A daily routine can be an ace in the hole in the time crunch that modern people complain about. But our efforts to organise our time are rewarded with a host of benefits, including those related to our mental health.
“In the right hands, [a routine] can be a finely calibrated mechanism for taking advantage of a range of limited resources,” writes Mason Currey, author of Genius Mode: The Daily Routine of Great People—a foray into the daily routines of 161 people, from painters and writers to famous composers and scientists.
The only lesson of the book, says the author, is that there is no one way to do things. Nevertheless, as different as the routines and habits of these illustrious individuals may be, there are a few commonalities that are worth taking stock of, especially for those who flirt with the idea of a daily schedule without ever quite managing to stick to it.
A glimpse into the daily routines of geniuses
Mason Currey’s book is a must-read for anyone obsessed with creating the ideal daily routine, writes Sarah Green Carmichael, editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review. But far from being a guide to rigorous, efficient scheduling, the book is a kaleidoscope of the routines and rituals of those who have made their mark on art or science.
Daily walks and keeping track of hours worked are two of the daily routines common to many of the geniuses featured in Currey’s book. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard returned from his walks inspired, Charles Dickens walked for three hours every day to gather raw material for his novels. Tchaikovsky didn’t dare cut short his usual two-hour walk for an almost superstitious fear of falling ill, and Beethoven didn’t go without pencil and paper on his long walks after lunch.
Some writers wrote at the same intervals every day, or only got up from their desks when they had reached their self-imposed word quota. The novelist Anthony Trollope, for example, wrote for only three hours a day, at a rate of 250 words a minute. Hemingway tracked his daily word count on a chart, a habit shared by psychologist and author B. F. Skinner, who used a stopwatch during his writing sessions.
Waking up in the early hours of the morning seems to have been one of the secrets of most memorable creators, from Mozart to Frank Lloyd Wright, a prominent architect of the first half of the last century. The novelist Nicholson Baker found that the benefits of getting up at 4:30 in the morning were reflected in the efficiency and quality of his writing.
Work and breaks seem to go hand in hand for most creatives. Hemingway used to stop writing when inspiration was still with him, convinced that he could return to the subject the next day more efficiently than if he worked to exhaustion, and the playwright Arthur Miller preferred to get up from the typewriter before running out of ideas.
According to William James, the father of modern psychology, to adopt the most rigorous routine possible is to create a mechanism for unleashing the imagination. By automating daily tasks, we leave more room for the mind to focus on the things that require creativity, rather than forcing it to run endlessly on the edge of indecision about the place, time, and opportunity of each individual action.
Routine keeps us healthy
Our minds love routine; in fact, what makes them feel good is the sense of comfort, security and familiarity that a well-established schedule brings. Routine reduces anxiety, says Samantha Dutton, director of the social work programme at the University of Phoenix, explaining that freeing the mind from the pressure of making decisions about the daily schedule increases energy levels and helps us adapt more easily to unexpected changes.
A daily schedule works to reduce daily stress, says psychologist Steve Orma, explaining that breaking down the pile of obligations into sequences that we deal with on a daily basis helps us better manage everything we do. Establishing a routine provides more predictability and is an important way to prevent stress, says doctor Indumathi Bendi.
A study published in 2008 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology also showed that the large number of decisions we make affects our self-control. Daily routines, on the other hand, help us spend less cognitive energy on repetitive tasks and support concentration and creativity in more complex tasks, according to a study by South Korean researchers.
Establishing regular sleep patterns and daily routines can improve symptoms of bipolar disorder, according to a study by psychologist Ellen Frank. Looking at 175 adults with the disorder, Frank found that patients who received behavioural therapy to develop daily routines were able to avoid manic and depressive episodes.
Daily and weekly routines are very important in substance abuse prevention and early recovery, according to a 1999 report by the US National Institutes of Health. Structuring one’s time is an important aid to recovery, the report’s authors say, explaining that unstructured time leads to boredom and increases the risk of relapse into risky, unhealthy behaviours.
The importance of daily routine in achieving goals
When it comes to identifying why he’s achieved some goals and failed to tick off others, entrepreneur Greg Thomas says he knows exactly what makes the difference: the presence or absence of a routine. There may be other factors that contribute to success or failure, but the key factor is the time allocated to the goal, and therefore a daily (or weekly, as the case may be) action plan that includes the steps to be practised to achieve the goal, says Thomas.
In fact, when we follow a rigorous schedule, we start to be more responsible with our time and better understand what’s worth investing it in, says Samantha Dutton.
How we wake up in the morning and whether or not we stick to a daily schedule dramatically affects our level of success in every area of life, says ultra-marathoner Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning.
How to change the world by making your bed
Something as small as making your bed in the morning sets you up for a successful day, says William McRaven, a US Navy admiral who has written a book about life-changing decisions and actions. Making the bed is the first accomplishment we check off in the day, one that helps us keep the same cadence for the rest of the day, says the admiral.
McRaven’s book, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World elaborates on the ten principles he learned while training for the US Navy SEALs (and originally presented to graduates of the University of Austin).
Making his bed every day is the first principle in a series that’s guided him through difficult situations in his military career and in everyday life, the admiral says.
A 2019 Best Mattress Brand survey of 1,000 people found a link between productivity during the working day and making the bed in the morning: 82% of those who make their beds in the morning believe it makes them more productive for the rest of the day, and 79% believe making their beds gets their day off to a good start. Three-quarters of those who make their beds say they give their all to their work, while only half of those who leave their beds unmade say the same. Similarly, 74% of those who don’t go out before making their beds say they feel fulfilled at the end of the day (compared to 50% of those who see making their beds as a chore they can avoid). Finally, 92% of those who start their day by making their beds say the effects of this habit are so positive that they would recommend it to others.
You can tell a lot about someone’s personality just by knowing whether they tackle or ignore this daily task, according to another survey by OnePoll. The results of the survey suggest that making the bed can have a positive impact on a person’s lifestyle.
The value of the little things
It is said that big joys are really small joys added up. In the same way, we could think of important achievements as the sum of small things done with perseverance.
The lesson that bed-making teaches us is that small things matter, says Admiral McRaven, emphasising that if you don’t get the small things right, you won’t be able to deal with the really important issues.
The truth is that the failures that hurt us the most are the ones we know we could have easily avoided, the ones where our lack of interest, focus or perseverance weighed heavily. We don’t lament too much (if we lament at all) about the opportunities we think we’ve missed because of external factors that have little to do with our effort or ability. We get knocked down not by situations where success was miles away but by those we missed by millimetres.
Waking up early, the minutes of running we used to merely dream of while relaxing on the couch watching a film, the half-hour of reading that replaces scrolling through social media, and the apple we choose over sugary temptations are all small choices that don’t seem to matter much when we make them—that is, until a milestone or a final balance sheet shows us a bigger gain than we expected (or a loss we couldn’t afford).
If there are no truly small things, and if the smallness of our choices will one day prove overwhelmingly important to the direction our lives have taken, then there is no credible excuse for not planning our time—not even if being organised is not, and does not promise to be, second nature to us any time soon.
“For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!'” wrote the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier. In the end, perhaps the deepest sadness lies in the achievements, joys, and meaningful moments that we have not allowed to happen because, instead of treating life as a grand project, we have been content to live it haphazardly.
Carmen Lăiu is an editor of Signs of the Times Romania and ST Network.