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Benjamin Franklin’s Daily Schedule

88 points| thankuz | 15 years ago |swiss-miss.com | reply

31 comments

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[+] btucker|15 years ago|reply
Franklin's autobiography (where this comes from) is a fantastic quick read with lots of thought provoking ideas relavant to the HN crowd. Definitely recommended!
[+] Malcx|15 years ago|reply
For anyone whose interested, its available as a free kindle download.
[+] wyclif|15 years ago|reply
Franklin's autobiography is my top pick in the "books for entrepreneurs" category, and is also simply a must-read Americana book.
[+] nickpinkston|15 years ago|reply
Yea totally - some great stuff in there. Wisdom!
[+] projectileboy|15 years ago|reply
Yeah, but Mr. Franklin goes on to explain that he was able to stick to this schedule for about a week... Funny guy. His autobiography is worth reading.
[+] sebkomianos|15 years ago|reply
I wonder what time Barack Obama, Nicola Sarcozy, Vladimir Putin and other presidents/prime ministers go to bed at. And how much sleep they get.

Thinking about it, a study on how and why "sleeping" has changed over the years would be really interesting.

[+] arepb|15 years ago|reply
Similarities to Google calendar daily view are striking.
[+] pan69|15 years ago|reply
Hmm. Looks very similar to my own typical work day. Except I get up at 6 instead of five which means I have one hour less a day to spend per day. However, I would no be able to function properly after a while without that one extra hour of sleep.
[+] mwdev|15 years ago|reply
You should give it a try. You might surprise yourself. I recently started getting up at 4 just to see what would happen. I've got a ton more time and occasionally need to take a nap around 5-7pm, but other wise have been fine just getting 4 hrs a night.
[+] Abid|15 years ago|reply
No commute to and fro work!?
[+] iqster|15 years ago|reply
I thought this was funny/sad too. I spend approx 2.5 hours a day commuting. Clearly, I have found something in my schedule that needs to be cut.
[+] eru|15 years ago|reply
Oh, how America has changed.
[+] baddox|15 years ago|reply
No exercise, unless it was somehow included in "Work." Of course, the three hours before work in the morning would leave time for half an hour of exercise.
[+] M1573RMU74710N|15 years ago|reply
Ben Franklin was actually fairly athletic. One of his many occupations was being a printer, which required carrying around heavy equipment. He was known to carry 2 trays where many Printers only managed 1.

He was also a very avid swimmer (unusual as at the time, many people couldn't swim at all) and promoted physical fitness and moderation.

(I come from Philadelphia: a town where BF is a revered local hero, to the point we have an "official" BF impersonator.)

[+] jonknee|15 years ago|reply
I don't think exercise was a huge concern in his day. Scheduling times to exercise is a modern invention.
[+] harshpotatoes|15 years ago|reply
I like how sometimes the most mundane details are sometimes the most interesting.
[+] zyfo|15 years ago|reply
Related and highly recommended are:

* Daily routines - How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days. http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/

* How we work - We're interested in the habits, rituals and small (and occasionally big) methods people and teams use to get their work done. http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2004/12/how_we_work.html

[+] AlecSchueler|15 years ago|reply
Thanks a lot for these. I was looking for things just like this the other day - something like usesthis.com, but for other fields. And the fact that dailyroutines starts of with Simone de Beauvoir, one of my favourite authors, gives me great confidence in the site.