Schedules are both my life and the bane of my existence.
I’ve always played with schedules, creating iteration after iteration of morning routines, daily task blocking, chronotype and cycle synching, even working around the ayurvedic times of the day.
But no matter how many schedules I create and test, I invariably end up blissfully hiding from the whole thing less than a week later. Sometimes I go back to the schedule because it was “such a good one,” but I ALWAYS have periods of rebelling against all schedules and habits no matter how brilliant.
Needless to say, this is SUPER FRUSTRATING.
I worry if I’m lazy, if I’m really just a good-for-nothing ne’er-do-well, if I’m broken somehow, or if I should sign up for the military since you can’t ignore a schedule with a drill sergeant breathing down your neck.
I seem to have an unchallenged belief that Having a Schedule is how Grownups Do It, and that if I don’t Have a Schedule, I am Wasting My Potential.
I was able to stick to a schedule when I had a job outside the house where I had to get up and be out the door by a certain time. So why am I struggling so hard to create the same structure for myself now that I’m finally the Big Boss?
In equal measures frustration and desperation, I turned to a book I’d seen before but hadn’t really paid attention to: Daily Rituals by Mason Curry.
Curry is just as fascinated as I am with schedules and the people who keep them, and collected anecdotes of the creative habits of some of the most well-known artists and knowledge workers of the past 3 centuries.
In reading these short glimpses into the experiences of people I’ve looked up to all my life, I noticed several recurring themes.
1. Everyone’s working style is unique in the details, but the same in principle
In principle, every artist had a ritual or pattern of the day that protected them, their creativity, and their art.
In practice, this ranged from the absurd to the pedantic. Some people needed such absolute quiet their families had to tiptoe around the house until they came down from their workroom, some woke up, sat up in bed, and started working, and some kept such a strict schedule that the neighbors could set their clocks by the time they stepped out the door with their hat.
Some worked through the day in chunks: a long morning session, a shorter afternoon session, and a private nighttime session after everyone else was asleep. Some felt that pushing too hard was bad for inspiration and only worked for one block in the morning, dealing with busywork in the afternoon.
Some had a designated desk, writing board, or private office in their shed or gazebo. Maude Lewis even had a mean, cramped little room in the back of a fish factory so she could separate her creative space from her family space.
Others were more laissez faire about their work habits, dashing off pages standing in their kitchen in their underwear, using the top of the fridge as a desk. (I understand fridges were much shorter back then, and this gentleman was particularly tall.) O to be able to pull out a typewriter and write madly in the middle of a commute!
It is a comfort to me, however, to realize that while all these habits look haphazard and contradictory when viewed in full, each individual artist found the ritual that worked for them and stuck to it for years at a time. The actual clock times they began working are not the point. The key is the familiar transition to Work Time, the freedom to work in a way that was most comfortable for them (standing up, in bed, in their underwear, during their lunch break), and the drive to create that kept them coming back long enough to realize what helped and what hindered.
2. Every creator found the habit, structure, and schedule that worked for them through trial and error (so at least I’m in good company).
I especially appreciated that Curry included mentions of when specific artists’ schedules changed.
Most everyone had a significant change in their routines at least once during their life. Creators aren’t automatons.
- They moved to the countryside in the summer and ignored all productivity for 3 months out of the year.
- They became more strict with themselves while working on a specific project.
- They became more lax with themselves when churning out daily content because they trusted that in the volume of work there would be something worth publishing.
- Their productivity went down during the winter because the days were shorter and they worked with daylight only.
- They were more focused while living in a rural area because they really liked going out with friends and living in the city meant they were hitting all the bars until super late at night.
- They had one (1) friend that they regularly hung out with and talked about their work with, and didn’t try to socialize or keep more friends because they didn’t have time. (And didn’t seem to beat themselves up because they weren’t outgoing enough).
- They had lots of friends that they called regularly and talked about their ideas nonstop for hours.
Because they weren’t reading a bunch of “productivity” books, they could be more in tune with their own body and mind and understand what helped their art.
They recognized that they absolutely couldn’t focus if anyone talked to them in the morning, so they let the household know that they needed privacy until they were done working, and that was that.
They didn’t have to fight with themselves over whether that strategy was the most recommended course of action and whether it worked for the largest number of people, because they only cared about whether it worked for them.
And when it stopped working, they moved on to what did.
Probably I already know how I work best, but I have all these ideas of how it should be so I frustrate myself by trying to twist myself into a semblance of the Ideal Schedule.
I say this strategy Doesn’t Count because X book proved with Science that Y time was really the most optimal, so I live in an unstable pendulum swing between the days when I have enough executive dysfunction juice to make myself do it the Optimal Way, and the days when I just want to do it the way I like (albeit heavily laced with Guilt because I’m Not Doing It Right).
