Creative Routines

I read an interesting article this morning, and it got me thinking. To begin the title got me right away: Here’s How the Worlds Most Brilliant People Scheduled their Day.  The premise of this article I read was stated as this:

“Using the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, RJ Andrews at Info We Trust designed some enlightening visualizations of how history’s most creative and influential figures structured their days.”

They showed a diagram based on 24 hours in a day along with what these brilliant people would do during the day. You can see that chart below, but I am also click here for it as well.

 

When I analyzed those 16 brilliant people’s schedule I noticed a few general things.

1. Most exercised at least once a day

2. Made time for family

3. Made time for themselves

4. Their sleep patterns were all different

How does this connect to gifted children? This chart and the information it presents is awesome. I showed this to my students this morning, and let them draw their own conclusions about it. Here is what they came up with.

1. Creativity

It seems like all of these people tried to maximize their creativity. Each one had their own ways of becoming creative.

2. Routines

Each person had their own routines. Each routine suited each person’s strength and social life. Routines help people to stay on track, and allows for less worry of upcoming events.

3. Sleep

Each person slept the amount of hours required by their body. Each person’s sleep patterns helped to create their mindset.

4. Excercise

Many of the people all took time out to excercise. They must have found the break good for their bodies and their creativity.

My Take Away

There are some things in this article that I feel my students should take away with. One of those is each one of us has a sweet spot. That’s the time they are most energized and most creative. They need to find it, and try to maximize it the best they can.  Another aspect I want them to take from this is the fact they need to organize their schedules. Many of my students are athletes and volunteers for our school and in the community. They need to use their time wisely. Finally, family time is important. Almost every one of the people in the list made time  for family and for themselves. Family time is important. I encourage them to get off their electronics and spend some real-time with their family and friends.  Spend some time doing things they like to do for themselves, such as sports, volunteering,  playing video games.

I asked them to chart out what their day would look like if it were optimized to meet their needs. I was surprised to see that most of my students kept their schedules quiet easy, and many of them put in realistic expectations.

Looking at the chart above, have your students make a similar chart and see what they come up with. It might surprise you.