Daily Rituals How Artists Work

✏️ Highlights

must you give things up (sleep, income, a clean house), or can you learn to condense activities, to do more in less time, to “work smarter, not harder,”

More broadly, are comfort and creativity incompatible, or is the opposite true: Is finding a basic level of daily comfort a prerequisite for sustained creative work?

A solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.

he said, we can “free our minds to advance to really interesting fields of action.” Ironically, James himself was a chronic procrastinator and could never stick to a regular schedule (see this page).

I’m a classic “morning person,” capable of considerable focus in the early hours but pretty much useless after lunch.

the Daily Routines blog I launched that very afternoon (my magazine story got written in a last-minute panic the next morning) and, now, this book.

racked by doubt and insecurity. In reality, most of the people in this book are somewhere in the middle—

most of the people in this book are somewhere in the middle—committed to daily work but never entirely confident of their progress; always wary of the one off day that undoes the streak.

“Eating, drinking, writing, shopping, crossword puzzles, even the mailman’s arrival—all are timed to the minute and with accompanying routines.” Auden believed that a life of such military precision was essential to his creativity, a way of taming the muse to his own schedule. “A modern stoic,” he observed, “knows that the surest way to discipline passion is to discipline time: decide what you want or ought to do during the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day,

went to bed early, never later than 11:00 and, as he grew

“Only the ‘Hitlers of the world’

“Only the ‘Hitlers of the world’ work at night; no honest artist does.”)

To maintain his energy and concentration, the poet relied on amphetamines, taking a dose of Benzedrine each morning the way many people take a daily multivitamin. At night, he used

“I often like working with a hangover,” he said, “because my mind is crackling with energy and I can think very clearly.”

There were no parties, no receptions, no bourgeois values. We completely avoided all that. There was the presence only of essentials. It was an uncluttered kind of life, a simplicity deliberately constructed so that she could do her work.

On the first morning, I thought to lie in bed, but she got up, dressed and went to her work table. “You work there,” she said, pointing at the bed. So I got up and sat on the edge of the bed and smoked and pretended that I was working. I don’t think she said a word to me until it was time for lunch. Then she went to

her daily schedule also revolved around her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, which lasted from 1929 until his death in 1980. (Theirs was an intellectual partnership with a somewhat creepy sexual component; according to a pact proposed by Sartre at the outset of their relationship, both partners could take other lovers, but they were required to tell each other everything.)

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)

“I first have tea and then, at about ten o’clock, I get under way and work until one. Then I see my friends and after that, at five o’clock, I go back to work and continue until nine.

Wolfe’s prose has been criticized for its overindulgence and adolescent character,

a writing ritual that was almost literally masturbatory.

at the window, he had been unconsciously fondling his genitals,

Wolfe tried to figure out what had prompted the sudden change—and realized that, at the window, he had been unconsciously fondling his genitals, a habit from childhood that, while not exactly sexual (his “penis remained limp and unaroused,” he noted in a letter to his editor), fostered such a “good male feeling” that it had stoked his creative energies.

Wolfe typically began writing around midnight, “priming himself with awesome quantities of tea and coffee,” as one biographer noted.

Since he could never find a chair or table that was totally comfortable for a man of his height (Wolfe was 6’6″), he usually wrote standing up, using the top of the refrigerator as his desk.

Highsmith was rarely short of inspiration; she had ideas, she said, like rats have orgasms. Highsmith wrote daily, usually

Highsmith was rarely short of inspiration; she had ideas, she said, like rats have orgasms.

Highsmith wrote daily, usually for three or four hours in the morning, completing two thousand words on a good day.

Her favourite technique to ease herself into the right frame of mind for work was to sit on her bed surrounded by cigarettes, ashtray, matches, a mug of coffee, a doughnut and an accompanying saucer of sugar.

She had to avoid any sense of discipline and make the act of writing as pleasurable as possible. Her position, she noted, would be almost foetal and, indeed, her intention was to create, she said, “a womb of her own.”

In her later years, as she became a hardened drinker with a high tolerance, she kept a bottle of vodka by her bedside, reaching for it as soon as she woke and marking the bottle to set her limit for the day.

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995)

author of such psychological thrillers as Strangers on a Train and

Writing was less a source of pleasure for her than a compulsion, without which she was miserable. “There is no real life except in working, that is to say in the imagination,” she wrote in her journal

Ill at ease around most people, she

Ill at ease around most people, she had an unusually intense connection with animals—particularly cats, but also snails, which she bred at home.

