How and when do you make time for creative work? Specifically, the act of creation–not just thinking about creating.
I recently saw a post about the daily routines of famous historical creatives, and they’re all over the place. It seems that everyone has a different way of finding time to create while also balancing their other personal and professional needs:
Without looking too closely at the chart, I’m going to fill in my routine below and see who it matches the closest to. Feel free to do the same (just for fun) in the comments below.
- Sleep: I typically fall asleep at 11:00 and wake up at 7:00 (total of 8 hours)
- Creative work: My game design time is usually from 8:00 to 10:00 at night (2 hours). My game development time is much more sporadic–it comes in waves–and is usually in the late afternoon. And my content creation time averages 1 hour per day in the morning.
- Day job/admin: Most of my job is project management, marketing, and troubleshooting. This is most of my morning and most of my afternoon (total of 7 hours)
- Food/leisure: I eat breakfast while I work, I take a 30-minute break for lunch, and I take a longer break for dinner (2 hours).
- Exercise: I exercise for 30 minutes every morning, plus disc golf on the weekend. Lately I’ve also been indoor rock climbing once every few weeks.
- Other: I play games a few times a week, I read in the evening, sometimes I cook more elaborate meals or go out to eat, and I take little breaks to read/watch content (mostly about games) throughout the day.
Based on that list…well, I actually don’t know if there’s a good comparison. Most of the people on the chart seem to spend a LOT of time eating and doing leisure activities (the yellow category)! And only a few of them spend significant time on the day job/admin category, which is the majority of my time. Perhaps the closest to me is Kurt Vonnegut.
I’ve found that establishing consistent, habitual routines ensures that I have plenty of variety in my job, which I prefer. I’ve also found that it’s really important for me to protect those 2 hours at night specifically for creative game design time. It’s all too easy for me to try to do “one more thing” during those hours that isn’t game design, and before I know it, it’s 10:00 and I haven’t done anything creative. I need to remind myself that almost anything I view as super important late at night can wait until the following morning–I need to protect that creative time.
What’s your daily routine and which person in the chart is it the closest to? Do you have methods for protecting your creative time?
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20 Comments on “To Which Famous Creative Person Is Your Daily Routine the Most Similar?”
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Fascinating list, Jamey, but sadly (or happily), I don’t subscribe to any of the folks listed as my day starts at 5 with exercise and breakfast with work punctuating the next 8-9 hours with an hour of creativity (usually, game development), followed by a commute home for food, leisure, and a bit of creative work.
This is a great post! I love hearing about how other people balance their creative work with other parts of their lives. I think I am closest to Benjamin Franklin in that my da is usually split into two halves, though “day job” occupies either on or two halves for a few days a week. But even when I am in the studio (I make handmade artists’ books) or on the weekends, I split my day. Easier to think, organize, and have creative energy ready at the right times.
Hey Jamey! Thanks for sharing the article. Very interesting to see the spread of habits.
In your own list of tasks which do you enjoy the most?
Thanks! The key for me is variety. I enjoy variety more than any one specific task. :)
Interesting blog, nice to get a glimpse of your routine. I tend to be all over the place when designing, which works for creating a log document to keep notes, but not for the actual production and testing of the prototype. Currently designing an LCG-lite type of game, and it seems to be an easier process this time because it seems to be already finished in my head to a certain degree (like I dreamt about it and forgot), very interesting how creative endeavour is fueled and takes shape. Did you ever attempt an LCG type of game? If so, what were some insights and stumbling blocks?
I hope you’re having fun with your LCG design, Henri! Here’s my video on that topic: https://youtu.be/0R1RopWN_Qw
Hello Jamie and everyone else!
I do think, finding a balance to things in your daily life, being extremely difficult (at least for me). And that’s where a bit of diary keeping or planning comes in handy in my opinion. I usually have a daily to do list (sleep that many hours, read that many hours, creative hours etc.), which i change depending on my goals. That being said, I do find that I am most creative when I have a change of scenery. For example, when I go for a few days to my home village, or spent a weekend somewher else with my frineds. That’s when new ideas come to me.
Finally I think my routine is more like Le Corbusier (even though I don’t really know him :P ）
Hello Jamie,
A very interesting article from you because you address a problem that has continuously bothered me over the past few years. I think that a daily routine is important, but as your listing shows, everyone has to find his “suitable” routine for daily creative work.
It’s not always easy because there are always, I’ll call it, important family interruptions. Keywords are housework, children, grandchildren and friends.
In addition to maintaining social contacts, there are also social obligations.
Not always an easy balancing act.
In any case, a truly inspiring listing. Thank you for it.
