Daily Rituals. How Artists Work
by Mason Curry.
I’m about 60% done with this little gem of inspiration. It goes over the work habits of a multitude of creative people (writers, artists, philosophers, etc).
I’ve been looking for patterns. This is what I’ve learned:
- successful, creative people often times are workaholics. I do not want to follow this model.
- successful, creative people mostly work with set schedules and have routines they follow daily. I strive to follow this model.
- many creative people use alcohol and drugs to get through their work and sleep. I will not follow this model.
- they do a lot of reading. I follow this model, but need to make more time.
- many work in the mornings for 2-4 hours blocks of time (usually three hours seems to be the magic number). I’d love to follow this model, but I have a day job.
- they spend their evenings and late afternoons doing something they like, such as watch movies, reading, socializing, etc. I need to get better about having relaxing time.
- a lot of creative people avoid social circles. I think moderation is necessary here.
At the end of the day, it depends on what works for the person. I was most interested in the accounts of people who were working mothers, who had to carve out time to be creative and push their projects forward. Those were most relevant for my life and most inspiring.
So, I pluck the nuggets of inspiration and store them away inside of me and move forward in my own way. More focus on schedule, more routine, more balance…one step at a time.
Here’s what my daily rituals look like:
-No set writing hours, except maybe 2-3 times a week I carve out time (thanks to my supportive husband) to write at Starbucks for about 2 hours. Otherwise I have to find time in between other tasks, lunch time, morning, evening. Evenings become difficult after a long day of work, mothering, and exercise. I’d like to come up with a schedule I stick to…something more routine. However, because of all my random meetings, appointments, etc, this is difficult.
-daily journaling
-daily charting of writing minutes
-weekly schedule and list of goals that I review several times throughout the week.
-daily running
Interestingly, looking at this short list, it inspires me to develop more daily and weekly rituals.
What do your daily rituals look like?
Teresa Shimogawa 