“Its purpose was to satisfy without tempting the appetite or causing any sensation of heaviness,” wrote Alma, to whom it seemed “an invalid’s diet.”

Character, for Kant, is a rationally chosen way of organizing one’s life, based on years of varied experience—indeed, he believed that one does not really develop a character until age forty. And at the core of one’s character, he thought, were maxims—a handful of essential rules for living that, once formulated, should be followed for the rest of

Franklin famously outlined a scheme to achieve “moral perfection” according to a thirteen-week plan. Each week was devoted to a particular virtue—temperance, cleanliness, moderation, et cetera—and his offenses against these virtues were tracked on a calendar.

Henry Miller (1891-1980) As a young novelist, Miller frequently wrote from midnight until dawn—until he realized that he was really a morning person. Living in Paris in the early 1930s, Miller shifted his writing time, working from breakfast to lunch, taking a nap, then writing again through the afternoon and sometimes into the night. As he got old

As a result, Darwin maintained a quiet, monkish life at Down House, with his day structured around a few concentrated bursts of work, broken up by set periods of walking, napping, reading, and letter writing.

he completed a novel before his three hours were up, Trollope would take out a fresh sheet of paper and immediately begin the next one.

The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time o

After dictating all morning, James would read in the afternoon, have tea, go for a walk, eat dinner, and spend the evening making notes for the next day’s work. (For a while he asked one of his

“time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”