Following the ‘White-hot Fire Inside of You’

Editor’s note: Before Paul Graham started his first company, he was a painter—a practice that he likens to hacking. “What hackers and painters have in common is that they’re both makers,” he said. We know that, like Graham, a lot of our readers are lateral thinkers, branching out into different modes of producing work. So today, we’re re-publishing a piece from our archives with painter Brian Rutenberg. It’s part of Superorganizers, our ongoing series about how smart people organize what they know.

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With military precision, the painter Brian Rutenberg wakes up every single workday at exactly 7:10 a.m. Then, the ritual begins: a series of daily tasks, guided by muscle memory and his immutable routine. He rises and makes his bed, then spends 20 minutes at the gym, followed by oatmeal and coffee at the same diner, every day. 

Afterwards, he heads into his New York studio, where he churns out some of the most well-regarded abstract paintings in modern art. Every day. On time. For decades.