What good have I done today?
August 17, 2009
Hm? Has it been a week or two? I hadn’t noticed…
I admit, I’m a creature of habit & routine. Unfortunately that habit and routine regularly consists of wasting time and procrastination, which I’ve noticed complicates the addition of other items to the routine. Despite sloth coming in a close second to gluttony as my most routine deadly sin (narrowly edging out blogging), it is undeniably the most damaging to some of my more ambitious plans of writing a novel, practicing music more, and developing a metric time system.
I’ve been thinking about routine a lot lately since I caught wind of a rather famous routine practiced by none other than the man himself, Benjamin Franklin. If his list of accomplishments is any indication, the man certainly kept busy, and this list provides a little glimpse of how he could be so on top of things. The dude was a machine:
"The precept of Order requiring that every part of my business should have its allotted time, one page in my little book contained the following scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural day."
So, for the record: yes I have gotten up this morning with three hours to spare before I need to leave for work. Yes, it hurts. I’m at the moment on the “rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness” step. I haven’t figured out how to address powerful goodness yet, but I’ll do something. Actually, my teenage brother let me know a couple days ago that after running out of things to do one evening, he decided to “put things in their places.” When I asked how that went, he replied that it was “pretty fun.” I didn’t question any further.
Well, I guess if he can do it, there are no excuses for me. This week I’ll be making a special effort to fallow the Benjamin Routine to the best of my ability and see where it gets me. I had actually planned this a few days ago, intending not to blog again until I took some action to on this matter. It took a few days, but I made it. I’ll check back in from time to time this week (either during “prosecute the present study” or “examination of the day”) and let you know how things are going.
“I have all the money I’ll need for the rest of my life, provided I die tomorrow at 4:37 PM.”
-Jack, the Knave of Hearts
August 17, 2009 at 8:49 am
I printed a copy of this schedule to consider. It is basic, but I think you must be right about his being on to something. I’ll be curious to hear what you come up with for “address Powerful Goodness!”