Vivek Shraya relishes the clarity of the early morning, finding it’s easier to hear her own creative voice before the world wakes up.Jennifer Roberts
If you’re interested in the Canadian arts scene at all, you’ll know the name Vivek Shraya.
She’s penned 12 books, including the best-selling I’m Afraid of Men, over 10 studio albums, the CBC television show How to Fail as a Popstar and more. This year, she’s also the artist-in-residence at the Queer and Trans Research Lab at the University of Toronto.
Her secret weapon for getting it all done? Google Calendar.
“I schedule absolutely everything,” Shraya says. “It’s easy to not treat your art as a practice or as a job that you show up for because you’re just like, ‘Well, I’ll just do it when I have time or I’ll do it after I have breakfast,’ but by having scheduled time for different projects in my calendar on a regular basis, it really forces me to think of it as something I’m showing up for as work.”
Her scheduled time to write is in the morning. She naturally wakes up just before five and after responding to emails and scrolling on her phone, she starts to write.
“I’m most alert in the morning. And I have the least anxiety and self-consciousness and doubt in the morning.” says Shraya. “I think part of it is because most people are still sleeping. So, no matter how much you refresh Instagram or X (formerly Twitter), nobody’s really saying anything. And so, it really forces you to just sit and be alone with your thoughts.”
Her partner gets up around seven and “there’s morning hugs and kisses” and she gets ready for the gym, which includes stretching and a smoothie. “I’m done with coffee supremacy,” she jokes.
Shraya incorporates movement like stretching into her morning routine.Jennifer Roberts
After an hour at the gym, where Shraya says “it’s the time in the day where I’m not thinking about anything besides like a stupid heavy dumbbell that I’m holding in my hand,” she comes home for some breakfast and gets back to writing whatever she might be working on – a book, television show, music – until noon.
After that, her time is reserved for meetings and non-creative tasks. When she needs to be somewhere in person – the University of Toronto or CBC, for example – her morning routine stays the same up to and including breakfast, but includes some time for getting dressed and doing her makeup.
When she’s working from home, that getting-ready routine is kept to a minimum.
“I’m going to be totally honest, when I was first transitioning, makeup was such an exciting, essential part of my life because for so long, I didn’t feel like I could access that, but now, I have, a very nice leopard-print towel robe that I put on,” she says. “[If] I need to be on camera, then I’ll put on makeup.”
As for what motivates her each day? “I know it sounds corny, but the art itself is what wakes me up in the morning.”
