Daily Routines

I recently stumbled across a collection of the daily routines of famous people (a blog currently on hold as the idea is being turned into a book).

Browsing through, I was intrigued by the routines which involved chunks of work interspersed with large blocks of leisure time, with great things accomplished in those concentrated work periods, presumably at least in part because the leisure meant that mental and physical batteries could be recharged. For example, Winston Churchill:

• 7.30 - Woke, ate breakfast in bed and read the papers, then worked in bed
• 11.00 - Got up, bathed, took a walk, went to his study (presumably to work)
• 1.00 - Extended three course lunch until...
• 3.30 - More work, or played cards or backgammon with his wife
• 5.00 - Nap
• 6.30 - Bathed and dressed for dinner
• 8.00 - Dinner with drinks and cigars afterwards (could last until after midnight)
• After dinner - back to his study for another hour or so of work

And this was C.S.Lewis's ideal, based on the days when he lived with his tutor:

• 8.00 - Breakfast
• 9.00 - Work
• 1.00 - Lunch
• By 2.00 - out for a walk
• No later than 4.15 - afternoon tea (alone with a book)
• 5.00 - Work
• 7.00 - Dinner, followed by leisure to talk or for lighter reading

Inevitably, most (or all?) of the routines described do not involve even basic domestic duties, which were presumably performed by wives or servants, yet alone responsibility for childcare. One of the things I find hard about life with children is the fragmentation of time - the snatching of an hour here, or a half-hour there - and the inevitable interruptions that make it hard to truly focus on anything, or to fully recharge. Skimming through the daily routines got me fantasising about how I would like my days to look if I had no commitments, and how much more it would be possible to accomplish if I was free to match the structure of my day to my natural rhythms (read: night owl!) ... or even if I was just able to think in chunks of time rather than snippets. I think working from 10 until 1, followed by a long lunch, exercise and some reading time, then work again from 4 to 7, followed by dinner and a leisurely evening sounds pretty good - not far off C.S.Lewis's ideal, but with a slightly later start.