Le Corbusier's Daily Routine
Keep mornings for your own work and bring it to the day job after lunch. Le Corbusier painted alone all morning, then ran his architecture studio.
By Colin PaceUpdated
Overview
Le Corbusier was one of the pioneers of modern architecture, with buildings like the Villa Savoye and the chapel at Ronchamp. Yet every morning he painted, drew and wrote, on work he showed to no one but his wife.
Mason Currey's Daily Rituals has him up at 6:00 AM for calisthenics, then making coffee and breakfast with his wife, Yvonne, before starting work at 9:00 AM. He credited these private mornings with the deeper meaning of his architecture. From 2:30 PM to 5:30 PM he ran the atelier on the rue de Sèvres, handing his sketches to others, as Currey first told it on his Daily Routines blog.
Take this one if your paid work depends on ideas you can only find alone. You get a whole morning for your own practice and an afternoon for handing it to people who can build it. The chart trims his 45 minutes of exercise to 30, moves his 2:00 PM arrival to 2:30 PM and estimates the 11:00 PM bedtime.
At a glance
- 7 hr sleep per night
- 59.5 hr work per week
- 3.5 hr movement per week
- 56 hr play per week
Sleep
49 hours/week7 hr per night
- Every day11:00 PM → 6:00 AM· 7 hr
No naps.
Work
59.5 hours/week8 hr 30 min a day5 hr 30 min creative work3 hr meetings
- Creative work9:00 AM → 2:30 PM· 5 hr 30 min · Every day
- Meetings2:30 PM → 5:30 PM· 3 hr · Every day
Move
3.5 hours/weekMove 6:00 AM
- Move6:00 AM → 6:30 AM· 30 min · Every day
Play
56 hours/weekFamily 6:30 AMPlay 5:30 PM
- Every day6:30 AM → 9:00 AM· 2 hr 30 min
- Every day5:30 PM → 11:00 PM· 5 hr 30 min