How we work

Newly added or updated in 2008:
Pullman, Massa, Utzon. You can look ahead at what's coming up on our "howwework" list on delicious.

What is "How we work"?
We're interested in the habits, rituals and small (and occasionally big) methods people and teams use to get their work done. And in the specific anecdotes and the way people describe their own relationship to their own work. Here's a list of some stories and habits. Not sure it is actually useful for anything. Do any patterns emerge across stories, other than the obvious stories of super-focus, super-dedication?

These examples are mostly "names" because the list so far is mostly from published sources, but everyone's stories and habits are interesting, so go ahead and add yours in the comments.

How we work:

1. Ben Ainslie, sailor
2. Apelles, artist
3. Fred Astaire, entertainer
4. Frank Auerbach, artist
5. Autechre, musicians
6. Francis Bacon, artist
7. Francis Bacon, Elizabethan polymath
8. J.G. Ballard, author
9. Walter Benjamin, writer
10. David Blunkett, politician
11. Edward de Bono, psychologist
12. Ray Bradbury, author
13. Rodney Brooks, robotics researcher
14. Anthony Burgess, author
15. Jensen Button and Fernando Alonso, Formula 1 drivers
16. Truman Capote, author
17. John Cage, composer, artist
18. Santiago Calatrava, architect
19. Ethan Canin, author
20. Pablo Casals, cellist
21. Paul Cezanne, artist
22. David Chase, scriptwriter
23. Bruce Chatwin, author
24. Tracy Chevalier, author
25. Christo and Jeanne-Claude, artists
26. Chuang-tzu, artist
27. Joel and Ethan Coen, directors
28. Don DeLillo, author
29. Cory Doctorow, author
30. Arthur Conan Doyle, author
31. Jean-Baptiste Corot, artist
32. Umberto Eco, academic/author
33. Viatcheslav Ekimov, professional cyclist
34. Warren Ellis, comic writer
35. Ralph Ellison, author
36. James Ellroy, author
37. Tracey Emin, artist
38. Brian Eno, musician/artist
39. Jeffrey Eugenides, author
40. Michel Faber, author
41. Mohamed al-Fayed, retailer
42. Bobby Fischer, chess player
43. Jonathan Safran Foer, author
44. Gustave Flaubert, author
45. Lucian Freud, artist
46. Stephen Fry, actor/writer
47. Neil Gaiman, author
48. Ricky Gervais, broadcaster/entertainer
49. Malcolm Gladwell, writer
50. William Gibson, author
51. Giotto, artist
52. Phil Gyford, designer
53. Paul H, lawyer
54. Dashiell Hammett, author
55. Gustav Hasford, author
56. Hergé, artist
57. Al Hirschfeld, cartoonist
58. Damien Hirst, artist
59. Howard Hodgkin, artist
60. John Irving, author
61. Henry James, author
62. Mark Kostabi, artist
63. Anthony Lane, critic
64. Fernand Léger, artist
65. Elmore Leonard, author
66. Sven Lindqvist, author/historian
67. Franz Liszt, composer/pianist
68. Thomas Mahon, bespoke tailor
69. Felipe Massa, Formula 1 driver
70. Scott McNealy, entrepreneur
71. David Mitchell, author
72. Joseph Mitchell, writer
73. Grant Morrison, comic writer
74. Haruki Murakami, author
75. Walter Murch, sound designer/film editor
76. Bill Murray, actor
77. Oscar Niemeyer, architect
78. Nick Nolte, actor
79. Pierre Omidyar, entrepreneur
80. Eduardo Paolozzi, artist
81. Pablo Picasso, artist
82. Camille Pissarro, artist
83. Jackson Pollock, artist
84. Philip Pullman, author
85. Ian Rankin, author
86. Steve Reich, composer
87. Arthur Rimbaud, poet
88. Clifford Ross, photographer
89. Philip Roth, author
90. Raymond Roussel, author
91. Jack Schulze, designer
92. Will Self, author
93. Robert Schumann, composer
94. Martin Scorsese, director
95. Ricardo Semler and Semco, entrepreneur
96. Georges Seurat, artist
97. Robert Louis Stevenson, author
98. David Thomson, author/critic
99. Anthony Trollope, author
100. Jorn Utzon, architect
101. Paul Valéry, poet
102. Various: writing standing up, in bed
103. Karl Weschke, artist
104. Billy Wilder, director
105. Virginia Woolf, author
106. Benjamin Zander, conductor

Yes, and there's more to come... So far these are about individuals, but there is much to add on other companies and groups. And there are other sites that offer more useful information and applicable tips, such as Daily Routines (new! and good!), Lifehacks, 43 Folders, Michael McDonough and Milton Glaser, or even Trade Tricks.

PS: Want to contact someone listed here?
Firstly, note that this website doesn't have their contact details. If they're an author, you could look inside one of their books for their publisher, and then write to the publisher. If they're an artist, you could look online to find who their dealer is, and then write to the dealer. If they're a business person, you could look on their company's website for a contact address. If... you get the point - I don't have their contact details for you. No, not even for Bill Murray, Santiago Calatrava and Mohamed al-Fayed, sorry.

Comments

[See Tshiung Han]

That's the thing about the films we've made, that they are an appropriation of a lot of mistakes, and I think that's a really important dialogue that I should have with other kids... You can't learn how to make films. You gotta make mistakes and you have appropriate the mistakes, and then you learn from those things, and then you have a voice. -- Christopher Doyle, cinematographer on Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild, Chung King Express and Zhang Yimou's Hero.

http://www.greencine.com/article?action=view&articleID=168

[tara]

isn't this a list of how male artists work? where are the women?

