In a highly engaging post at project management site Podio.com, an interactive data visualization broke down an hour-by-hour accounting of the daily habits of 26 of the world’s most creative people. Included in the visualization were such notable creatives as Benjamin Franklin, Victor Hugo, Maya Angelou, Richard Stauss, Pablo Picasso and many others.
What’s immediately noticeable in the colorful chart is that most of the people featured get regular and copious amounts of sleep.
The creatives featured on the visualization are also alike in that they allocate substantial chunks of time for creative work and for food and leisure. On the other hand, only about half of the entrants specifically allocate time for administrative work/day job in their daily routine. Franz Kafka reported the largest chunk of time, allocating about six hours for administrative tasks and/or his daily jobs.
Structure is Not the Enemy of Creativity
What’s less immediately obvious in this visualization but equally important is that these notable creatives have reported keeping strict daily routines. The data for the visualization was collected from the 2013 book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, which highlights the routines of more than 150 creative people.
The book also includes lots of motivational nuggets, including.
“Anthony Trollope demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours.)”
What’s notable from both the visualization and the book is that structure and routine are clearly not the enemy of creativity. Instead the book suggests that building a regular routine may very well be a key contributor to the creative process.
Maximizing Your Day
In 2020, we wrote a blog post about a similar topic, the importance of creating space and routine every morning. For entrepreneurs, the daily tasks you set for yourself will help you reach your 1-Year Highly Achievable Goals (1HAGs) and help you make progress on their Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) as you scale your business.
In other words, building a daily route is integral to the process of goal setting.
As we noted in that post, another resource for planning a successful morning routine is the book Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs by Cameron Herold and Hal Elrod. The authors recommend a six-step process in implementing a successful morning routine. The process, captured in the acronym S.A.V.E.R.S.,, is Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading and Scribing (Writing).
Visualizing Your Daily Routine
You may know at PFD Group we are big proponents of creating vision boards to keep you motivated and focused. Creating a visual morning routine planner is also a great way to keep you motivated..
As usual, Pinterest has a wealth of ideas on how to create a personalized daily routine, but the website Mashaplans has a beautiful example to get you started.
If you keep a bullet journal, you may also want to track your daily routine alongside the most important tasks you’re looking at for the coming day to help you emphasize structure in your day.
Encourage Your Employees to Build a Routine
Now that more people are returning to an office environment, their daily routines are also changing. No more rolling out of bed three minutes before the morning Zoom call.
It’s important you acknowledge these changes–and that they might not always be easy to adopt–but also to encourage your employees to keep their best habits and to find new, better ones.
A Life of Service
Just as we saw in the habits of creative people visualized above, it’s important that your daily routine is a well-rounded one. In many of the examples, you’ll see people visualizing brushing their teeth or making their bed.
These are clearly important elements to a daily routine, as taking care of yourself is always a priority. But if you and/or your employees are pursuing larger life goals, your daily routine should expand to incorporate those goals.
For example, if one of your personal or professional Core Values is giving back, you may want to put that core value into action by including an element in your daily habits.
Unplug and Unwind
Often we hear people tell us they just don't have the time to spend on daily check-ins. But as we’ve already said, think of the daily check in as a way of investing in yourself.
One daily habit to consider adding to your routine is taking time off to unplug at night. Unwind, uplug, turn off the social media. Science has pretty much proven you’ll get more sleep, feel more rested and be more creative if you do.
Plus the time you save might just be the time you’ve been looking for to invest in yourself.
As you start to visualize your daily routine, know that we at PFD Group can help you connect the dots between daily routine, and your Big, Hairy Audacious Goal. If you’d like more information, please contact us today for a one-on-one introductory session.