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Post written by Albert van Zyl from the blog HeadSpace.

The lives of great people give us interesting clues about how to organise our days.

All of them attached great value to their daily routines. This is because they saw it as being part of ‘becoming who they are’, as Nietzsche puts it.

For the same reason they were also highly individual in their routines. They had the courage to go against popular opinion and work out often strange daily plans that suited them.

This is perhaps the first lesson that we can learn – that it takes courage and resolve to design and stick to a routine that suits you. But as Emerson reassures us: ‘The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going’.

There are at least 10 other lessons that the daily routines of the great can teach us:

1. Don’t work long hours

Despite the modern obsession with physical presence at offices (also known as ‘presenteeism’), very few of the great worked long hours.

Philosopher Michel Foucault would only work from 9am to 3pm. Beethoven only worked from sunrise until the early afternoon. No 12 hour days here. Author Tom Robbins schedules only 3 hours of writing at his desk per day.

2. Take breaks

Even during these short days, the great took plenty of breaks.

Socrates would sometimes simply stop and hold completely still for several minutes. Beethoven was known to punctuate his mornings by running outside and walking around – he called it ‘working while walking’.

3. Take even longer breaks

The great all spent a single long period away from their desks every day to give their minds time to recover and regain its creative poise.

Beethoven started work at daybreak, but wrapped up by two or three in the afternoon which left him a good 14 hours away from work. Victor Hugo wrote in the mornings and took afternoons off entirely. Churchill would do nothing work-related between noon and around 11 at night.

4. Stop work and sit down for meals

Churchill would even have a bath and dress for meals. For us mere mortals, this injunction could simply mean sitting down with your sandwich away from you desk, on a bench in the park or somewhere else. Or resolving to chew and taste your food properly.

5. Don’t work in the afternoons

There are some exceptions, but very few of our heroes did any serious work in the afternoon.

After writing in the morning, Victor Hugo spent his afternoons riding around Paris in double decker busses, watching his brethren about their work. For us this might mean blocking off afternoons for long tea breaks and non-essential tasks.

6. Mix it up

The days of the great contain a surprising variety of activities. It seems that we don’t have to focus on a small range of things to succeed.
Even the grim German philosopher, Immanuel Kant went for afternoon walks and sat down for lunch with friends each day. Gandhi walked, spun, had a long bath and massage.

Churchill painted, fed his fish, played card games and constructed buildings all over Chartwell farm. He famously claimed that our minds don’t need rest as much as they need variety.

7. Aim low

Don’t schedule every minute of your day. Leo at Zenhabits suggests that we have morning and evening routines, and leave the middle of the day open for completing key tasks and other things that come up.

Daily routines are supposed to make things easier, not more complicated. Micro managing every minute of your day does not work.

8. Take time to relax

The great all reserved time to relax. And this doesn’t mean engaging in some semi-productive activity like reading a book or washing the dishes. No, they blocked out time to do nothing at all.

Gandhi would often spend time just staring at the horizon. Churchill would sit down to smoke a cigar after lunch and Beethoven would stop off for a few beers after his afternoon walk. In his recent autobiography, Alan Greenspan mentions that he too makes time to reflect each day.

9. Get up early(?)

This one is the subject of hot debate. Samuel Johnson, Churchill and Dylan Thomas got up late. Gandhi, Franklin and Mandela all got up early.

But whether they were early birds or night owls, the great all make sure that they had long periods of uninterrupted quiet time; whether late at night or early in the morning.

10. Exercise!

Al Gore interrupts his work day at 3pm to go for a run. Emerson, Beethoven, Nietzsche, Victor Hugo and Gandhi all went for walks. Nietzsche said that he ’scribbled’ notes while he took his walk and claims that some of his best thoughts came in this way.

Mandela’s 5 am walks are legendary. The story goes that he once invited a persistent journalist to interview him during this morning walk – but she ended up being too out of breath to ask any questions.

Albert’s blog provides weird, insightful and funny bits that allow you to protect and enhance your Headspace. Check it out or subscribe to his feed.

Mandela

image credit: rchoephoto
Beethoven

photo credit: TaranRampersad
Churchill

photo credit: monkeyc.net
Ghandi

photo credit: nilexuk
Greenspan

photo credit: trackrecord

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Glen Stansberry of LifeDev (feed).

