A friend sent me a link to this piece called “The Daily Routines of Famous Writers.” It details, well, the daily routines of famous writers. I found this interesting because, although I am a plebeian editor / copywriter and not a brilliant novelist per se, one of my greatest hobbies is honing my own daily routine down to a science. The more I can perfect the synthesis of eating, drinking tea, not answering the phone and trying to concentrate, the more relaxed (in other words, productive) I find myself. At this point, I’ve gotten a pretty good rhythm going that goes something like this:
Wake up any time between 8 and 10, without an alarm. (I am a big believer in getting enough sleep and never, ever set an alarm unless I have to catch a flight to Bangkok.)
Until 11am, my singular ambition is to adjust to being upright by drinking tea, answering thousands of emails, jotting down any brilliant world-saving ideas that came to me in my sleep, and reading things on the internet (like the above piece). I also try to start every day by looking at at least one cute animal video. (Please send me any you come across.)
At 11, promptly, I kick into billable time, which means I go “on the clock” for clients and start to track my time in half hour increments. This is when things get rull serious.
I do billable work until 6pm. Once I’m in that zone, I try not to break it. It takes a lot for me to concentrate. I’ve had countless know-it-all-about-wellness friends advise me that I should always take a lunch break and step away from my computer, and that multitasking by eating while working is something only neanderthals do. I even went out and splurged on a sweet green bistro table because I had a vision of myself having my lunch on the back deck every day while looking out hopefully over my pit of despair:
Anemone coined the term “pit of despair,” and she really nailed it.
I have yet to eat lunch at my sweet little bistro table even one single time. Concentration mode is a dicey thing, and I can’t afford to break it. I spend all day, every day, tracking a triangular path between my desk, the kitchen (to make a lot of tea) and the bathroom (to pee out all the tea).
My goal every single day is to keep my caffeine and blood sugar levels at such a stasis that I can focus on the task at hand for at least seven minutes at a time. For this reason, the phone is off. I don’t leave the house during the day. I might, if things are going really well, allow myself to check the mail.
Even on my very best days, though, there is usually some Bermuda Triangle time in the mix, where I end up taking an inadvertent mental break that might involve some combination of the following:
- A Wikipedia wormhole (possible subjects on my mind right now: why the band The Be Good Tanyas broke up, exotic places I can go for Christmas with my $400 flight voucher, how to make elderchic homemade cold cream, buying new domain names)
- A witty text message frenzy with a friend
- Throwing myself dramatically on the couch for a histrionic interlude
Around 6-ish, I finally get dressed, leave the house, and go exercise. The key, for me, to ever getting anything done is the lockdown.
