Visualized: The Daily Routines of Famous Creatives
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Visualized: The Daily Routines of Famous Creatives

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A grid of donut charts showing the daily routines of 16 great artists, writers, and thinkers.

Visualized: The Daily Routines of Famous Creatives

What is the best daily routine to unlock creativity, or is there such a thing?

Many modern suggestions for optimizing creativity—like scheduling time for “deep work,” and building small, sustainable “atomic habits”—can be traced back to famous creatives in many different eras. And though they all found success, they employed different methods as well.

In this unique visualization, RJ Andrews from InfoWeTrust has charted how notable creatives in different fields spent their days. He picked 16 of the 161 “inspired minds” covered by Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, a book by writer and editor Mason Currey published in 2013.

How Much “Creativity Time” in Famous Daily Routines?

Dividing the day into 24 hours, Andrews denoted certain categories for daily activities like working creatively, sleeping, and other miscellaneous endeavors (meals, leisure, exercise, and social time).

For the creatives with a separate day job—Immanuel Kant and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—their ordinary labor is also counted in miscellaneous activities.

Below is a breakdown of the daily routine of all 16 people featured above:

NameOccupationCreative (hrs)Sleep (hrs)Miscellaneous (hrs)
Maya AngelouWriter/Poet97.57.5
W.H. AudenPoet11.575.5
Honoré de BalzacNovelist13.58.52
L.V. BeethovenComposer / Pianist888
Le CorbusierArchitect8.578.5
Charles DarwinNaturalist / Biologist/ Geologist789
Charles DickensWriter5712
Gustave FlaubertNovelist10.576.5
Sigmund FreudPsychologist12.565.5
Benjamin FranklinWriter / Inventor / Scientist / Statesman879
Victor HugoWriter2814
Immanuel KantPhilosopher7710
Thomas MannNovelist888
John MiltonPoet879
W.A. MozartComposer / Pianist8511
P.I. TchaikovskyComposer4.5811.5

The average and median amount of time spent on creative work for these individuals was just over 8 hours a day. At the extremes were two French novelists, Honoré de Balzac with 13.5 hours daily spent on creative work, and Victor Hugo with only 2 hours.

Interestingly, the allocation of creative work time was different in almost every daily routine. Maya Angelou’s routine resembles the modern work day, with the bulk of her writing between 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Others like Kant and Mozart had creativity blocks when time allowed, such as before and after their teaching jobs.

Then there are outliers like Honoré de Balzac and Sigmund Freud, who worked as much as they could. Balzac wrote from 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with just an hour and a half nap break in between, fueled by up to 50 cups of coffee. Freud split up his creative work into three different blocks: analyzing patients in the morning, consulting in the afternoon, and reading and writing journals into the late evening.

But somewhere in their days, most of these brilliant minds made sure to get a good rest, with an average of 7.25 hours of sleep across the board.

Schedule Yourself to Create Success

Creativity may ebb and flow, but these great minds had one clear thing in common: scheduling time for creative work.

The perfect daily routine was usually what fit in with their lifestyle (and their bodies), not based on an arbitrary amount of work. For example, night owls with later chronotypes worked late, while socialites and politicians found time outside of their commitments.

They also found time to move and enjoy life. Half of the people in the dataset specified exercise in their accounts—either leisurely strolls or fast walks. Many also scheduled social time with partners, friends, or children, often paired with a meal.

Perhaps the greatest insight, however, is that the day-to-day routine doesn’t have to look extraordinary to be able to create extraordinary work.

Much of the data is sourced from personal anecdotes by the artists themselves, or from biographers, researched and collected by Currey in Daily Rituals. In some cases, Andrews needed to assume habits — usually sleep — due to missing, or non-specific information.
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This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Environment

Mapped: America’s Sinking Cities

25 of the 28 largest U.S. metropolitan areas are sinking each year, with cities in Texas experiencing some of the most severe land subsidence.

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A map showing 28 of the largest American cities by land subsistence rate

Land Subsidence Across U.S. Cities

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Across the U.S., major urban centers are experiencing significant land subsidence, a.k.a the sinking of land.

This map visualizes the average vertical land movement within 28 of the largest U.S. cities from 2015 to 2021, measured in milimeters per year.

Data comes from a 2025 Nature Cities study titled “Land subsidence risk to infrastructure in US metropolises” by Ohenhen, Zhai, Lucy, et al.

Which U.S. City is Sinking the Most?

Below, we show the average vertical land movement within 28 of the largest U.S. cities from 2015 to 2021, measured in millimeters per year.

CityStateVertical land movement (mm/year)
HoustonTexas-5.216
Fort WorthTexas-4.366
DallasTexas-3.846
New YorkNew York-2.430
ChicagoIllinois-2.323
ColumbusOhio-1.934
SeattleWashington-1.847
DetroitMichigan-1.726
DenverColorado-1.714
CharlotteNorth Carolina-1.507
IndianapolisIndiana-1.423
WashingtonDistrict of Columbia-1.283
Oklahoma CityOklahoma-1.283
NashvilleTennessee-1.133
San AntonioTexas-1.099
San DiegoCalifornia-1.076
PortlandOregon-0.922
San FranciscoCalifornia-0.857
PhoenixArizona-0.846
Las VegasNevada-0.841
AustinTexas-0.792
El PasoTexas-0.754
PhiladelphiaPennsylvania-0.735
Los AngelesCalifornia-0.729
BostonMassachusetts-0.478
MemphisTennessee0.006
San JoseCalifornia0.219
JacksonvilleFlorida0.452

A recent study found that 25 of the 28 largest U.S. metropolitan areas are sinking each year, with cities in Texas experiencing some of the most severe land subsidence.

Out of the cities studied, Houston was the city experiencing the most drastic subsidence, sinking 5.216 milimeters per year on average.

This gradual sinking can worsen the impacts of sea-level rise, increase flood risk, and place additional stress on urban infrastructure, particularly in densely developed areas.

The primary cause of this subsidence is groundwater extraction, though other contributing factors include the weight of urban development, oil and gas extraction, and glacial isostatic adjustment—a slow shift in the Earth’s surface due to the long-term melting of ancient ice sheets.

The study authors estimate that a total land area of 17,900 sq. km. is sinking across these 28 cities.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn about sinking cities, check out this graphic by Planet Anomaly that visualizes the fastest-sinking coastal cities.

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