To create is to embrace imagination and discipline simultaneously, and small, precipitous acts carve paths toward our end goals. It is with this spirit in mind that on a sunny April afternoon in 1929, Virginia Woolf reflected in her diary - ‘habits gradually change the face of one’s life as time changes one’s physical face’.

Ahead of stepping into the new year, we found ourselves captivated by a series of books exploring the habits of extraordinary women and men across history. Inspired by their routines, we recount here some of the most luminous examples and reflect on how rituals continue to guide innovators, artists, and thinkers today.

The dawn of possibilities

Women creators, in particular, have mastered the art of morning rituals. Maya Angelou, for example, rose before sunrise, retreating to a bare hotel room with only a bed, a Bible, and a bottle of sherry. There, uninterrupted, she wrote with clarity and conviction. 

Simone de Beauvoir, likewise, began her day in the early hours sipping tea and long stretches of writing, prioritizing her intellectual pursuits over the noise of the world. 'I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth,' she once wrote, and her morning routine reflected this commitment to inquiry and creation. 

George Eliot, one of the greatest English novelists, began each day with meticulous lists that structured her creative efforts. In her diary, she wrote, 'the first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence.' For Eliot, the simple act of organizing time was a gesture of devotion—toward the work ahead and the life she sought to shape. 

'Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day hunting for it,' wrote 18th-century statesman Richard Whately, a reminder of how precious these liminal hours can be.  Voltaire, who famously adhered to a rigid morning routine, spent the quiet hours immersed in study and correspondence, his mornings a structured prelude to the intellectual contributions that shaped the Enlightenment.

Whether they write, meditate, or reflect, those who wake with intention report greater satisfaction and productivity throughout their day. It is little wonder that an entire internet industry now thrives on optimizing to-do lists and productivity methods, attempting to codify what creators like Angelou, de Beauvoir, and Eliot understood instinctively: the morning is a gift.

Sustaining the zone

The afternoon - for some innovators who wouldn’t seize the morning - was a time of picking up rather than a slump. The secret lay with movement…or obscurity. 

Friedrich Schiller, the German poet, kept a drawer of rotting apples in his desk, their pungent aroma invigorating his senses as he wrote. While unconventional, this sensory ritual grounded him in the moment, enabling bursts of productivity.

Another tactic for midday activists is walking. At his estate, Down House, Darwin would take daily loops on a gravel path he called the 'sandwalk.' Each lap was a meditation, a chance to let his mind wander freely. For Darwin, walking was more than exercise; it was a crucial part of his intellectual process. 

Similarly, Carl Jung used his afternoons for long walks through the Swiss countryside, letting nature replenish his creative reservoir. 'In each of us,' Jung believed, 'there is another whom we do not know.' The afternoon walk was his conversation with this unknown self. So ardent was his search for the unknown, and perhaps productive, self that he meticulously documented his dreams only to never publish the famous Red Book. 

Kierkegaard, ever restless, saw his midday walks as incubators for thought. The streets of Copenhagen became his library, the cobblestones a philosopher’s parchment. 'Above all,' he declared, 'do not lose your desire to walk.' 

This connection between movement and thought is echoed in Middle Eastern and Latin American traditions. Sufi mystics in the Middle East practiced walking meditations, each step a reflection, while the Andean people of Latin America treated paths as sacred spaces, where thoughts aligned with the earth’s vibrations. 

The modern lesson here is to step away from the desk. Brain scans show that stress accumulates after two consecutive hours of meetings or screen work. Not only that, it also hinders our ability to produce meaningful output. 

Emily Brontë, known for her solitary genius, took long midday walks on the moors surrounding her home. These rambles were not idle but fertile ground for her imagination, where scenes and dialogues from Wuthering Heights came to life. Contrast this with the structured collaborations of Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century composer and mystic. Her afternoons were filled with writing hymns and theological works, often accompanied by her fellow nuns.

Evening sprint

As day turns to night, evening rituals help some transition from action to reflection. For Ernest Hemingway, evenings were for reviewing his work from the day, ensuring his prose retained its raw clarity. 'Write drunk; edit sober,' he famously quipped. His routine of refinement teaches a timeless lesson: evenings are for clarity, not creation.

George Sand, the French novelist celebrated for her audacity and depth, found her most productive hours after sunset. 'The world belongs to those who set their spirits free,' she wrote, her nights fueled by quiet solitude and ceaseless inspiration. 

Similarly, Omar Khayyam, the Persian polymath and poet, revered the night as a time of profound connection. Under the starlit skies of Nishapur, he composed his Rubáiyát, distilling the mysteries of existence into quatrains that shimmer with eternal wisdom. 

'The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on,' he observed, a reminder of the fleeting yet potent creativity unlocked during quiet nights. His evenings often intertwined scholarly reflection with revelry, harmonizing discipline with indulgence. This balance, as modern research suggests, can foster creativity by activating divergent thinking—a state where seemingly unrelated ideas coalesce into innovative insight.

Anchors ahead

Our habits are bridges. They tether the boundaries between present and future, self and other. They remind us that to care for today is to care for all our tomorrows. They are acts of quiet defiance, asserting order in the face of chaos and meaning in the face of unpredictability.

The act of planning is imbued with a kind of reverence. To create a to-do list is not simply to organize tasks but to draft a blueprint for our days. It is a letter to our future selves, promising purpose amidst the chaos. The list transforms into something more—a compass pointing toward a life of intention and balance.

These rituals give us certainty in a world that offers little of it. They hold within them a quiet assurance – the work we do today matters, and tomorrow will bear its fruits. To tend to these practices is to trust in the rhythm of life—that effort will meet reward, that beginnings will find their ends.

As always, thank you warmly for reading till the end, and have a wonderful and introspective holiday season ahead.