternative to the old 9 to 5.
What is common is the number of early risers (and early resters) of the lot. Anthony Trollope’s working method is particularly insightful:
“Every day for years, Trollope reported in his “Autobiography,” he woke in darkness and wrote from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., with his watch in front of him. He required of himself two hundred and fifty words every quarter of an hour. If he finished one novel before eight-thirty, he took out a fresh piece of paper and started the next. The writing session was followed, for a long stretch of time, by a day job with the postal service. Plus, he said, he always hunted at least twice a week. Under this regimen, he produced forty-nine novels in thirty-five years. Having prospered so well, he urged his method on all writers: “Let their work be to them as is his common work to the common laborer. No gigantic efforts will then be necessary. He need tie no wet towels round his brow, nor sit for thirty hours at his desk without moving,—as men have sat, or said that they have sat.”
Joseph Campbell, with acres of free time (due to the Great Depression), felt compelled to divide up his day into four sections of three hours each - one of which could be given over to optional free time. Benjamin Franklin’s was assiduously laid out for him in advance. Philip Roth gave nearly all his time for work, saying “I’m on a call. I’m like a doctor and it’s an emergency room. And I’m the emergency.”
Others, like the philosopher Alain de Botton are interesting to read as they incorporate modern distractions, such as email and reading things on the web in the mornings. Surrounded by such good company, one’s own daily routine suddenly becomes elevated to a high art.
Great stuff indeed. What’s your favorite - or most productive - routine?
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