Yesterday I saw a really inspiring post by Info We Trust, that lays out how famous creators have spent their day. They took old correspondences and information about the person and made an easy to understand info graphic.

When we are creating and deep in our process sometimes we wonder if we are spending our day correctly. That is why I really appreciated these images. It very succinctly conveys how ingenious people throughout history has spent their time.

The First thing I realized looking at these images is that there is no standard. None… Honore de Balzac is nothing like Mozart, yet both have amazing works. If you asked every musician you loved, you will probably never hear the same answer. We are all unique and work in different ways.

How to Figure Out Your Day:

There are times in the day that are more “creative” than others. That time is different for everyone, but they generally work in a pattern. I know one amazing composer that mainly writes in the morning. He gets up at 6am and writes until noon. Then answers phone calls and office work. I personally feel most creative at about 3pm-9pm.

To figure out your own schedule, just watch what you are already doing. Maybe take notes on when you are really feeling in your flow. What time is it? What have you done that day? Also look at what stops you from being creative?

This way you can start making it a habit.

Staying Creative During Your Day:

There is something else that almost all successful creative people share as a habit. That is, learning to stop distractions. You will notice looking at all the way these famous artists spend their day is in chunks of time. Instead of doing everything at once they are doing a few tasks in large chunks of time. It takes us 30min to an hour to really get into our current task. It is rare that I can sit down and be fully engaged in creating music in the first 15 min.

This means cutting out on random phone calls, having to get up every few minutes for snacks, and other distractions. Get your day ready, shut off devices, and then create. This will greatly improve the quality of experience and outcome of the time you do spend.

How We Spend Our Lives:

We are more than just our work. It’s important to remember that being human means we experience love, loss, fun, exercise, and more. It is also what makes us interesting. If you do nothing but work for years and go to a party and try to make small talk you will realize you are kind of a boring person.

Also, How we spend our day is how we spend our lives. We get into bigger patterns and don’t even realize it for years. How you plan out your every day is how you spend your life. Try keeping this in mind as you develop your workflow as an artist.

Now that I have had my morning writing, I am off to making music again. To see the full collection of images and read more go to Info We Trust.