3. Every creator was/is extremely prolific and successful, yet were extremely frustrated with themselves for not being more disciplined the entire time
I found it both ironic and comforting to read about several prolific and successful artists that thought of themselves as lazy. If it’s possible to think you are not doing very well and still produce a staggering amount of valuable art, then there is hope for me.
Of course, this doesn’t suggest that merely thinking badly of myself guarantees I’m being productive. But if I am taking the steps to create - actually sitting down and typing a draft, pulling out my paper and paint, going outside and digging in my garden - my mental impression of myself isn’t necessarily the truth.
It seems I’m not the only one who lives in an incongruous world-between-worlds. The mental noise of seeing the overlapping outlines between physical reality and the way I imagine physical reality to be is deafening.
4. There are two camps of thought about creative work: “grind it out so you don’t lose momentum” and “download from the subconscious.”
This is particularly interesting to me, and I’m wondering if these two opposite approaches are influenced by the individual’s personality or if it has to do with the kind of work they do.
The “grind it out so you don’t lose momentum” crowd are the ones who have daily work time and go to work regardless of whether they’re feeling inspired or not. There was one lady who sat down at her desk and stared out the window if she really couldn’t write rather than break her routine of working at her desk.
This is the approach in modern productivity methodologies that advise doing small actions that compound over time. The idea is that by producing in sheer volume you’ll also produce a percentage of work that is really good. Increasing your volume increases your chances of producing something that is really good. They cite basic mathematics as their proof, and there are many well-known success stories with this as their foundation.
I think of this as the “show your work” crowd. They tend to be writers, putting everything down on paper, regardless of the quality. They value the momentum of regular and predictable routines and have trouble working if they aren’t in the familiar ritual. Being thrown off their rhythm is extremely detrimental to their creative process and it can take a long time to get back on track.
I’m wondering if this correlates to an external orientation: if people who benefit from this method are also external processors, if they have to have a physical person to bounce ideas off of, if they like to see everything laid out in front of them and out of sight is out of mind.
The second camp is the more mysterious, because they don’t put pen to paper until everything is ready. This is the “download from the subconscious” group.
They do most of their work in their heads, evaluating and refining ideas mentally before ever creating a physical representation. These are the creators who look from the outside like they “aren’t working” because they’re going for long walks or swims, reading, listening to music, staring at trees and insects, and generally moving through life in a meditative trance.
When the idea is ready to birth, they tend to create in a frantic burst of creative energy that takes all their focus and strength until the work is out in the world in its entirety, often working through the night for days at a time. When the work is completely out “on paper,” they have to take a while to regenerate their energy, much like a woman taking 40 days to recover from giving birth.
Interestingly, a lot of composers were in this camp. Chopin especially would hum to himself for weeks before dashing it all down perfectly on paper.
These artists are what I call “overnight successes” because all the incubating and developing is done internally and the world doesn’t see their creation until it is fully fledged.
It seems to me that this camp is the more traditional artistic stereotype: creators who seemingly go for long stretches of time “not doing anything” and are considered lazy or shiftless because people can’t see any proof of effort (and can’t afford to get a regular job because it stifles their creativity) and yet “somehow” produce works of dazzling complexity overnight.
I’m wondering if this correlates to a personality that is internally focused. Not necessarily an introvert, although perhaps that is a factor as well. I’m talking about the people that need a while to think through what they’re feeling before trying to explain their thought process, who can be their own therapist by writing in their journal, who need long stretches of silence and to be alone with their thoughts in order to stay sane.
While more sensitive types are traditionally viewed as “artistic,” I believe that every human being is creative because we were made in the image of our Creator. It would be interesting to discover if these two different approaches could help everyone, regardless of personality, to create the true Art that is planted in their soul.
5. Being swamped with email isn’t a new thing.
People these days moan about the never-ending flood of emails they have to answer. Productivity gurus have many strategies for minimizing the impact and attempting to contain the time suck of sorting through and answering it all.
The good news - and the bad news - is that this is not a new 21st century thing.
The method - email - is new; but creators have had to deal with mountains of correspondence since the written word was invented. Literal mounds, when the letters piled up.
I dare say correspondence took longer to manage in Ye Olde Days when you had 20+ physical letters from friends and admirers every day that you had to read and write out a response to with pen and paper. Some friends wrote letters back and forth almost daily! Dashing off an email a couple lines long is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
The ancients of the 1900s handled their mail much the same as we do now: ignoring what we can, replying to what we want, and throwing away the junk as often as possible to keep down the clutter. Those who could, had an assistant or aide go through their mail to set aside things that needed particular attention. Some, like blind Milton, had an aide both read their mail aloud and take dictation for the WIP (work in progress).
These days we have email assistant programs that can sort our mail by importance, file things that need to be dealt with later, and even write draft responses for us.
Huzzah for modern conveniences! But we shouldn’t delude ourselves that we have it so much worse nowadays.
6. Being antisocial serves society
I find it a never-ending source of amusement how People seem to think that you have to spend time with other People in order to be part of society. Especially as a homeschooler, the Big Concern was whether homeschoolers are “socialized” enough. (I will spare you my rant on that subject for now.)
