What’s Your Routine?

by Cate Mahoney

I’m sure we’ve all been both Benjamin Franklin and Dorothy Parker at different times in our lives. I’m in the last stages of finishing my dissertation, and I feel more like Parker than Franklin, but I’m trying to balance that out.

For sympathy, and perhaps inspiration, I’ve recently turned to Mason Currey’s two books on the rituals of great artists: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (2013) and the sequel, Daily Rituals: Women at Work (2019), which makes up for the curiously small number of female artists included in the first book. They’re both wonderful reads if, like me, you’re a bit nosy and need a distraction that could become its own experiment.

Reading about how artists—especially writers—structure their days reveals a whole lot: 1) Everyone has their own routine that works for them. 2) That routine doesn’t even work for them half the time!

Here is one of my favorite routines from Currey’s edited collections:

James Boswell, from February 1763:

“I move like very clock-work. At eight in the morning Molly [the maid] lights the fire, sweeps and dresses my dining-room. Then she calls me up and lets me know what o’clok it is. I lie some time in bed indulging indolence, which in that way, when the mind is easy and cheerful, is most pleasing. I then slip on my clothes loosely, easily and quickly, and come into my dining-room. I pull my bell. The maid lays a milk-white napkin upon the table and sets the things for breakfast. I then take some light amusing book and breakfast and read for an hour or more, gently pleasing both my palate and my mental taste. Breakfast over, I feel myself gay and lively. I go to the window, and am entertained with the people passing by, all intent on different schemes. To go regularly through the day would be too formal for this my journal. Besides, every day cannot be passed exactly the same way in every particular. My day is in general diversified with reading of different kinds, playing on the violin, writing, chatting with my friends. Even the taking of medicines serves to make time go on with less heaviness. I have a sort of genius for physic and always had great entertainment in observing the changes of the human body and the effects produced by diet, labour, rest, and physical operations…

“As I am now in tolerable health, my appetite is very good, and I eat my slender bit of dinner with great relish. I drink a great deal of tea. Between eleven and twelve my bed is warmed and I go calmly to repose. I am not at all unsatisfied with this kind of existence.”

What a double negative at the end there! I would be pretty satisfied with that existence as well.

Right now, my routine could be described as follows:

I try to get up at a reasonable hour! Meaning 9 or 10 am. I can’t look at a screen right after I wake up; otherwise, I feel like I have a headache for a good part of the day.  I take the dog out so he can relieve himself, and I get some brisk air to enliven me. We come back, and I have some coffee; he has some breakfast. I nibble on something. I’m not a huge breakfast person; it will weigh me down. I do work from 10:45-noon. Lunch is often my favorite meal, if I have good lunch materials lying around, that is. My best writing time is between 2-8 pm. My dog naps in his bed while I work on my dissertation. We often go for a good walk around 4-4:30, when Finn (the dog) chases squirrels in the park. I try to get myself to the gym around 6 pm or so a few times a week. It loosens up my body after a pretty sedentary day inside. I have dinner around 7 or 7:30. If I’m feeling productive, I will go back to writing. More often than not, I will watch TV and take small writing breaks (like 20-25 minutes at a time) when I get an idea.

What’s your routine?