Reddit reviews Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
We found 18 Reddit comments about Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Daily Rituals How Artists Work
Reddit reviews Daily Rituals: How Artists WorkWe found 18 Reddit comments about Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Intellectuals in earlier times were walking a lot more than most people do today. In the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, the author describes the routines of a bunch of writers, artists and scientists (mostly from the 20th century) - and over and over they mention going on walks as a way to get exercise and clear the mind.
I recently read Daily Rituals, about the work habits of successful artists, writers, etc. There were folks in there like mathematician Paul Erdos, who lived out of a suitcase and only worked or slept (meals were work time).
But a significant number kept a steady schedule and averaged maybe 6 or 7 hours of work. It was more about maximizing focus and efficiency than squeezing every last second out of the day.
Source post (sorry for putting it up so late!):
This info was drawn from the work of Mason Curry who published this book about the daily rituals of how artists work.
It was then extrapolated into this infographic by Info We Trust.
If you like this I also recommend a book called Daily Rituals. Lots of writers included, plus other types of artists.
Are you sure you're not mistaking hours worked for productivity?
The most productive people I know aren't necessarily the ones that work the most, but the ones who work the smartest.
Some of them learn to delegate, giving them leverage. At even 5 hours worked a day they are ten times more effective than someone younger who works 14 hours. Most CEOs I know are like this. Also, many creatives I know now handle the whole creative teams now.
Some of them work in bursts - yeah, there is no life beyond work, but they work on a project basis, for a few months, and then take a month off. Or for a few years, and take a year off. A friend of mine sold her company for $10M recently, spent a year travelling, and now she's launching a new one, again, planning to work 3-4 years doing crazy hours until she sells the new thing.
Some people mix family and business. Me & my gf are like this. We work during the day, and for fun we do networking, conferences, and stuff. At home we talk about what inspires us - which usually is work related, and our since our closest friends work in similar occupations, even a Sunday brunch is an opportunity for inspiration etc. When one of us goes for an international trip, the other one often tags along, doing their work remotely.
Some other people I know do a few projects of different kinds at the same time. E.g. a friend I know writes books, does projects for corporate clients, and is a judge at a race track on the weekends. Another friend, at 33yo, is a world-known pro-gamer, wins programming competitions for money, builds stuff for a startup, and tries to launch an indie game.
Finally, I believe that in any creative profession, you absolutely need time to relax and get inspired. That's when the best ideas come from after all! If you're exhausted every day after work, then you most likely have suboptimal performance.
There is this story about a super-programmer, who spent 3 hours a day playing Quake on company time. When a newbie reported him to the boss, the boss berated the newbie: "I hope you didn't interrupt him - that's his way of getting thoughts organised."
Playing Quake might not be your thing, but perhaps if you do quick Headspace, or yoga breaks during the workday - on company time! - you'll discover that not only you get better ideas after that, but also end the day with some energy left in you?
There's also this nice book I found some time ago:
https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601
It's mostly about artists, but perhaps you'll find some inspiration there. There's also the book by Covey about the 7 habits.
tl;dr; productivity ≠ number of hours worked. also, if you have no energy after work, then perhaps you should work less, so you can be productive in your spare time as well
I saved it on my desktop, so no. Google search reveals this book
On creativity peaks, etc. That varies from person to person. A good source to get an idea of the variety of working habits/rituals of (arguably) productive people can be found here:
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
Title is a bit misleading, there're more than just artist's accounts in there. Great read--really opened my eyes to the idea that society's imposed time schedule may not work for everyone. Also seeing the breadth of variety in approaches gave me a lot of things to try out myself in an effort to optimize my own creative/productive cycles and daily routines.
it's not exactly the same thing but i recommend Daily Rituals:How Artists Work if you wanna be reminded that we all just stumble along.
I'm really big on learning from others and also try to find the routines, habits, and tricks of those who I may be able to model myself after and have found a few helpful links like;
https://podio.com/site/creative-routines
http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601/?tag=dailrout20
Some famous artists to check out:
Chuck Close is paralyzed and uses a powerchair.
Henri Matisse had stomach cancer and was mostly home and bed-bound for the time that he did his famous cutouts.
Here's a wikipedia article listing some other famous disabled artists.
If you move over to the classical music world, Violinist Itzhak Perlman had polio as a kid and now uses crutches and a scooter to get around, and plays seated.
Percussion megastar Evelyn Glennie has been profoundly deaf since age 12.
Ludwig van Beethoven was deaf when he wrote most of his late works, including the 9th symphony which has the famous "ode to joy" chorus
Moving over to writers Fyodor Dostoyevsky had epilepsy, Jorge Luis Borges lost his sight and was blind by his mid-50s.
In terms of learning disabilities and psychological disabilities there are too many to count (but I'm running out of steam so I'll let you google that one for yourself).
If you want to connect with contemporary disabled artists google "disabled artists community", "disabled artists collective", "disabled writers" and the like.
Carolyn Lazard's work jumps to mind as something that you might be interested in.
