Mason Currey’s book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work tracks how some of history’s most notable writers, composers and thinkers spent their waking hours:
I wanted to show how grand creative visions translate to small daily increments; how one’s working habits influence the work itself, and vice versa.
RJ Andrews turned Currey’s data into infographics, because that’s what we do in 2014. How he did it:
Representing each day as a continuous 24 hour cycle invokes the ever spinning wheel of time, and more simply the face of a clock with midnight placed in the “12 o’clock” position and noon at ”6 o’clock.” Colors mark major categories of activity – work, sleep, exercise, etc.
Compare Beethoven to Mozart:
More than anything, Currey’s book and Andrews’s graphics demonstrate there’s no one “right” way to do creative work. Fetishizing one writer’s routine is pointless. What matters is getting the work done.