Phantastische Grüße
Lutz
I completely agree that each person’s routine is different (and any person’s routine may change based on the day). Managing those distractions is quite a challenge!
My schedule is similar to most typical Americans with a full time job and kids. Sleep eight hours 11p-7a, work eight hours 7a-3p (work from home 75% of the time so no transition time, meals while working), leisure and cook/eat dinner 4 hours 3p-7p, if I make time for creativity it falls between 7p-9p, then typically more leisure 9p-11p. Hobbies like games, reading, golf, etc happen on weekends mostly which we do make time for as a family and individually – we are definitely one of those families who live for the weekend. As a mom and wife I find I spend most of my extra time fulfilling the needs of others – which I enjoy as I’m caretaking by nature and my family is my top priority. My leisure time is usually spent doing other family members’ hobbies with them, or bonding over a movie – and occasionally a game or video game. Sept-May I am also homeschooling my kids so it gets pretty challenging mentally to do it all and still have gas in the tank for creativity. I’d love to protect a couple hours for creativity every day, but for now, since that isn’t my job, and I need to support my family in a multitude of ways, it just isn’t a priority. But I have recently been making myself spend a little time on drawing and writing, and it does feel good to do something creative again. Hopefully I’ll continue the trend!
Thank you for sharing this, Cheralie–it’s reassuring that others can relate to the “2 hours at night of creative time” that I experience, even though our lives sound very different otherwise. :) I’m glad you’re finding some time recently for creativity.
Currently, my life is in chaos. Very little of what I do (outside of my work schedule) is standard or prescribed. My life has been upside down for long enough that I cannot clearly recall the last truly creative thing I was doing (although it likely had something to do with the expansion for Charterstone my wife and I were working on).
I am hoping that by the end of the year, much of the chaos in my life will have died down. That is not a give, but I am hopeful. Once that happens, I will be setting up a routine that will allow me creative time so I can get back to doing so many of the things I love. Wish me luck!
I appreciate you sharing that, David, and I’m sorry that your life is so chaotic right now. I share your hope for the chaos to decrease over the next 6 months!
The only thing in my life that has a routine is my job and the fact that barring insomnia I usually am asleep between 1:30 and 7:00am. One of the biggest disrupters is that stress at my day job usually leads to me taking an afternoon nap, which disrupts my afternoon but when skipped can lead to me being much less productive in the evening. Lately my only routine creative time is I spend an hour or more on creative writing before bed. I like having a creative puzzle to “sleep on” so I like to write far enough to get me to a “hmm but what if” state. When I have more free time I nap between creative bursts for the same reason.
I sporadically spend creative time during the evening on either painting minis, game design, or more writing. This is the same window of time as exercise, quality time with my wife and the aforementioned stress naps so there’s no consistency there. Fortunately the game I’m working on is short so it’s easy to squeeze a play test or two in.
Thanks for sharing, Jev! It looks like a few of these famous creatives take midday naps too. :)
That’s an interesting excercise! Without looking at who I resemble most, this would be my normal routine (link below). I have 2 bars because week days are totally different than weekend days. Also, my weekend days have a double bar in the evening because I either go to a concert or a board game night or a party (which is all leisure time), or I do creative work. My travel-to-work time is categorised under “other”.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/971497585216978954/1127974411824271380/daily-routines-karel.png
I like that you created your own visual, Karel!
I love this topic, I find it super eye-opening how different creative work. I have absolutely robbed myself of creative time and it’s now spent mostly watching TV. Looking to change that though and carve out time to create again, even if only an hour per night. Here’s my current schedule –
10pm – 6am – Sleep
6a – 7:30, morning routine, dog walk, breakfast, etc…
7:30a – 8a Commute
8a – 4p – Day Job
4p – 4:30p – Commute
4:30p – 6p – Happy Hour, Socializing, Networking, Exercising (changes depending on the day)
6p – 10p – Leisure/Mindless scrolling/Dinner
I have found that if given free reign over my days, I can have super productive days that are followed with leisure days. For instance, if I can really dig in and work on something, I can work for 12 hours or more, but need to recover the next day and can maybe do 4-6 hours of work-work.
Thanks for sharing, Trevor. I’m also debating how I spend the 2 hours at night (a combination of eating dinner and watching TV, usually 2 shows back-to-back). My ideal time for this is closer to 90 minutes, but many of the longer shows we watch are now pushing a full hour per episode instead of the traditional 42 minutes for an “hour-long” show on network TV.
Absolutely!
I’ve tried watching shorter comedies, but I end up rewatching the same content and it doesn’t give me the excitement or intrigue of something like the Marvel or Star Wars shows. I also lose track of how many I’ve watched and it steers me towards inaction instead of stopping the cycle.
It’s all a balance :).