Honoré de Balzac's Daily Routine
Get 13 hours of writing done before dinner. Honoré de Balzac went to bed at 6:00 PM, rose at 1:00 AM and wrote through the night on black coffee.
By Colin PaceUpdated
Overview
Honoré de Balzac packed some 90 novels, stories and essays on French life into La Comédie humaine and helped found literary realism. His writing day began at 1:00 AM and, with one nap, ran for 13 hours.
Mason Currey's Daily Rituals calls it the most extreme routine in the book. He wrote from 1:00 AM to 8:00 AM in a monkish white robe, napped until 9:30 AM, then wrote into the afternoon on cup after cup of black coffee, as many as 50 a day by one estimate. From 3:30 PM he bathed and saw friends, then ate a light dinner and was asleep by 6:00 PM.
Reach for it during a deadline sprint, when you need long, silent hours that nobody else wants. You get 2 deep writing blocks before most people finish lunch, 8.5 hours of sleep in two pieces and a free late afternoon for people. The 3:30 PM finish, where Currey says 4:00 PM, and the same cycle every day of the week are our simplifications.
Who's it for
At a glance
- 7 hr sleep per night
- 91 hr work per week
- 17.5 hr play per week
Sleep
59.5 hours/week7 hr per night1 hr 30 min nap
- Every day6:00 PM → 1:00 AM· 7 hr
- Nap8:00 AM · 1 hr 30 min· Every day
Work
91 hours/week13 hr a day
- Writing1:00 AM → 8:00 AM· 7 hr · Every day
- Writing9:30 AM → 3:30 PM· 6 hr · Every day
Play
17.5 hours/weekFriends 3:30 PM
- Every day3:30 PM → 6:00 PM· 2 hr 30 min