Everything ingenious is simple: the daily routine of Beethoven, Hemingway and other famous people

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Remove a secret office, don't grease the hinges on creaky doors, and work while standing - the secrets to productivity of great geniuses.

Old-school organizers have been replaced by cloud-based scheduling services. But not everyone has become more organized and productive. If every new day is like a rodeo for you: either you tame the stormy stream of affairs, or it will knock you out of the "saddle", this article is for you.

It is based on Mason Curry's book Genius Mode: The Daily Routine of Great People. The author analyzed the work schedule of 161 recognized geniuses: famous artists, writers, composers, scientists. And I came to the conclusion that the daily routine is part of the creative process.

In this article, you will learn how to turn on your "genius mode" and what helped famous personalities not to fall for the "no inspiration" trick, but to work methodically and achieve success.

The routine, which has become a routine, the person follows on autopilot, without conscious effort. And at the same time, in the right hands, the daily routine is a precisely calibrated mechanism that allows us to make the best use of our limited resources: first of all, the time that we lack the most, as well as willpower, self-discipline, cheerfulness. An orderly routine is like a rut that allows the mental powers of a genius to move at a good pace and not be affected by mood swings.

Working environment: maximum concentration - minimum deviation

Geniuses have their own quirks and their own ways to isolate themselves from the outside world in order to concentrate as much as possible on work.

For example, the door to the office of Nobel laureate William Faulkner had only one knob. The writer would open the door, take out the handle, go inside, insert the handle and close it again. Thus, no one could enter and interfere with him.

English writer Jane Austen asked the servants never to grease the hinges on creaky doors. Thanks to this, Jane always knew when someone approached the room in which she worked.

Graham Greene, an English writer and part-time employee of British intelligence, rented a secret office in order to work and not be distracted. Only the spouse knew the address and phone number, but she could use them only in case of emergency. By the way, hermitage is still in demand.

The Mark Twain family used a horn for such emergencies. Households had to blow on him if they wanted to distract the writer from the adventures of "Tom Sawyer".

But the artist Newell Converse Wyeth, who illustrated this "Tom Sawyer", appreciated concentration so much that when he noticed that his attention was scattered, he pasted cardboard over his glasses to limit peripheral vision and look only at the canvas.

Walking

For many geniuses, regular walking is not only part of the routine, but also a way to “ventilate” the brain for more fruitful creativity.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard noted that walks inspired him so much that he often ran to his desk without even taking off his hat or removing his cane.

Dickens walked for three hours a day - “fattening up” material. Tchaikovsky - two each. And not a minute less. Pyotr Ilyich was convinced that if he cheated, he would get sick.

Beethoven always took a notebook and a pencil with him for a walk - suddenly inspiration would flood.

The extravagant French composer Eric Satie also grabbed a writing aid for exercise in the evening of Paris. He wandered around the workers' quarter where he lived, stopped under the lanterns and wrote down the notes that floated in his head. It is said that during the Second World War, when street lighting was not used for security reasons, Sati's performance also "went out".

Timing

Time, or rather, the ability to manage it is another "brick" that makes up productivity.

The successful Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope only worked three hours a day. But how! 250 words in 15 minutes. If he finished the text earlier than the three-hour period elapsed, then he immediately took up a new one.

Ernest Hemingway, in addition to keeping track of his working hours, neatly. He wrote every day from five in the morning to one in the afternoon, while methodically counting how many words were written. The average is 700-800 words per day. One day, Hemingway did not work out the "norm" - there were only 208 words in the schedule, but there was a note next to it: "Writing urgent business letters."

Conducted by the graphic artist and American behaviorist Burres Frederick Skinner. At the same time, he wrote in sessions, the duration of which he measured with a timer.

A clear line between important and not so

A life hacker regularly writes about the importance of checking e-mail and answering letters not every time you hear a notification from an email client, but only at a strictly defined time, 1-2 times a day.

In the days of Hemingway and Twain, there was no e-mail, but geniuses have always been (and are) able to separate important work from mediocre ones.

Some devoted the first half to writing, painting, music, that is, important matters, and after dinner they wrote letters, talked in secular salons.

Others were taken to non-urgent and unimportant matters at the moments when the muse left them and it was necessary to change the type of activity.

Rest, not work until you drop

Great figures of science and art knew how to work well, but they also knew a lot about rest. They understood that creativity is like sports - hard work requires a period of recovery.

The only exception is, perhaps, Mozart. He was a real workaholic. The composer woke up at six in the morning and spent the whole day, until one in the morning, studying music. For walks, lunch, letters and other matters, he devoted no more than 2-3 hours a day.

The famous Swedish psychiatrist Carl Jung considered this approach to be wrong. Despite the fact that he was a highly sought-after specialist, Jung never forgot about the weekend. “I realized that a person who needs rest and continues to work despite fatigue is simply stupid,” he said.

Support for loved ones

While a genius is creating, someone has to equip his life. As a rule, this falls on the shoulders of the spouse.

So, the wife of the "father of psychoanalysis" Sigmund Freud Martha not only completely managed the household, but also provided her husband's comfort in every possible way. She picked up his clothes, right down to his handkerchiefs, and even squeezed the paste onto a toothbrush.

But support comes not only from family, but also from friends. Gertrude Stein, an American writer, literary theorist, loved to work in the fresh air, or rather, she liked to look away from the manuscript and look at the hills and … the cows. Therefore, she and her long-term friend Alice Babette Toklas (also a writer) went to the suburbs. Miss Stein sat down in a folding chair with a writing board and a pencil, while Miss Toklas fearlessly drove a cow into her friend's field of vision. At these moments, inspiration descended on Stein, and she began to write quickly.

Andy Warhol was helped by his friend and associate Pat Hackett. Every morning, Warhol recounted his previous day in detail to Hackett, who dutifully took notes. This was the case every weekday from 1976 until Warhol's death in 1987.

Limiting social connections

To many, this productivity trick will seem odd. It's not about locking yourself in four walls. Nevertheless, many outstanding thinkers had a very narrow social circle and did not seek to expand it.

“No parties, no receptions … Only the essentials, a simple, uncluttered life, thought out so that nothing would interfere with work” - this was the position of Simone de Beauvoir, a French writer, ideologist of the feminist movement.

In contrast, the painter Pablo Picasso loved to receive guests. He even bought a piano to entertain the audience and hired a maid to look after the guests in a starched white apron. However, for social events, Pablo allocated strictly one day a week - Sunday.

“Everyone is afraid of everyday life, as if it carries a fatal inevitability fraught with boredom, habit; I don’t believe in this inevitability,”asserted Mark Levy.

These are not all the lessons that can be learned from the everyday life of geniuses. Want more? Learn the 25 Daily Rituals of the Most Successful People.