Daily Rituals

What Hacker News says

1. tagamiMar 2026
   An interesting book looking at routines is Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey.

   “ More than 150 inspired—and inspiring—novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians on how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do.”

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2. qmacroFeb 2026
   If this intersection is of interest to you, so might Mason Currey's book Daily Rituals ("On the routines and working habits of 161 inspired minds, from Beethoven to Donald Barthelme, Kafka to Georgia O’Keeffe") which I've enjoyed very much (no affiliation), for similar reasons.

   Link: https://www.masoncurrey.com/daily-rituals

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3. DaubFeb 2024
   Nope.not just you. Check out the blog/book Daily Rituals. This lists the creative habits of artists. Running, walking and exercise features high on that list. I believe that there has even been some empirical research done on this phenomenon.
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4. escapedmooseNov 2023
   The “tortured artist” trope is overplayed in media vs. the reality. I don’t have the sources on hand, but you might enjoy looking into it: truly prolific and influential artists tend to be those who had stable/comfortable/long enough lives to sustain an art practice. One good book related to this is Daily Rituals by Mason Currey.

   I also highly recommend the book Six Myths About the Good Life by Joel Kupperman, which has an accessible explanation of some of the philosophy behind the pursuit of “happiness” vs deeper long-term joy. It’s a book I find myself revisiting every few years because it really makes you think.

   Edit: Kupperman’s book specifically analyzes the common assumption you mentioned that “the key is to lower your standards.” …”Better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied” is a common related saying

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5. DaubNov 2022
   Thank you for your response.

   Frankly... sorting the wheat from the cruft is a major task as there has been so much written on the subject. I would recommend that art be separately considered with respect to it's history (time/place), aesthetics (it's formal parameters) and process (how it was made).

   On the subject of art history, I would recommend any art history book that places art in standard sequential order (i.e. 'canon'). Even a child's primer on the subject would be sufficient. A lot can be learned about art by simply placing it in sequential order. Only then can you see that art grew in response to the time/place of its manufacture. If you need a recommendation, then you could do no worse than 'The Art Book' (Phaidon).

   More specifically, art produced pre- and post- 1900 needs different treatment as they are different things.

   - For art produced pre 1900, the classic tome is 'The Story of Art' by Ernst Gombrich. He may be a bit sneered at nowadays, but he knew his stuff.

   - For art produced post 1900 'The Shock of the New' by Robert Hughes is a great primer. Also 'Ways of Seeing' by John Berger is aimed at students and presents high-brow ideas in a very digestible manner.

   On the subject of aesthetics, I would recommend 'Toward a Psychology of Art' by Rudolph Arnheim. He may now be considered rather old fashioned but he is one of the few thinkers on art who effectively addressed its formal attributes. He also drew, which is a plus. In the same vein there is Ruskin (Modern Painters) who really understood how an artist thinks, and was no slouch as an artist (draftsman) himself.

   On color in art I would recommend Bruse MacEvoy's Handprint website. On the topic of color, he has forgotten more than most people would ever know. In my opinion, he is superior to Goethe and Johannes Itten (both art school favorites but both highly questionable). He does not always organize his thinking as well as might be hoped, but that is the nature of color: pan-dimensional and perverse. Also 'Color space and its divisions' Kuehni, R. G. (2001).

   The making of art is a process, yet we only see the finished thing. This is our loss as there is much to be learned by studying this process. On the creative process much has been much written, some of it very high-brow. However, the book I would most highly recommend is rather coffee table: 'Daily Rituals: How Artists Work' by Currey, M. (2013). Nothing gives deeper insight into the mind of a creator than how they timetable their productive life.

   Finally, I would recommend that art be experienced 'in situ', in front of the actual artwork. I was speaking to a student a few days ago who claimed to have seen the work of Rothko. Of course they had not, they had only seen photos of it. Nuf said.

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6. keiferskiJul 2022
   1. I think consistency is really the key when it come to writing. You’d be surprised how much you can write in 15 minutes per day if you do it every day. The difficult part is doing that 15 minutes, every day, for months.

   2. I recommend looking into the work routines of famous writers. There is a good book on the topic called Daily Rituals. Two that I recall were Hemingway, who wrote immediately when he woke up at 5:00, and Kafka, who managed to write after working his mundane office job all day.

   3. In terms of learning, I really recommend looking to a SRS program like Anki, combined with list-formatted data on the topic you want to learn about. For example, if you want to learn about the American Revolution, get a PDF of an encyclopedia on the topic, then add one new encyclopedia entry per day. I do this for a variety of topics and find it much more efficient than reading long books. Using a SRS program also is the best way to make your learning time efficient.

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