Understanding the Text
How does Eco find the time to write so much?
Eco explains that his secret lies in using what he calls 'interstices' — the empty spaces or gaps in daily life that most people overlook. He illustrates this with a concrete example: when a visitor is coming to his place and is in the elevator travelling from the first to the third floor, Eco is waiting — and that brief interval is an interstice. In that short empty space, he says he has already written an article.
He draws an analogy from physics: just as eliminating all the empty spaces in the atoms of the universe would compress it to the size of a fist, similarly, our lives are full of such empty spaces. Eco fills these interstices with productive work — writing, thinking, composing articles — instead of letting them pass idly.
He also notes that he perceives himself as always doing essentially the same thing — pursuing his philosophical and ethical interests — whether through academic writing, novels, or children's books. This unified purpose means he does not waste mental energy switching between entirely different modes of thought, making his enormous output possible.
Answer: Eco works in 'interstices' — the brief empty gaps in daily life (waiting for an elevator, for instance) — filling these moments with writing, which cumulatively produces his vast output.