If you refuse dinner invitations and never return the favor, if you leave events early and don’t stay to chat after, if you don’t appreciate the indefinite hell of “hanging out” and tagging along to whatever everyone else wants to do, you’re seen as “antisocial.” (See also, proud, snobby, and stuck-up.)
And yet, it’s the very people that protected their time and energy that are remembered as the greatest contributors to Society.
Van Gogh and Carl Jung kept to themselves, spent most of their lives in the same few rooms, ate the same foods over and over again, and went to bed early, and yet their works are held in the highest regard as one of the defining achievements of modern man, bringing enlightenment and joy to countless millions of people.
Were they really “antisocial?” Or did they understand that they could better serve society by creating something beautiful and useful than by gadding about? Or did they just not care because the drive to create was so strong they simply couldn’t do anything else?
To be sure, not everyone who greatly impacted society created something physical.
Mother Teresa didn’t leave behind printed and bound volumes of theology, canvases to be hung in museums, or delicate sculptures in prized collections. But she did live entirely outside of her mainstream society, turning down opportunities to go shopping, hang out with peers, and catch a movie in order to serve the lepers. Her example is powerfully inspiring because of it. She left a theology of love, canvases of service, and living sculptures of human bodies healed and cared for.
When was the last time you heard of someone held in high regard for accepting every invitation to hang out, go shopping, gossip, and watch TV? Who is respected for knowing every reference from a 20 season show?
Don’t we look up to people who show us through their example how we can have a meaningful existence?
What is stopping us from being those people?
Only worries about being “antisocial,” fears of missing out, and pressure from our peers to be like everybody else.
7. Most artists seem to have ADHD, autism, OCD, or a combination thereof.
Back when these labels didn’t exist, it was a lot easier for people to just live their lives the way they wanted.
Van Gogh had to perform a certain hand washing ritual before he could sit down to work? He wasn’t OCD, he was “eccentric” (if anyone noticed or cared, which most people didn’t).
Benjamin Franklin jumped from idea to idea before things were “finished?” He wasn’t ADHD, he was a brilliant inventor and Renaissance man.
Leonardo da Vinci amused himself by writing backwards in his notebook and lived off the support of patrons for years without “producing” anything? He wasn’t autistic, he was the Court Artist and a revered source of advice.
One thing that really stands out when reading Daily Rituals is how many - nearly all - of these artists self-medicated. Adderall may be a modern invention, but creators have been using stimulants for centuries.
The amounts of coffee, tea, and sugar these people consumed is probably more than the per capita of a small nation. Not to mention the wine, hard liquor, tobacco, acetaminophens, tranquilizers, and other drugs used to both stimulate and focus the mind - and also to mitigate the physical effects of self-medicating like that.
Tumblr is full of advice on how to create “optimal arousal” for focus, how to habit-stack tasks to free up executive function slots for important decisions, and how to come to grips with your need for medication if nothing else works.
Creators were solving these issues centuries ago in much the same way.
They only ate one big meal a day, usually the same few meals over and over. They snacked on sugary treats and drank copious amounts of tea, coffee, and wine the rest of the time. They limited actually distracting distractions - like other people talking to them - in favor of helpful distractions like the hubbub of a factory, radio chatter, or coffee shop ambiance. They owned 10 suits of the exact same color and style so they never had to make decisions about what to wear. They wrote everything out longhand first so their body had something to do and would let their mind alone to think, typing it up later because that was a different sort of work and they could focus on editing.
Application
The thing that stood out to me the most is how these people just lived their lives. If they felt existential guilt over their choices, it was kept in perspective and not constantly exacerbated by flashy Instagram quotes.
Before the Industrial Revolution, productivity and efficiency weren’t concepts by which people judged themselves.
They cared far more about the quality of their work, and letting their urge to create drive them to… actually create.
I think we have been convinced that we need to do it just a certain way: the most optimal, the most perfect way possible. I spend all my creative energy writing up schedules for myself that are more or less the same schedule I’ve always kept, just moving it up or down a few hours.
Why does that matter, really?
If (and that’s a big If), someone writes a biography of me someday after I’ve died and my work has impacted people, will the impact be the knowledge of what hour specifically I started working? Or will the impact be the fact that I put ideas together that explain something fundamental about life? Or created something so beautiful it touches the eternity in people’s hearts?
I see the value of keeping an eye on the big picture. Day to day, I must take the daily action to create, whatever that looks like for me. But over the course of my life, those daily actions add up to create something bigger than myself, something I don’t necessarily have control over. We don’t get to control how our art impacts others. It means something to one person and something completely different to someone else.
But we do get to control our actions, our habits - our daily rituals. We get to set aside all the guilt and “shoulds” and optimal efficiencies in order to create something messy and wild and beautiful - and truly live because of it.
“Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.” - Bernard Malamud