She eventually housed three hundred snails in her garden in Suffolk, England, and once arrived at a London cocktail party carrying a gigantic handbag that contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails—her companions for the evening, she said. When she later moved to France, Highsmith had to get around the prohibition against bringing live snails into the country. So she smuggled them in, making multiple trips across the border with six to ten of the creatures hidden under each breast.

I love the very precious combination of work and of living-together that filmmaking offers.” Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) “Do you know what moviemaking is?”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993)

Italian filmmaker claimed that he was unable to sleep for more than three hours at a time.

I’m up at six in the morning. I walk around the house, open windows, poke around boxes, move books from here to there. For years I’ve been trying to make myself a decent cup of coffee, but it’s not one of my specialties. I go downstairs, outside as soon as possible. By seven I’m on the telephone. I’m scrupulous about choosing who it’s safe to wake at seven in the morning without their getting insulted.

I think I have chosen the best medium of expression for myself. I love the very precious combination of work and of living-together that filmmaking offers.”

Morton Feldman (1926–1987)

taking a month to work in a small village about an hour north of Paris. “I live here like a monk,” Feldman said.

get up at six in the morning. I compose until eleven, then my day is over. I go out, I walk, tirelessly, for hours.

I’m not used to having so much time, so much ease. Usually I create in the midst of a lot of bustle,

Then, I got married, my wife had a very good job and she was out all day. I got up at six in the morning, I did the shopping, the meals, the housework, I worked like mad and in the evening we received a lot of friends (I had so many friends without even realizing it myself). At the end of the year, I discovered that I had not written a single note of music!

“the most important advice anybody ever gave me,”

“He said that it’s a very good idea that after you write a little bit, stop and then copy it. Because while you’re copying it, you’re thinking about it, and it’s giving you other ideas.

External conditions—having the right pen, a good chair—were important, too.

“My concern at times is nothing more than establishing a series of practical considerations that will enable me to work.

if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.”

in winter he preferred to stay home and read.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

Beethoven’s productivity was generally higher during the warmer months.) After a midday dinner, Beethoven

Beethoven’s productivity was generally higher during the warmer months.)

he would come into conflict with the landlord, for all too often so much water was spilled that it went right through the floor. This was one of the main reasons for Beethoven’s unpopularity as a tenant. The floor of his living-room would have had to be covered with asphalt to prevent all that water from seeping through.

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

writing and walking. Typically, he wrote in the morning, set off on a long walk through Copenhagen at noon, and then returned to his writing for the rest of the day and into the evening. The walks were where he had his best ideas, and sometimes he would be in such a hurry to get them down that, returning home, he would write standing up before his desk, still wearing his hat and gripping his walking stick or umbrella.

Kierkegaard owned “at least fifty sets of cups and saucers, but only one of each sort”—and that, before coffee could be served, Levin had to select which cup and saucer he preferred that day, and then, bizarrely, justify his choice to Kierkegaard.

Benjamin Franklin’s ideal daily routine, from his autobiography (photo credit 13.1

element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise early almost every morning, and sit in my

I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution to bathe in another element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise early almost every morning, and sit in my chamber without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. This practice is not in the least painful, but on the contrary, agreeable; and if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night’s rest, of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be imagined.

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)

Chopin was an urban animal; in the country, he quickly became bored and moody. But the lack of distractions was good for his music.

Flaubert established a strict routine that allowed him to write for several hours each night—he was easily distracted by noises in the daytime—

Flaubert woke at 10:00 each morning and rang for the servant, who brought him the newspapers, his mail, a glass of cold water, and his filled pipe.

Often he complained of his slow progress. “Bovary is not exactly racing along: two pages in a week! Sometimes I’m so discouraged I could jump out a window.” But, gradually, the pages began to pile up. On Sundays, his good friend Louis Bouilhet would visit and Flaubert would read aloud his week’s progress. Together they would go over sentences dozens, even hundreds, of times until they were just right. Bouilhet’s suggestions and encouragement bolstered Flaubert’s confidence and helped calm his frazzled nerves for another week of slow, torturous composition. This monotonous daily struggle continued, with few breaks, until June 1856, when, after nearly five years of labor, Flaubert finally mailed the manuscript to his publisher. And yet, as difficult as the writing was, it was in many ways an ideal life for Flaubert. “After all,” as he wrote years later, “work is still the best way of escaping from life!”

must you give things up (sleep, income, a clean house), or can you learn to condense activities, to do more in less time, to “work smarter, not harder,”

More broadly, are comfort and creativity incompatible, or is the opposite true: Is finding a basic level of daily comfort a prerequisite for sustained creative work?

A solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.

he said, we can “free our minds to advance to really interesting fields of action.” Ironically, James himself was a chronic procrastinator and could never stick to a regular schedule (see this page).

I’m a classic “morning person,” capable of considerable focus in the early hours but pretty much useless after lunch.

the Daily Routines blog I launched that very afternoon (my magazine story got written in a last-minute panic the next morning) and, now, this book.

racked by doubt and insecurity. In reality, most of the people in this book are somewhere in the middle—

most of the people in this book are somewhere in the middle—committed to daily work but never entirely confident of their progress; always wary of the one off day that undoes the streak.

“Eating, drinking, writing, shopping, crossword puzzles, even the mailman’s arrival—all are timed to the minute and with accompanying routines.” Auden believed that a life of such military precision was essential to his creativity, a way of taming the muse to his own schedule. “A modern stoic,” he observed, “knows that the surest way to discipline passion is to discipline time: decide what you want or ought to do during the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day,

went to bed early, never later than 11:00 and, as he grew

“Only the ‘Hitlers of the world’

“Only the ‘Hitlers of the world’ work at night; no honest artist does.”)

To maintain his energy and concentration, the poet relied on amphetamines, taking a dose of Benzedrine each morning the way many people take a daily multivitamin. At night, he used

“I often like working with a hangover,” he said, “because my mind is crackling with energy and I can think very clearly.”

There were no parties, no receptions, no bourgeois values. We completely avoided all that. There was the presence only of essentials. It was an uncluttered kind of life, a simplicity deliberately constructed so that she could do her work.

On the first morning, I thought to lie in bed, but she got up, dressed and went to her work table. “You work there,” she said, pointing at the bed. So I got up and sat on the edge of the bed and smoked and pretended that I was working. I don’t think she said a word to me until it was time for lunch. Then she went to

her daily schedule also revolved around her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, which lasted from 1929 until his death in 1980. (Theirs was an intellectual partnership with a somewhat creepy sexual component; according to a pact proposed by Sartre at the outset of their relationship, both partners could take other lovers, but they were required to tell each other everything.)

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)

“I first have tea and then, at about ten o’clock, I get under way and work until one. Then I see my friends and after that, at five o’clock, I go back to work and continue until nine.

Wolfe’s prose has been criticized for its overindulgence and adolescent character,

a writing ritual that was almost literally masturbatory.

at the window, he had been unconsciously fondling his genitals,

Wolfe tried to figure out what had prompted the sudden change—and realized that, at the window, he had been unconsciously fondling his genitals, a habit from childhood that, while not exactly sexual (his “penis remained limp and unaroused,” he noted in a letter to his editor), fostered such a “good male feeling” that it had stoked his creative energies.

Wolfe typically began writing around midnight, “priming himself with awesome quantities of tea and coffee,” as one biographer noted.

Since he could never find a chair or table that was totally comfortable for a man of his height (Wolfe was 6’6″), he usually wrote standing up, using the top of the refrigerator as his desk.

Highsmith was rarely short of inspiration; she had ideas, she said, like rats have orgasms. Highsmith wrote daily, usually

Highsmith was rarely short of inspiration; she had ideas, she said, like rats have orgasms.

Highsmith wrote daily, usually for three or four hours in the morning, completing two thousand words on a good day.

Her favourite technique to ease herself into the right frame of mind for work was to sit on her bed surrounded by cigarettes, ashtray, matches, a mug of coffee, a doughnut and an accompanying saucer of sugar.

She had to avoid any sense of discipline and make the act of writing as pleasurable as possible. Her position, she noted, would be almost foetal and, indeed, her intention was to create, she said, “a womb of her own.”

In her later years, as she became a hardened drinker with a high tolerance, she kept a bottle of vodka by her bedside, reaching for it as soon as she woke and marking the bottle to set her limit for the day.

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995)

author of such psychological thrillers as Strangers on a Train and

Writing was less a source of pleasure for her than a compulsion, without which she was miserable. “There is no real life except in working, that is to say in the imagination,” she wrote in her journal

Ill at ease around most people, she

Ill at ease around most people, she had an unusually intense connection with animals—particularly cats, but also snails, which she bred at home.

