Daily Routines of Famous
and Creative People

Pablo Picasso would not have liked The 5 AM Miracle. He was a late riser, typically finding himself crawling out of bed near noon. He also did his best work from 3:00 pm until 10:00 pm, not bright and early like I do.

Photo Credit: Beta-J

Honoré de Balzac, a French novelist and playwright, took The 5 AM Miracle to the extreme and typically woke up around 1:00 am. He did his best work until 3:00 pm with a short nap around 8 in the morning.

How can highly successful people approach their day from near polar opposite directions?

It appears that you can tap into your own creative genius by scheduling your life in nearly any way you desire.

Daily Routines of Famous and Creative People

Mason Curry wrote a great book called, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, in which he describes the daily routines of over 160 inspiring minds including playwrights, novelists, poets, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians.

What stuck me right away from the habits of these famous and creative individuals is the vast differences between them. Sure, there are many similarities (like the fact that many of them drank excessive amounts of alcohol and abused drugs on a daily basis), but the differences in habits were just as surprising.

Some woke up early, like Benjamin Franklin and Maya Angelou around 5:00 am, while others slept in, like Picasso and William Styron around 11:00 am. Franz Kafka was one of the few with a unique sleeping pattern that resembled polyphasic sleep where he would rest in 2-3 chunks throughout the day.

Some of these creatives worked in long, focused blocks of time, like Voltaire and Beethoven, while others worked in sporadic chunks, like Victor Hugo and Charles Darwin.

There were even a few, like Immanuel Kant and Mary Flannery O’Conner, who seemed to never work at all. They averaged 2-3 hours per day at the most.

Find Your Rhythm

I wish I could say that all creative and successful people had a secret hidden in their daily routines that we could discover and then start emulating. Unfortunately, what appears to be the case is that each brilliant mind worked its brilliance in its own unique way.

Finding and optimizing your own unique rhythm is likely the best answer for you.

Based on a lot of trial and error, I know that my mind is in its best shape for creative work about 3-4 hours after I wake up, and usually about a hour after I go for a run. I then typically have another random boost of creative energy about 2-3 hours before I go to bed, just after the afternoon energy dip.

Your rhythms are likely different than mine, but knowing when they take place gives you the best chance to take advantage of them. I like to do my creative work when my brain is awake and ready to work, and then schedule boring and easy tasks when my mind is tired and ready for a break.

In this way I can always optimize my natural daily cycles of high energy and productivity with my predictable dips in enthusiasm and focus.

Which Routine Will You Model?

The best way to steal ideas from highly accomplished people is to simply copy their behavior. With so much information available about the routines of famous and creative people, it’s easy to adopt some of their best habits and mimic (at least some of) their success.

When would you ideally work on your most creative projects?

When would you sleep?

How predictable are your natural energy cycles and how can you best optimize them?

Next Week

On the blog next week I will be discussing how to feel more productive (and actually get more done) by closing open loops.