Almost immediately after this schedule in his Autobiography is a lament that he could not keep to it.

His autobiography, incidentally, is one of the finest I've read. Even those with no interest in history will find it enjoyable.

Before looking at the schedule, I thought: you know, really ambitious schedules are impossible.

I've had periods in my life where I've had a very ambitious daily schedule. "I'm the Complete Man! There are 168 hours in every week! I'll get up at 4AM and study literature and religion and philosophy and practice my drawing and write one song a week and put in 30 minutes of guitar practice a week and write programs in at least one unfamiliar language a week and practice another language and make it a point to Win Friends and Influence People and be more empathetic and learn to surf and keep detailed metrics and work towards my life goals!"

I'd keep it up for exactly one week.

Some of the gains were sticky, because inevitably you'll discover things that you do want to add to your schedule.

Mostly, you discover that the important things in life can't be scheduled an hour at a time; they demand more.

Then I looked at his schedule.

It seemed reasonable enough.

According to a Dianne Rehm interview with a noted Ben Franklin biographer; many Franklinisms have been invented left and right by American book publishers searching for "American" role models for kids in the newly born nation. They couldn't reach back to the continent which they have just severed ties with for cultural lore, so they had to invent it as they went, at least for the first two or so generations.

Franklin himself made no attempt to refute the grand achievements attributed to him in his day (e.g. "I will neither confirm nor deny that I have superhuman powers and can kick ass in major ways".)

You write that like it's a bad thing....

The most interesting parts are the questions:

What good shall I do this day? and

What good have I done today?

I have tried doing "what have I done today and what shall I do tomorrow" in that order, right before I go to sleep. It works amazing whenever I do it. I just need to do it everyday.

What do you think about adding "good" to those questions? Was that a linguistical/cultural thing back then to mean 'meaningful' in reference to himself, or did it mean 'good' as in The Public Good?

Given, we are talking about Ben Franklin, I would be more inclined towards The Public Good rather than "meaningful" in reference to himself. And that is the reason I avoid good in my questions because my questions relate to "meaningful" to myself. :)

Shift everything in that forward by about 8 hours and you get my daily schedule.

Where I live, there isn't much diversion available from 2 AM to 6 AM.

I like this, but I have this bad habit of taking what's worked for successful people and having it not work for me. I've tried every imaginable scheduling technique until I realized that they just don't make much difference for me.

What does? The project itself. If I fall in love with the task at hand, I want to work on it so badly, I don't need a schedule. If I'm not in love with the task at hand, schedules don't work.

As a child, when I got a new baseball glove, I slept with it the first few nights. Now I do the same thing with hard copies of clean compiles. That's love.

Interesting. That's not much different than my typical day, although he started and finished about 1.5 hours earlier than I do. The key bits, though, are probably the notes about using his time for introspection and reflection. I tend to use those corresponding time periods of my day for reading email/rss or watching TV/movies - decidedly less wisdom-building activities.

Isn't this basically the same as most corporate wage slaves - particularly ones with kids?

The major difference seems to be that there was no TV in Ben Franklin's day. But other than substituting "TV" for "idle diversion", this could be the daily schedule of any of about 100 million Americans...

Remember too that Franklin lived about 100 years before Daylight Savings Time, not to mention however long before household electricity was common. Getting to sleep at 10 was probably easier when it was too dark to do anything.

Two hour lunch? What a slacker.

Food is important. And he was probably eating with people http://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Secrets-Relationship/d...

In Defence of Food (Michael Pollan) suggests that the cultural labouring over lunch didn't just emerge because it's enjoyable it may actually improve nutrition too.

He did not have a microwave back then.

I like how he "puts things back in their place" at the end of the day. It's a very important task, but it doesn't require intelligence, courage or insight. So leave it until the tired hours of the day, so you can devote your fresh hours to the difficult tasks.

The first half of his autobiography is a good read on how to make yorself a more acomplished person. Later on, though, he becomes too boastful.

If BENJAMIN FRANKLIN isn't entitled to boast, I don't know who is.

(Note: I've read his autobiography a couple times and don't think any of it was inappropriately boastful.)

Thomas Jefferson is allowed to boast, but Franklin didn't build his own house.

Jefferson's inventions are mostly one-offs, such as his house. Franklin's inventions scaled.

For other interesting persons' daily routines look here,

http://dailyroutines.typepad.com

The Benjamin Franklin post is here http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/2007/07/benj... and contains the same schedule.

I wish I had the will power to rise at 5. But I don't sleep till way past 1.

// I would also love to know where this was taken from and what is written on the opposite side of the page, its letters just barely visible.

What is "Powerful Goodness"?

a cheeky name for "god"... basically he wanted to pray, but felt silly saying 'God' so he came up with something he thought sounded more rational

fascinating. Now (political) leaders seem to push the fact that god is tied to their schedule.

Only four hours of sleep?

it's seven...from ten pm to five am

Hey, uh, thanks for the answer... I didn't see the little curly bracket the first time I looked.

Less than 7, since he probably leaves an arbitrary amount of time for reflection and answering "What good have I done today?" while he lies in bed.

I think that would fall under "examination of the day"

The left side I think purposely doesn't have defined borders to refer to a general area. So I would actually assume that the contemplation would intermix with examination of day and sleep. It's also between 9, and 10 o' clock.

Plus, he can't possibly fall asleep at 10 o' clock sharp.