The ritual artist mindset: How to achieve creative flow

Many creatives, thinkers, athletes, and performers famously have creative rituals that help them perform complex tasks at a high level, but these simple practices can be helpful to anyone.

A ritual is a habit that prepares your mind for an activity. They can produce many different mindsets appropriate for many different kinds of activities.

In Daily Rituals, Mason Currey describes the habits, rituals, and routines of more than 150 famous creative people. Unlike a biography, this subject lends itself to breadth rather than depth. Each vignette is blessedly brief: the shortest is half a page, the longest only a few pages.

You can keep the book on your nightstand, consuming a vignette or three, chosen whimsically, every day. But a more fruitful way to read the book is to go straight through in a weekend, with a pot of coffee and a view to not-really-look-upon while you digest each vignette.

In Daily Rituals, Mason Currey describes the habits, rituals, and routines of more than 150 famous creative people. Unlike a biography, this subject lends itself to breadth rather than depth. Each vignette is blessedly brief: the shortest is half a page, the longest only a few pages.

You can keep the book on your nightstand, consuming a vignette or three, chosen whimsically, every day. But a more fruitful way to read the book is to go straight through in a weekend, with a pot of coffee and a view to not-really-look-upon while you digest each vignette.

The surprising variations in the routines of famous artists

I picked up the book hoping to discover what all successful creative people had in common, but I came away instead, dizzied by how they are different.

Some worked in noisy, chaotic surroundings. Jane Austen wrote in the living room with the whole family around, and she had to hide her writing from visitors. On the other hand, Carl Jung built a remote tower with no electricity or running water.

Some were teetotalers who never indulged in anything stronger than coffee, but a shocking number were alcoholics and drug addicts. Every day, Jean-Paul Sartre smoked two packs of cigarettes and several pipes, drank over a quart of alcohol, and freely popped amphetamines to work and barbiturates to sleep.

Some were independently wealthy aristocrats who made art for pleasure. Others had heavy demands on their time and energy, like a day job or children—or, incredibly, a day job and children. Toni Morrison worked as an editor, taught university courses, and raised two children as a single parent—and she still managed to earn a Nobel Prize in literature.

Some are energizing. In the novels of Ian Fleming, James Bond usually takes a hot shower followed by a cold one to get ready for an evening of gambling and spy work.

Baseball players are famous for their bizarre superstitions. There is wisdom in the silliness. Before night games, Wade Boggs would start batting practice at precisely 5:17 p.m. Knowing practice will begin at 5:17, Boggs' mind is already preparing itself at 5:00, in a way that it might not if he arbitrarily started at different times in the evening.

What Daily Rituals can teach us about creative success

Despite their differences, most successful creatives have a few things in common. Most do only two to four hours of creative work a day (though some do much more). But when they do work, they work intensely. They make room for creative time in their lives and protect them from the external world and its many distractions.

Protect your creative work from distractions

To get into a good state of creative flow, make sure you have a dedicated space for your new creative project and that you won't be interrupted while you're in it. This will help you get into a flow state more easily.

Gustav Mahler worked in a stone hut near his home to keep out noise. His cook left his meals outside the door, and his wife promised the neighbor's opera tickets if they would keep their dogs locked up in the mornings. This dedicated and straightforward practice exponentially improved his creative potential.

The creatives in Mason Currey's book became famous for their work, but some of them had more than fame: their very lives were beautiful. They knew themselves well: when to work and how much; how to recover from work and nourish the people who sustained them.

Choose a routine that works for your creative project

Some people prefer to work in short bursts, while others like to work for a more extended time. Find what works for you and stick to it.

I feel awed by Charles Darwin's simple, quiet daily life as he wrote On the Origin of Species, a book with more raw explanatory power than almost any written.

Darwin lived in a secluded country house with his wife, Emma, and their ten children. Emma read novels and his letters to him. He worked in several regular bursts throughout the day, punctuated by walks in the garden.

At night they might have visitors but, rather than talk with the men, Darwin preferred to play backgammon with his wife—with whom he pretended to be angry when she won.

Allow yourself to take breaks

Many creative people in Mason Currey's book take breaks throughout the day, usually to eat or exercise. This helps them maintain their energy and focus. Creative people often get so caught up in the work that they forget to take breaks, and their work suffers from not giving their mind the proper amount of time to rest.

The poet Robert Frost would walk around his property for exercise and then sit down and get to writing. Author Truman Capote took a short nap after lunch and then worked for four hours straight. Painter Georgia O'Keeffe took a break every day to swim in her pool for half an hour.