"Every genius has a time, place, and environment for working and getting the job done. You may call this 'habit' (as I do in this book and as did Vladimir Nabokov and Shel Silverstein), 'routine' (Leon Tolstoy and John Updike), 'schedule' (Isaac Asimov, Yayoi Kusama, and Stephen King), 'rut' (Andy Warhol), or 'ritual' (Confucius and Twyla Tharp). The habits of these great minds are neither glamorous nor exalted. 'Inspiration is for amateurs,' says the painter Chuck Close. 'The ret of us just show up and get to work.'

"Just as every genius is different, so each has his or her own unique way of concentrating. The author Thomas Wolfe, standing six feet, six inches tall, wrote on top of a kitchen refrigerator beginning around midnight. Ernest Hemingway started in the morning, typing on his Underwood portable set on top of a bookcase in the annex to his Key West home. John Cheever would put on his only suit in the morning, as if preparing to join other professional men going to work. Descending in the elevator to the basement of his New York City apartment building, he would then take off his suit coat and write while leaning on storage boxes until noon. Then he would put his coat on again and ascend home for lunch.

"Intense concentration, in some cases, requires a break involving physical exercise. Victor Hugo would take a two-hour break and head toward the ocean, working out vigorously on the beach. Igor Stravinsky, if energy and concentration were flagging, would stand on his head for a short period of time. Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow did the same — perhaps to increase blood flow to the brain. The choreographer Twyla Tharp, for whom physical conditioning was part of her creative process, went daily to the Pumping Iron Gym at 5:30 a.m. But as she said in her book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, 'The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.' Having a disciplined ritual makes life simpler and increases productivity. 'It's actively antisocial,' Tharp said. 'On the other hand, it is pro-creative.'

"Most geniuses create in offices, labs, or studios walled off from the outside world. Once inside his studio, painter N. C. Wyeth taped cardboard 'blinders' to the sides of his glasses so as not to see beyond his canvas. Tolstoy locked his door. Dickens had an extra door built to his study to block noise. Nabokov, when writing Lolita, worked every night in the back seat of his parked car, 'the only place in the country,' he said, 'with no noise and no drafts.' Marcel Proust had his apartment walls lined with cork. The point of all this: geniuses need to concentrate. Einstein more than once encouraged fledgling scientists to get a job as a lighthouse keeper so as to 'devote themselves undisturbed' to thinking.

"Call it a lighthouse or a safe house, all great minds have a space in which they get into the zone. The mystery writer Agatha Christie was often beset by social and professional interruptions, yet, as she recalled, 'Once I could get away, however, shut the door and get people not to interrupt me, then I was able to go full speed ahead, completely lost in what I was doing.'

"Follow her lead but go one step further. Don't interrupt yourself with diverting web searches or email. But do give yourself confidence and encouragement by placing marks of your previous accomplishments (diplomas, certificates, awards) in view, as well as portraits of your heroes or heroines. Brahms kept a lithograph of Beethoven above his piano. Einstein kept inspirational likenesses of Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell in his study; and Darwin had portraits of his idols — Hooker, Lyell, and Wedgewood — in his. The creative process itself is frightening — often 'the great work' seems suddenly to be nothing of value — and simple tricks like these can help. With a ritual to fall back upon, you can get up and try again tomorrow. 'A solid routine,' said John Updike, 'saves you from giving up.'

"Thus, a final lesson for the rest of us from the geniuses of this book: to be more efficient and productive, create a daily routine for yourself that comes with a four-wall safe zone for constructive concentration. Get to the office, or to your study or studio, and secure some space and time for interior thinking. Of course, give yourself access to a wide array of opinions and information, but remember that at the end of the day, you alone are responsible for synthesizing that information and producing something. We need successful people to make the world function well today. We need geniuses to ensure that it will function better tomorrow."