Pablo Picasso's Daily Routine

Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism with Georges Braque and painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Guernica. His daily routine was a night owl's, and all his life he went to bed late and got up late. The tiring part, he found, was not the painting but the people.

Mason Currey's Daily Rituals finds him in the Bateau-Lavoir years with Fernande Olivier, shut in the studio from 2:00 PM until at least dusk. Three or four hours at the canvas never tired him, he said, because he left his body outside the door, as Meaning Ring's notes retell it. He and Fernande made Sunday an at-home day and settled the year's friendships in one afternoon. Podio's 2014 chart fills in the rest: up at 11:00 AM, friends until mid-afternoon, a long painting stretch, a late dinner and one more session into the small hours.

It's for night owls who have been told to become morning people, and for anyone whose energy arrives after dark. It also suits people who find socialising draining and would rather batch it.

You get an unhurried late morning, a long painting stretch in the day and a second session at night. Try fencing your social time into one slot a week and keeping the studio hours for work. The 11:00 AM rise, the dinner time and the night session are estimates from later accounts.