Think you have to work 80 hours a week to be successful? Here are some famous people who worked less than you do.
- Charles Darwin arguably wrote the most famous book in science – “The Origin of a Species,” but he only worked about four hours a day doing his writing, his drawings and everything else. Darwin didn’t work the same crazy hours that many of us think we have to work today.
- Theodore Roosevelt published 50 books and completed a hundred and fifty thousand letters over his lifetime. He became the youngest US president at age 42 and he napped regularly.
- Ernest Hemingway, a very famous author worked only about 6 hours a day.
- Alice Monroe won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. Munroe works about three hours a day.
- Author Stephen King says that he works about four hours a day.
- Winston Churchill had this to say about naps. “Nature has not intended mankind to work from 8:00 in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts 20 minutes is sufficient to renew all the vital forces. Don’t think you’ll be doing less work because you sleep during the day, that’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You’ll be able to accomplish more.” Churchill would regularly take naps in the middle of the day much to the chagrin of other people around him and felt that he should be awake during those times.
- Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician who wrote 30 books and 500 papers and he worked about four hours a day.
- Albert Einstein needed his recharge so he made sure that he slept a good 10 hours every night and took additional naps throughout the day.
- Ingmar Bergman is thought to be one of the preeminent directors of his era. Bergman directed over 60 films most of which he wrote as well as over a hundred and seventy plays but he only worked from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
- Thomas Mann, writer and Nobel laureate worked from about 9:00 till 12 writing. Then he took lunch and a nap then sometimes in the afternoon he would read and work on short easy pieces.
- Lastly, I want to talk about Francis Bacon who would go out and carouse late at night. He went out for supper with friends he stayed up very late, sari he drank all night and then he’d get home and he would paint from daybreak to noon. He preferred to work with a hangover. Bacon was definitely a party animal but he had his set times that he painted and he was a very successful painter
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