She eventually housed three hundred snails in her garden in Suffolk, England, and once arrived at a London cocktail party carrying a gigantic handbag that contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails—her companions for the evening, she said. When she later moved to France, Highsmith had to get around the prohibition against bringing live snails into the country. So she smuggled them in, making multiple trips across the border with six to ten of the creatures hidden under each breast.

I love the very precious combination of work and of living-together that filmmaking offers.” Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) “Do you know what moviemaking is?”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993)

Italian filmmaker claimed that he was unable to sleep for more than three hours at a

Italian filmmaker claimed that he was unable to sleep for more than three hours at a time.

I’m up at six in the morning. I walk around the house, open windows, poke around boxes, move books from here to there. For years I’ve been trying to make myself a decent cup of coffee, but it’s not one of my specialties. I go downstairs, outside as soon as possible. By seven I’m on the telephone. I’m scrupulous about choosing who it’s safe to wake at seven in the morning without their getting insulted.

I think I have chosen the best medium of expression for myself. I love the very precious combination of work and of living-together that filmmaking offers.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007)

Morton Feldman (1926–1987)

taking a month to work in a small village about an hour north of Paris. “I live here like a monk,” Feldman said.

get up at six in the morning. I compose until eleven, then my day is over. I go out, I walk, tirelessly, for hours.

I’m not used to having so much time, so much ease. Usually I create in the midst of a lot of bustle,

Then, I got married, my wife had a very good job and she was out all day. I got up at six in the morning, I did the shopping, the meals, the housework, I worked like mad and in the evening we received a lot of friends (I had so many friends without even realizing it myself). At the end of the year, I discovered that I had not written a single note of music!

“the most important advice anybody ever gave me,”

“He said that it’s a very good idea that after you write a little bit, stop and then copy it. Because while you’re copying it, you’re thinking about it, and it’s giving you other ideas.

External conditions—having the right pen, a good chair—were important, too.

“My concern at times is nothing more than establishing a series of practical considerations that will enable me to work.

if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.”

in winter he preferred to stay home and read.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

Beethoven’s productivity was generally higher during the warmer months.) After a midday dinner, Beethoven

Beethoven’s productivity was generally higher during the warmer months.)

he would come into conflict with the landlord, for all too often so much water was spilled that it went right through the floor. This was one of the main reasons for Beethoven’s unpopularity as a tenant. The floor of his living-room would have had to be covered with asphalt to prevent all that water from seeping through.

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

writing and walking. Typically, he wrote in the morning, set off on a long walk through Copenhagen at noon, and then returned to his writing for the rest of the day and into the evening. The walks were where he had his best ideas, and sometimes he would be in such a hurry to get them down that, returning home, he would write standing up before his desk, still wearing his hat and gripping his walking stick or umbrella.

Kierkegaard owned “at least fifty sets of cups and saucers, but only one of each sort”—and that, before coffee could be served, Levin had to select which cup and saucer he preferred that day, and then, bizarrely, justify his choice to Kierkegaard.

Benjamin Franklin’s ideal daily routine, from his autobiography (photo credit 13.1

element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise early almost every morning, and sit in my

I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution to bathe in another element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise early almost every morning, and sit in my chamber without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. This practice is not in the least painful, but on the contrary, agreeable; and if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night’s rest, of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be imagined.

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)

Chopin was an urban animal; in the country, he quickly became bored and moody. But the lack of distractions was good for his music.

Flaubert established a strict routine that allowed him to write for several hours each night—he was easily distracted by noises in the daytime—

Flaubert woke at 10:00 each morning and rang for the servant, who brought him the newspapers, his mail, a glass of cold water, and his filled pipe.

Often he complained of his slow progress. “Bovary is not exactly racing along: two pages in a week! Sometimes I’m so discouraged I could jump out a window.” But, gradually, the pages began to pile up. On Sundays, his good friend Louis Bouilhet would visit and Flaubert would read aloud his week’s progress. Together they would go over sentences dozens, even hundreds, of times until they were just right. Bouilhet’s suggestions and encouragement bolstered Flaubert’s confidence and helped calm his frazzled nerves for another week of slow, torturous composition. This monotonous daily struggle continued, with few breaks, until June 1856, when, after nearly five years of labor, Flaubert finally mailed the manuscript to his publisher. And yet, as difficult as the writing was, it was in many ways an ideal life for Flaubert. “After all,” as he wrote years later, “work is still the best way of escaping from life!”