Paul Erdős's Daily Routine
Give one subject your best 3 hours. Paul Erdős's daily routine was built around mathematics, with some 1,500 papers to show for it.
By Colin PaceUpdated
Overview
Paul Erdős was one of the most prolific mathematicians who ever lived, with some 1,500 papers written with hundreds of collaborators. His daily routine was a 19-hour working day, almost all of it mathematics.
He was up at 4:30 or 5:00 AM and worked from 8:00 AM until 1:30 the next morning. Paul Hoffman describes those days in The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (1998), and he's plain about what kept them going: Erdős took amphetamines. That makes this a day to understand, not one to copy.
It suits anyone with one subject they would gladly give more hours to. Nobody should borrow the 3 hours of sleep or the amphetamines.
What does travel is the focus: one subject, and a day arranged around it, which you can have in far fewer hours. Pick your subject and give it your best 3 hours. The 1:30 AM bedtime and the meal times are our estimates, and 4:30 to 8:00 AM is left open because Hoffman doesn't say what filled it.
Goals
Who's it for
At a glance
- 3 hr sleep per night
- 115.5 hr work per week
- 3 meals per day
- 12 hr eating window
Schedule
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