You might expect that most creative geniuses are workaholics and they work relentlessly from day to another. The surprising truth about them is that many of them spend their days working for approximately four hours. The rest of the day is for the ”recovery”. In this text, I will tell you about the working hours of some of the greatest creative minds, about the four factors that contribute to recovery and the concept of deep play which relates to how you can get your mind off work efficiently.
Working hours of the creative minds
The most creative scientists, artists, authors, and many other creative types have or have had surprisingly similar working patterns. Their days are not focused only on working. Their days have long breaks and their work doesn´t take all day. Most of them keep their working hours in predetermined times of the day. And they keep on ”showing up” for work day after day at the same time. Here are some working hours of the greatest intellectual minds, world-class authors, and other famous creative types:
- Charles Darwin: 8.00 AM – 9.30 AM, 10.30 AM - 12.00 PM, and 4.00 PM. - 5.30 PM
- Henri Poincare 10.00 AM – 12.00 PM, and 5.00 PM – 7.00 PM
- Charles Dickens 9.00 AM – 02.00 PM
- Ernest Hemingway 6.00 AM – before noon
- Norman Maclean 9.00 AM – 12.00 PM
- Ingmar Bergman 9.00 AM; - 12.00 PM
- W. Somerset Maugham 9.00 AM – 1.00 PM
- Thomas Jefferson 4 hours in the morning
As you can see, most of these examples worked from three to six hours a day. Most of them worked a maximum of four hours. Hemingway´s and Dickens´ breaks during the work are not known. At least they are not mentioned in my source of information. As you can see, none of the examples worked through the whole day. At least they consciously. Truth is that when you think you stop working, your brain is using almost as much energy than during your conscious working hours. Some researchers estimate that this figure is close to 90 percent.
Four factors of recovery
Recovery is an important part of efficient work. Without proper recovery results from work are worse. There are four important factors of recovery: relaxation, control, mastery experiences, and mental detachment from work. Relaxation is the simplest form or recovery. Getting a release from tension at work helps you to recover from work. For our purposes, the control means an ability to decide how you spend your time, efforts, and energy. Free time is not optimal for recovery if somebody else like your significant other decides your schedule off the work and tells you what to do and when. Mastery experiences can be seen as being in a flow state. Flow state is rewarding, it is accomplished by doing challenging actions and doing them well. Mental detachment is the ability to forget your work in this case. Your evenings, weekends, and vacations are for mental detachment.
Deep play
All of those four factors mentioned in the last paragraph are useful for recovery. The concept of deep play is a way to combine those factors in your free time. The deep play has four characteristics: you don´t need any effort to feel engaged in it, you can use your work-related skills in a new context, its rewards are not the same as at work, and it has a connection to your past.
Effortlessness is a deep play that comes from challenges you encounter, no matter whether you have to compete with others or solve problems. You will probably learn new things about yourself or other players. Your work-related skills are put to use in a completely new environment. There are no reminders about your work. Deep play activities have clear rules like predefined durations. These clear rules give you different rewards than you get from work. Deep play can remind you of your past experiences with people you love or keep your remind you from your past successes like winning a competition when you were young. The combination of these characteristics makes you happier and better at your work.
Until next time,
-TT
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