I'll also recommend you check out the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, edited and with text by Mason Curry. It has a lot of primary source material of different artists, writers, scientists, etc talking about their daily rituals. A significant number of them either work directly around an illness or there is one implied. It's an interesting read for those of us who need to work a little differently from the norm.
Here's the same info in a different graphic. It comes from Mason Currey's relatively recent book Daily Rituals. Someone would have to check the book to see where he sourced the information.
On the one hand, his book a way to demystify "genius" (a concept I don't really believe in) by emphasizing the fact that all these geniuses actually worked their asses off to achieve what they did. On the other hand, it's another form of idolatry.
In the fall semester of my last year of college, I decided to drop out. It didn't seem worth it to me to even get my English degree. I felt I had learned more from my own reading and study than I had from any of the workshops or literature classes I had taken. It seemed a waste of time to even spend another 6 months in school.
Enough people yelled at me, especially mom mom, my roommates, and some other friends, that I ended up finishing up. To do this day, I don't think, for my writing, it would have made a difference in the long run had I stayed or had I gone. But staying meant a few things.
First, writing takes dedication. A lot of dedication. And it's especially hard to finish a story, much less finish a novel. Being able to see college through to completion is, while seemingly pointless at times, an experience that really can, I think, reinforce a habit of completion. If you get used to backing out of things, especially big things, then it's easy to make that a constant every time you reach that moment of "Will I persevere or relent?"
Second, there's a branding and respect factor to consider. 22 year old me was ready to tell everyone to fuck off. They'll respect me when I'm a published author who is selling books and a shooting star. But the reality is that shit still takes time and is difficult and won't happen over night, unless you have a really lucky first book and that doesn't even take into account being lucky with the people you meet and the people who give you a hand up. For most of us, it's going to take a decade plus to really get a writing career going. Do you want to be, that entire time, known as someone who finished school and continued your work, or someone who dropped out? There's much more pressure on the drop out to prove themselves. Sometimes that pressure can result in the extra motivation to do the work. Sometimes it can result in collapse. It's a riskier proposition than finishing your degree.
Third, it gives you a bit more time to think and plan. Had I initially dropped out of school, my plan was to move to LA and work in a bookstore and write. Who knows what would have happened. But since I spent the other 6 months finishing up school. I refined what was really important to me, looked at my opportunities, and decided to move to Sydney, Australia for a year. The degree gave me an extra level of security. Also my mom felt much better about helping me out since I had finished my degree rather than bailed on it. I seemed a little more responsible to everyone around me. And it helped when I was in Sydney. Not job wise. I worked at a Subway and made $18.50 an hour and then worked at a Berkelow Books and made $17.50 an hour. But when I met people, they would ask about if I was in school, what my degree was, etc. I was really aware of those conversations because I had been so close to dropping out. And I realized how different they would have been had I dropped out.
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When it comes to what degree you should get, that depends.
I initially started as a business major because I had the same thought as you. After two years, I was losing my mind. I had taken more English classes than business and would have to be in school for 5 years. So I changed majors to focus on English.
I still feel like both an English undergrad degree and an MFA are nonsense. I know a bunch of people who went the MFA route and thought it was fun but unhelpful or not fun and unhelpful. There are very few people I've ever talked to who got their MFA and felt that MFA really helped them reach the next level.
I say all that from an education perspective. The workshops you're in are usually with students are your caliber of writing or worse. Which usually makes it a blind leading the blind kind of situation. And the professors usually have other things they're worried about. Making you the best writer you can possibly be isn't what most professors really care about. They may like teaching and helping you, but they're concerned with their own projects. So while you'll get some help, it may not be the mentor/mentee relationship that would be ideal.
The main benefit of undergrad and grad is networking. There really isn't that much of a difference between what you're taught at The University of Akron versus what you're taught at Yale. But there's a vast vast vast difference between who's teaching you, who's next to you, and who you have access to.
The best thing you can probably do while in undergrad is leverage the network. Does the school have a literary journal? Join it. If it doesn't, start one. Befriend all the professors. Ask them for advice on a writing career. On internships. Or publishing. Conferences, etc.
That's the true value of a school. Not the classroom experience. But the networking.
If I was back in college, that's what I would focus on.
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TS Eliot and Wallace Stevens worked day jobs their entire lives. Einstein worked a day job while working on his major breakthrough.
It may help to look at the book Daily Rituals which looks at the day to day lives of many artists (mostly historical).
But, really, you don't need the classroom to learn how to be a writer.
You just need to read, deconstruct what you read, research what you read, and write a lot.
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And with all that said, I did, at one point, pay for a year of private lessons with a writer. That was when I was 26. I had come a long ways on my own, but I felt like I needed more. I did a summer workshop at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. The workshop itself was interesting but not revolutionary. But the guy who lead it was who I worked with for the next year. We had weekly calls. He'd assign work. I'd send work. He'd give me feedback. It's the first time I really felt I had feedback from someone who knew what they were talking about and was actually a better writer than me.
