Daily Routines: How interesting people organize their day.

You can't underestimate the value of routine if you want to progress with the things you do. The more you do, the tighter your routine has to be. It's something I am constantly fighting with: trying to establish a routine and then stick to it. There are far too much distractions nowadays. It's almost like gathering information vs. applying that information and turning it into knowledge.

Timely line from CS Lewis "And it is essential of the happy life that a man would have almost no mail and never dread the postman's knock."<p>He could never have imagined the black tide of corporate email that washes up on my desk everyday.

The role of mundane activities is interesting: A cup of tea, reading the newspaper, taking a walk, smoking a cigar, etc.<p>People who have trouble sleeping are, among other things, supposed to establish a routine. Repeating mundane activities (brush teeth, lock doors, turn down thermostat, etc) in the same way every night seems to prime the brain for sleep.<p>I suspect it doesn't matter <i>what</i> you do before you settle in to work, simply that you establish some "it's time to work now" cues and then take advantage of them.

"Sincerity begins at a little over 100 hours a week. You can probably get to 110 hours on a sustained basis, but it's hard. You have to get down to eating once a day and showering every other day, things of that sort to really get your life organized to work 110 hours."<p>- Len Bosack, co-founder, Cisco Systems, and hero to the hardcore

Each of these people finds a form of structure that works for them. The trick is to get the benefit of discipline without giving up any creativity.

Nice website, good find.<p>I found comments from HN's edw519 very useful: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191275" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191275</a>

Good find. I'm pretty amazed at the fact that Charles Darwin used to work only for 3 hours. I think 3 hours of work without any interruptions is better than my 8 hours spent on computer (plus at the end I always have a feeling I couldn't complete the stuff today---yet again;( ). Amazing. I'm just guessing that these guys must have settled on such routines after lots of hit and trial. Not sure, what should I do with my routine as mostly I'm tired of my sleeping routine and I've almost given up on that.

Churchill's routine sounds ideal to me. Just have to replace the mail and papers with the Internet equivalent.

I don't see a lot of commuting in these "habits". Interesting how much of a time waste the average drive into the office creates for most people.<p>It seems if we wanted to look for realistic ways to increase productivity in our society, we'd really focus on this one.

While these are interesting anecdotes, and I am certainly not in a good position to criticize (being especially good at procrastination), I wouldn't not put too much weight on these stories. Maybe some of them are more myth than reality, and trying to follow the ideal might do more harm than good?<p>Certainly it sounds like a good idea to have a strict daily routine, but maybe it doesn't work for everyone. Maybe it didn't even work for most of those interesting people, but some PR person or biographer or whatever deemed it necessary to portray these people's lives as such.

There is such thing as too much routine for creative types. An analogy: think about it like . . . genetic mutations sometimes arise from too much routine. Not all genetic mutations are bad; sometimes they contribute toward survival of a species.

obama: '"Even as he is sober about these challenges, I have never seen him happier," Mr. Axelrod said. "The chance to be under the same roof with his kids, essentially to live over the store, to be able to see them whenever he wants, to wake up with them, have breakfast and dinner with them — that has made him a very happy man."'<p>so true. i became much more productive with more freedom on how to divide my day and with whom.

It is amazing to me how efficient of a society we have become. We can get as much work done in one day as what used to take probably months!