[rodcorp]

Yes, you're right, but that wasn't the intention. The women are in the same place as all the other men: still on our list to do, it's just worked out that way so far.

Feel free to help Tara: suggest some names and their methods/routines.

Here's one to start us off. Virginia Woolf used to write standing up:
http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2004/12/how_we_work_vir.html

[mjones]

George Sand, the French 19thc writer (and a woman), also used to write standing up.

[Steffen Konrath]

I conduct a similar project in search of where people get their flash of ideas ("Creativity Gallery"), which can be found on my magazine's site. It is a collection of answers of people from all around the world, man and female, famous or not. Hope your entries grow, as I believe that anything which shows the impact of creativity is worthwile to read and to collect.

My best wishes,
Steffen Konrath
--
Editor-In-Chief
IM-BOOT
Creative People Worldwide
Free Online Magazine

[Philip Sharman]

There's an interesting article on writers' different writing styles at:

http://www.daily-self-improvement.info/archives/how_to_identify_your_own_style_of_writing.html

[elle]

Where is Virginia Woolf? The link on her name goes to Zander.

[rodcorp]

Woolf is at http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2004/12/how_we_work_vir.html

(Link fixed, thanks)

[ciara]

New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell talks about how he works in this Guardian article:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1430717,00.html

[Timothy Washington]

I like to begin with the relationship of my work to my time. I think a 'project' (a unit of work for a specific time range) is a better way of approaching a specific, complex task. I still think specialization in 3 or 4 areas is necessary for experience and context. I sort of felt my way around the topic with my post 'On Work' (http://frye.blogs.com/thebox/2004/10/on_work.html). But as soon as I am settled and working in Berlin, I will be fleshing out this topic in much more detail. Thanks for the post.

[ah]

you may have seen this already; the writers of the onion revealed at:
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/12/Floridian/Peeling_the_Onion.shtml

their style: argue until it's right.

[Dan]

This on Paolozzi from the Guardian obit - feel free to delete this comment, Mr Rod, if you want to repurpose into a proper post in this series .... D.

"Those who knew him rarely saw Paolozzi at work. His day seemed to consist of diversions. He would flip idly through magazines or folders filled with clippings, go for a drink at the Chelsea Arts Club close to his studio, lunch at the Royal College of Art, or dine in one of the several restaurants where, thanks to gifts of his sculpture or prints, he never saw a bill. But he was prodigiously productive, working for several hours very early in the morning and late at night, when he knew he would not be interrupted."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1468451,00.html

[qB]

There's a section you might be interested in from Harold Pinter's nobel acceptance speech about how he works...
http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html

Great blog!

[scott thompson]

need to put pictures on of the artrists work so that people can see wat extrdinary pices of art they do in there busy life

[Tari Kathryn Gold]

If I could explain to anyone how I work to end up with the stories I write.I would not be able to call what I do work.
The fact is I don't think of what I am doing as work. I have to write,the characters live inside my mind until I release them to paper. Besides, I haven't received a dime for anyhting I've done. My first screen play is somewhere in Oliver Stone's office buried in a file cabinet or shredded by now. Doesn't one usually get paid for work?

[minnie espiritu]

PEOPLE ARE CHANTING "LEM YOU IN" INSIDE OF ME. IT IS A CRY OF DESIRES...A FINANCIER APPRECIATED. IF YOU ARE OF FURTHER HELP,
EMAIL.ME

[nancy]

I believe that women have work habits, too. I did not find many of them on your list. I think that is why fewer women than men get published. Hardly anyone but another woman cares or dares to hear them.

[nancy]

P.S. Time to update your website. No comments since 2006?

[Rod McLaren]

Nancy, as was mentioned a while back (see the comment above at http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2004/12/how_we_work.html#comment-3049023), do please feel free to help in that effort by suggesting some work habits of women - I'd love to feature more of them.

[Paul Souders]

I am a web and information designer. Unlike most creative professionals (writers, designers, software developers) I keep my physical and mental workspace scrupulously clean and undecorated. I clean my physical workspace every morning upon arriving and delete or file the stuff on my computer desktop every afternoon upon leaving. I have seen my "productivity" treble or quadruple since acquiring this habit. I write more about this on my blog (http://axoplasm.blogspot.com/2008/02/perspective.html)

[Helen DeWitt]

I once read Michael Caine's description of working with Sir Laurence Olivier on Sleuth. Olivier turned up the first day and was morose, couldn't get to grips with the part. The next day he was wearing a moustache and it fell into place. He said it was always like that for him, he needed some bit of business, a bit of costume, to make a part work. It's like that for me, I think. I can't get interested in a book until I've found something to do with the page - Japanese characters, statistical graphics, anything that isn't just English sentences. I do sometimes write books by racking up 1000 words a day, but they go on feeling tame and unadventurous until I find something that changes the texture of the page.

[rodcorp]

Thanks for that Helen - I'm going to add your thoughts as a new entry to How We Work, so do feel free to add more!

[Nicole]

A woman's POV: well, I have a moleskine journal, (http://www.powells.com/biblio/66-9788883705045-0), which I use to write everything I do at work down. When I make a call, I carry the phone number and notes from the discussion forward. I also write down everything that happens at meetings. To differentiate between days/meetings/calls I change the color of the pen I am using. I have a rainbow set of pens on my desk, ready to use. This book has saved my bacon many times. It is hard to forget to do things when you write them down...

[Angela Tyler]

You really need to do a better job at finding some women to interview.

[rodcorp]

Angela, as was mentioned a while back, do feel free to help in that effort by suggesting some work habits of women.