Are you looking for new ways to increase your productivity? Maybe you thought about using the same methods that some historical figures used, from musicians and artists to politicians. Most of them spent their days drinking regular doses of caffeine, but few had strange habits that helped them work faster and more efficiently.
From Charles Dickens' addiction to routine to the trick used by an ancient Greek politician to resist procrastination and dawdling, here are historical figures who had unconventional ways to accomplish their tasks.
The author of "A Tale of Two Cities" and "A Christmas Carol" was known to be demanding and meticulous about his working conditions. He adhered to a strict "military" schedule, always writing in his study from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon, then taking a three-hour walk.
Dickens demanded complete silence from everyone in his house during his working hours, and arranged his pens, inks, and a set of small statues specifically on his desk to help him think.
The writer maintained these habits wherever he traveled, even rearranging the furniture of hotel rooms and guest houses to resemble his study as much as possible.
His eccentric habits extended to his bedroom, where he always slept facing north, believing it made him better aligned with the Earth's electrical currents.
Ludwig van Beethoven composed most of his work while in motion. After his daily breakfast consisting only of coffee — often preparing 60 beans for use in his coffee — the composer worked for several hours in his study before going on long walks.
These enjoyable walks were supposed to stimulate his creativity; he often stopped during his walks to jot down quickly and hurriedly a set of musical notes on a large notebook.
If the composition process was slow, the composer copied some compositions of other musicians to study their style. Beethoven also composed music while bathing.
According to his secretary, Anton Schindler, Beethoven often moved quickly around his room, frequently pouring several pitchers of water over his hands, while he cares for some tunes and stares off into space with "deep meditation."
While writing his massive 3,000-page novel "In Search of Lost Time" (also known as "Remembrance of Things Past") in the early 20th century, French author Marcel Proust lived within the confines of his bedroom.
He usually woke up at three or four in the afternoon, then drank coffee and ate a croissant, and often his only meal throughout the day, after that, he smoked his hookah, which included tobacco mixed with opium, which he thought helped him bear the asthma.
Proust worked on his novel lying on his bed, with a set of thin cushions, and despite the seemingly comfortable working conditions, the author continued to say that writing his novel was hard and tiring work.
Considered one of the masters of surrealism, a school of art aimed at exploiting the unconscious mind and reaching its hidden treasures. Dali used mental tricks to experiment with and blur the boundary between his dreams and reality, and this helped his mind produce hallucinatory images "Surrealist" that he painted through paintings like "The Persistence of Memory" and "Swans Reflecting Elephants."
One of his actual and proven techniques was to hold a metal key over a tin container during his nap time, and when he starts to fall asleep, the key drops from his hand, and he wakes up, and that gave him a chance to record the bizarre images he produces in his mind.
Dali invented a special method he called "Paranoid-Critical" "Madness of doubt-shame," the artist was working through this method to convey himself to a state of madness of doubt and greatness by prolonging deliberate thinking with weird, irrational ideas, and then he starts drawing the images he sees in his mind.
He was an American psychologist, a behavioralist, an author, an inventor, and a social philosopher. Skinner invented the Israbutroom room and his own philosophy in the science called the Extreme Behavior and founded his school in experimental research in psychology, which is the experimental analysis of behavior.
Skinner's analysis of human behavior culminated in his work in Verbal Behavior, which has seen significant recent development in the experimental field and the application settings, and in a study conducted in June 2002, Skinner was classified as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.
He worked on a strict schedule and used a timer to remind him of the start and stop time to write. In his memoirs, he wrote that he recorded every twelve hours of his work, where he drew a point on an accumulating curve showing him the overall production of his productivity.
In addition to dividing times during the day and analyzing daily work, Skinner endorsed what is called intermittent sleep, so often he would wake up after midnight to work for an hour, and then he would return to his sleep.
The Greek statesman and politician Demosthenes were known for his ability to deliver exciting and enthusiastic speeches without any effort, His skill in speaking came through following a strict, often unusual system.
Demosthenes spent long hours studying the art of rhetoric and law in a specially made underground office, and trained with an actor to learn how to control his body movements.
To overcome his stuttering and shortness of breath, Demosthenes would speak while placing pebbles in his mouth, and he would deliver his speeches loudly while running up a hill, but the strangest thing was his way of facing procrastination and delaying, Demosthenes had shaved half of his head with the aim of looking his appearance funny, and thus he had to stay in his home and focus on his studies.