Slogging Revealed

July 29, 2010 6:01 PM

Can you point me in the direction of materials that indicate how people who would be considered exemplary of their field schedule(d) their time?

I'm not necessarily interested in productivity tips or anything of that nature. I'm more interested in finding out how these exemplary folks went about their day-to-day life in the interest of an agenda or a goal. They can come from any historical period or culture. Whether they were successful in the endeavor or not doesn't matter. The point is to get a sense for how they filled daily time in their formative years.

Detailed sources are good but anecdotal accounts are acceptable.

posted by quadog to Work & Money (5 answers total)

Anthony Trollope's autobiography is very good on this.

What I remember most vividly is that he scheduled a certain number of hours for writing per day, and never deviated from it. If he finished a novel at 9:30 in the morning, he just started another novel.
posted by escabeche at 6:19 PM on July 29, 2010

Here is Ben Franklin's day from his autobiography.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:19 PM on July 29, 2010

Daily Routines of famous creative types, broken down by occupation and classes of habits.
posted by zjacreman at 10:38 PM on July 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also How we Work, which gets some but not all of its material by linking to Daily Routines. And a related Delicious tag.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 6:13 AM on July 30, 2010

Response by poster: Favorites to all! Thanks for the leads.
posted by quadog at 11:06 AM on July 30, 2010