Daily Routines

Some famous minds and their Daily Rituals:

Barack Obama (from the NY Times):

Although his presidency is barely a week old, some of Mr. Obama’s work habits are already becoming clear. He shows up at the Oval Office shortly before 9 in the morning, roughly two hours later than his early-to-bed, early-to-rise predecessor. Mr. Obama likes to have his workout — weights and cardio — first thing in the morning, at 6:45. (Mr. Bush slipped away to exercise midday.)

He reads several papers, eats breakfast with his family and helps pack his daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, off to school before making the 30-second commute downstairs — a definite perk for a man trying to balance work and family life. He eats dinner with his family, then often returns to work; aides have seen him in the Oval Office as late as 10 p.m., reading briefing papers for the next day.

“Even as he is sober about these challenges, I have never seen him happier,” Mr. Axelrod said. “The chance to be under the same roof with his kids, essentially to live over the store, to be able to see them whenever he wants, to wake up with them, have breakfast and dinner with them — that has made him a very happy man.”

Benjamin Franklin:

Charles Darwin:

[The following is from Francis Darwin’s reminiscences of his father. It summarizes a typical day in Darwin’s middle and later years, when he had developed a rigid routine that seldom changed, even when there were visitors in the house.]

7 a.m.	Rose and took a short walk.
7:45 a.m.	Breakfast alone
8–9:30 a.m.	Worked in his study; he considered this his best working time.
9:30–10:30 a.m.	Went to drawing-room and read his letters, followed by reading aloud of family letters.
10:30 a.m.– 12 or 12:15 p.m.	Returned to study, which period he considered the end of his working day.
12 noon	Walk, starting with visit to greenhouse, then round the sandwalk, the number of times depending on his health, usually alone or with a dog.
12:45 p.m.	Lunch with whole family, which was his main meal of the day. After lunch read The Times and answered his letters.
3 p.m.	Rested in his bedroom on the sofa and smoked a cigarette, listened to a novel or other light literature read by ED [Emma Darwin, his wife].
4 p.m.	Walked, usually round sandwalk, sometimes farther afield and sometimes in company.
4:30–5:30 p.m.	Worked in study, clearing up matters of the day.
6 p.m.	Rested again in bedroom with ED reading aloud.
7.30 p.m.	Light high tea while the family dined. In late years never stayed in the dining room with the men, but retired to the drawing-room with the ladies. If no guests were present, he played two games of backgammon with ED, usually followed by reading to himself, then ED played the piano, followed by reading aloud.
10 p.m.	Left the drawing-room and usually in bed by 10:30, but slept badly.

I can’t imagine the inflexibility of some of the routines, but pretttttty interesting.