if you're bored then you're boring

Routines... The first 35 minutes of every day I'm on autopilot - from there on it's a blur. What fascinates me are those who profess to stick to a hard and fast schedule day in and day out... when an enforced schedule doesn't just while away the day in compartmentalized segments, but goes toward the production of an art.

I love these Daily Routines, describing how "writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days." In other words - the Process with a capital P.

The little stories hidden within these described schedules are astounding. This request for this recitation of the artist's daily life is clichéd yet the answer is always still so revelatory - take Satie and Kafka, two "mad" geniuses. A tiny glimpse of their "typical" (and I use that word lightly) days reveals depression as both a hindrance and a driving force behind their art.

The mundane is also so interesting - knowing the fact that So-and-so regularly rises at 5am, eats dry toast with a cup of cocoa at 8:25 am and takes their daily constitutional at 2pm sharp humanizes by making them domestic - not just names in the paper on on a book spine.

As for my own routine, well, I often like to plan in advance (mostly so I can google whatever activity I'm about to embark on) but before I write that Next Great American Novel, looks like I'll have to get an analog watch I can actually read.