I wouldn't recommend everyone doing private lessons. But I do think everyone needs to find someone who they respect as being a superior writer and work with them. Up to that point, I had been in...two poetry workshops, two fiction workshops, two non-fiction workshops, then two other writing groups, and another writing group. As awful as it will make me sound, I always felt superior to the other people in the workshop. I had read more, I had written more, I had studied more. So having that experience of being coached by someone who had read and written more than me—that was priceless.
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I also think working as an editor for a literary journal is more educational than any writing class. In classes, you usually read a great work and discuss it. In workshops, you're reading a dozen or so low quality works. The workshops are skewed because these are your peers. It's not so easy to objectively examine their work. And it comes in a situation where you know they're judging your work. And that you're all experimenting and busy.
It's an entirely different experience to read submissions for a literary journal. Reading 30-50 poetry submissions in a month or reading 20-40 short stories in a month. And the quality is always changing. You see this whole gamut of quality. And it gives you a much better sense of why something works and why it doesn't. Most of the time, these writers will be better than you are. But they are still flawed. And it's easy to recognize those flaws. Which makes it even more shocking when you encounter a really really good submission. It's much more clear WHY it's good when you've just read 15 bad stories in a row.
You don't get that experience if you're only reading great works of poetry and literature. The flaws just aren't as obvious. And your eye probably isn't trained to see the flaws that are there.
Likewise, if you're in a workshop with other college kids, the quality of work they turn in probably isn't good enough to create the necessary contrast that you get from reading submissions of better quality writers.
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So to summarize:
Here's the thing, though. Most famous writers don't have great discipline. Earlier this year I read a book called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Some of the writers in the book were organized, but some also went on methamphetamine-fueled writing streaks, and many simply waited for inspiration to strike.
In fact, what struck me most was the lack of a stereotypical routine. It varied from artist to artist. And each artist's routine reflected his or her personality. The ones who were naturally more rigid had more rigid routines. The ones who were naturally more free-spirited—probably Ne and Ni doms—structured their lives to give them lots and lots of free time so their ideas could simmer and they could write when inspiration struck.
>However, the only way a book can train Ti is if it somehow teaches you to reason differently.
u/lightfive addressed it already, but I have no idea how you reached this conclusion. Reading teaches you to think. Personally, my Te is nonexistent, but I can still make a living editing books. My Ne helps me see the big picture of the narrative, and my Ti helps me enforce the consistency of that narrative.
I see you like books!
From here, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/01/06/high-style-3 :
>When he wrote the "Critique," Sartre, a lifelong caffeine fiend and serious drinker, was also frying his brains on corydrane, a form of amphetamine mixed with, of all things, aspirin. The philosopher was using corydrane on a daily basis, first to cut through the fug of the barbiturates he was taking to help him sleep—and he was having trouble sleeping not least because of all the corydrane he was putting away—but also to keep him at his desk, churning out the "Critique." "To put it briefly," he told Simone de Beauvoir some time later, "in philosophy, writing consisted of analysing my ideas; and a tube of corydrane meant 'these ideas will be analysed in the next two days.' " Or, as the Ramones used to put it, Gabba Gabba Hey.
There is also a section in Daily Rituals (https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601) that is on Sartre and corydane, which is where I originally read about it.
Sorry I can't exactly help, but your post reminded me of a book called Daily Rituals that has been on my list of books to read (https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601). Also, Adam Grant's books are all amazing-- Originals is probably my favorite nonfiction book of all time. Give and Take is great, too.
No problem. I don't mean digital tools (although they are incredibly useful), for me it has come down to two things when it comes to sketching. A good sketchpad and a good pen. My preferences
https://www.moleskine.com/en/collections/model/product/plain-notebook-large
http://pilotpen.us/brands/razor-point/fineliner/
I buy in bulk :)
Creativity is a very subjective topic, what is ingenious to some will be dull to others. Personally I would say creativity is finding the simplest solution to a complex problem, be it design or any other subject. Don't be fooled by thinking that the only way to be creative is to come up with completely original ideas from the beginning. Start by understanding great architecture, replicate to study, and improvise on top of this.
Suggested book
https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601
King and Asimov both wrote for a living. If writing is your day job and how you pay your bills then obviously you'll spend a lot of your time doing it.
For most writers though, that isn't the case. Most are likely juggling day jobs, children and whatever else takes up the hours in the day. To hear about what cluttered lives many creatives led, check out the book Daily Rituals
The important thing with acquiring any skill or finishing a project is to start with small goals, do a bit each day and build momentum. I set a goal of writing a few crappy pages each day. If I feel like doing more I'll keep going. Sometimes I'll outline or rework a bit of writing instead, but every day I do something.
Also when you feel you've taken your long term plan forward you'll feel way better during your down time. ;)
What's also important to realize is that a lot of writing happens away from a keyboard or pen. I get ideas while sitting on a bus or picture a scene I'm working on while walking. That way I'll ideally have a good idea of what I want to write before I start.