Focus is something of a novelty these days. We’ve got cellphones for texting and calls, IM, Twitter, Email, RSS feeds, Facebook, Myspace… the list goes on and on. If you don’t have ADD before you start working online, it seems it’s almost inevitable thanks to these inputs. If you’re a web worker who uses the Internet for the majority of the day, you’re especially at risk for losing focus.

Focus is something that must be fought for. It’s not something that automatically switches on when you want to. You have to make sure your surroundings are perfect for working if you want to be focused. Here’s a few ways I’ve found this to work:

1. Use offline tools. Paper products, pens, and other physical tools are a Godsend for those of us who have a hard time focusing throughout the work day. They’re so simple that we can use them quickly, without having to worry about becoming distracted.
2. Take more breaks. More breaks = More productivity. It may sound wrong, but it’s true. Breaks allow us to re-group our thoughts and focus for the task at hand. They also keep us fresh so that we don’t end up burning out after only a few hours work.
3. Smaller tasks to check off. When you’re planning your day, make sure that your “action steps” (aka items in the checklist) are small actions. Instead of “Paint living room”, try breaking it down into many tasks, like “buy paint, buy rollers, pick colors” etc.
4. Keep a steady pace. Don’t try to do to much. Keeping the pace manageable allows you to keep your focus. Unfortunately, people can confuse this with “Work till you drop without breaks”. See number 2.
5. Keep a daily “purpose” card. It’s pretty easy to get lost staring at the computer all day long. We’ll find rabbit holes to wonder down (ie. Youtube, Myspace, etc.) if we’re not careful. Having your daily purpose card gives you clarity and a reminder as to what you’re doing today.
6. Develop the mindset that the computer is only a tool. It’s easy to try and use the computer for too much. At its core, the computer is merely a tool (albeit a freakin’ awesome one) that allows to do work more efficiently. If we’re using it as something more than that, (like as a solution for your life), you’ll ultimately fail. It’s like trying to eat a steak dinner with only a spoon.
7. Plan your day to the T. If you’re finding sporadic periods of laziness throughout the day, it could be because you don’t take enough breaks (see #2), and you don’t have the day mapped out as efficiently as you could. Make sure your list of todos has lots of small, actionable steps that can be done quickly. This will gives a really satisfying feeling when you’re crossing things off your list like crazy.
8. Notice your lazy routines. Everyone has recurring lazy spots throughout the day. Plan to have your breaks for those times. You’re going to be lazy then anyway, right?
9. Plan the night before. Planning the night before is a great way to really get focused on the next day. “Sleeping” on your tasks and goals for the following day can really help your mind expect what’s going to happen the next day. Essentially, you’re preparing your mind for the following day. Advanced focus.
10. Turn off extra inputs. These are IM and email for me, but we all have our Achilles heel. Completely turn off any distracting piece of technology that you own. Every one of these inputs tries to steal bits of your focus. And they won’t rest until they do.
11. Set time limits for tasks. There’s no motivation like a deadline. Giving yourself real deadlines is a great way to stay motivated and focused on the task. Given the fact that we human are natural procrastinators, it’s no surprise that we’ll take as long as we’re allowed to finish something. Setting real but attainable limits is a great way to keep the project humming, so to speak.
12. Keep a journal of what you did throughout the day. I like to use a moleskine notebook for my lists just so I can go back and review it every now and again, to see what I’ve done. Knowing how far you’ve come can keep you sharp and motivated to finish.
13. Use programs to track where you spend your time. This is a real eye-opener. Knowing just how much time you spend every day/week/month on a certain site or with a certain program can quickly show you where your priorities lie. I recommend Rescue Time, but there are many others.
14. Visualize the day in the morning, before it starts. A little pre-work meditation on the day’s events is a great way to start the day off focused and productive. Don’t worry about a full 30 minute session, a quick review before you start the day is fine.
15. Start the day right. Starting the day with a good breakfast, some quiet time and/or exercise is a great way to set your day up for success. Sounds like a cliche, but it really works.
16. Clean yourself up. It’s why my track coach in high school made us dress up for big races: you perform the way you feel. And if you feel polished, groomed and ready, you’ll be more likely to be productive. For me this is just taking a shower, brushing my teeth and putting on casual clothing. I used to work all day without taking a shower in my PJ’s, but I never got much stuff done. Let’s be honest here… if you’re dressed really casually, odds are you’ll be working really casually. Just taking the time to clean up a bit before you buckle down for the day is never a bad idea.

For more from Glen, check out his great productivity blog, LifeDev. He’s also the co-owner of the LifeRemix blog network.

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. I’d appreciate it. :)

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