William Styron's Daily Routine
Build your day around a late body clock. William Styron slept until noon, wrote for 4 hours from 4:00 PM and stayed up until 3:00 AM.
By Colin PaceUpdated
Overview
William Styron wrote Sophie's Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner, which won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize. He pinned Flaubert's line about an orderly life to his workroom door, then kept a day that started at noon for 30 years.
Mason Currey's Daily Rituals has him sleeping until noon, then reading and thinking in bed until lunch with his wife Rose at 1:30 PM. Errands, mail and daydreaming filled the time until 4:00 PM, when he wrote for 4 hours. After drinks and dinner at 8:00 PM he read, drank, smoked and listened to music until 3:00 AM, a day Currey first posted on his Daily Routines blog.
Adopt it if your mind wakes up late and you can keep your mornings free. You get a slow start, one 4-hour writing block with nothing competing for it and a long evening, easiest with someone running the household, as Rose did. Bed at 3:00 AM, not 2:00 AM some nights, and a day that repeats all week are our simplifications.
Who's it for
At a glance
- 9 hr sleep per night
- 38.5 hr work per week
- 1 meal per day
- 59.5 hr play per week
Sleep
63 hours/week9 hr per night
- Every day3:00 AM → 12:00 PM· 9 hr
No naps.
Work
38.5 hours/week5 hr 30 min a day1 hr 30 min email4 hr writing
- Email2:30 PM → 4:00 PM· 1 hr 30 min · Every day
- Writing4:00 PM → 8:00 PM· 4 hr · Every day
Eat
7 hours/week1 meal23:1 eating window1 hr eating
- Lunch1:30 PM → 2:30 PM· 1 hr · Every day
Off
Play
59.5 hours/weekReading 12:00 PMFamily 8:00 PM
- Every day12:00 PM → 1:30 PM· 1 hr 30 min
- Every day8:00 PM → 3:00 AM· 7 hr