Benjamin Franklin And Ironclad Schedules And Goals

One final historical figure who provides a fantastic example of how to embrace self-discipline is none other than Benjamin Franklin. He’s still the supreme example of an autodidact: a statesman, inventor, philosopher, writer, and polymath whose curiosity knew no limits.

Franklin was fastidious about keeping track of his goals, activities, and schedules, and he used them to navigate his personal and professional life. Two of his daily techniques for arranging his life are perfect for those looking to improve their organizational skills for better learning. Both were laid out in detail in Franklin’s autobiography, perhaps with the hope of inspiring future generations to similar levels of achievement and productivity.

The first and probably more famous of Franklin’s forms is his “thirteen virtues” checklist, which he used to chart his efforts in bettering himself as a human being. Although he used the thirteen virtues for self-improvement—or, as Franklin put it, “attaining moral perfection”—they serve as a strong example of how to mindfully track progress and keep records of anything you want to develop, including self-learning.

First, Franklin devised a list of thirteen qualities he felt he needed to develop in order to live a healthy and conscientious life when he was twenty years old (a freakishly young age to display such maturity, if you ask me). They included merits (not relevant to this chapter’s discussion but helpful for illustration):

Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

He then devised a system by which he strove to improve in each area in a very deliberate, methodical way. Coming up with the idea for the list itself is revolutionary in a way, since it focused his attention on what he was trying to accomplish. It was also a tall task—how many goals are you currently working on right now? Is it anywhere close to thirteen? It’s time to rethink what is possible.

Franklin drew up a series of cards, each of which contained a very simple table with seven columns and thirteen rows. Heading each column were the seven days of the week: Sunday through Saturday. At the head of each row were symbols for each of his thirteen virtues. At the top of the entire page, Franklin wrote down the virtue that he chose to pay particular attention to for the duration of the week. The first week, he chose to focus primarily on temperance.

At the end of each day of the week, Franklin took out this card, reviewed the matrix, and put a black dot in each square for every instance during the day that he felt he “fell short” of maintaining that virtue. For example, if he felt he’d had a few too many glasses of wine at a Thursday dinner, he’d put a black dot in the “temperance” box for Thursday. If he decided he’d gotten a little too ticked off at George Washington at a Saturday meeting, he might put a black dot in the Saturday “tranquility” box.

In any given week, Franklin primarily focused on the virtue he entered at the top of each card. His reasoning was that cultivating one virtue at a time would make next week’s virtue a little easier to handle, and that each virtue would become a habit in time. Each was carefully scheduled so that one week’s virtue would help inform the next week’s—for example, he put “frugality” the week before “industry” because he thought the habit of saving money would support his habit of working harder to obtain money. One at a time ensured that he wouldn’t be overwhelmed and could discover what it took him to change a singular aspect of his life.

After Franklin had worked his way through thirteen weeks of checklists, he’d start over and begin a new series with his top virtue. He repeated all of his virtue exercises as he needed. If he faithfully did this every week, that meant he’d perform the task four times a year (13 weeks × 4 = 52 weeks = 1 year). Really, you just have to stand back and admire how neatly Franklin worked a calendar.

The genius of Franklin’s checklist is that this approach works for other things besides becoming a better human being (though that’s certainly a fine pursuit to try). Intentional planning, honest self-monitoring, and devotion of time without distraction is the name of the game.

For many of us still, this is a level of attention and self-awareness that is unheard of. We tend to think of our behavior as inborn and relatively unchangeable—but that’s not the case if you don’t want it to be the case, like Franklin. This type of intentional development and improvement underlay his success and accomplishments. You can also use it to track progress and chart your tasks in anything, including individual subjects of self-learning.

For example, if you’re teaching yourself about the Spanish language and culture, you might come up with a few “planks” of your studies that you want to make sure you cover as much as possible: “reading,” “writing,” “audio practice,” “social studies,” “music/art,” and so on. It might not make sense to cover each of these areas every single day, but at least a certain number of times each week would be helpful. Instead of focusing on a “Virtue of the Week” as Franklin did, maybe you’d pick a certain aspect of Spanish studies to focus on—“food,” “history,” “politics,” “sport,” “art,” “manners”—whatever you know you’ll be covering and could organize in a weekly cadence.

The key to this system’s success is knowing what aspects of your studies are the most important to maintain—the same way Franklin decided what virtues were most essential for him to build on. Each subject will have different areas of importance. Separate them out and organize a plan of attack that ensures all your bases are covered. Your brain can only handle so many things at once, so plan yourself out of overwhelm and multitasking. Progress and learning in any regard require a steady march, even one that is tracked by weeks and years as Franklin’s thirteen virtues were.

Don’t just do what you feel like or whatever pops into your mind—be methodical and make sure nothing slips through the cracks. This is the purpose of the syllabus and schedule for a class in traditional education. Be sure to create your own to keep yourself on track and be an effective self-learner.

As Franklin himself noted, the real value of this system is to instill better habits on a rolling, gradual basis. Any kind of study system is extremely dependent on how well you nurture positive habits, and this is exceptionally true with self-learning since you’re in charge of monitoring everything.

But we’re not done with Benjamin Franklin yet, the famed proponent of the turkey as the national bird of the United States. How did he manage to accomplish so many great things in an almost countless number of areas?

The second part of his planning genius stems from the daily schedule he kept for himself. In his biography, Franklin also took the time to map out his schedule for each day, from waking up to bedtime. For example, one of his typical schedules (partially paraphrased) looked like this:

5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.: Rise, wash, “address powerful goodness” (pray or meditate), schedule the day, “prosecute the present study” (study and research whatever projects he was pursuing besides work), eat breakfast.

a.m. to: 12:00

12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.: Read, “overlook my accounts” (attend to his personal or financial business), eat lunch.

2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: Work.

p.m. to: 10:00

10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.: Sleep.

This may not look like an especially precise schedule in comparison to the schedules we may keep today, considering the infinite numbers of appointments and meetings we tend to fill our calendars with. But it’s a great example to follow because it allows room for everything necessary to one’s mental well-being: it treats personal and recreational activities with the exact same importance as business and work. Everything Franklin did was directed: it had its proper time and context, and all his activities were vital to his development the same way his virtues were. In an ideal world, a schedule focused on self-learning wouldn’t look too different.

Franklin also differentiated between work he had to focus on exclusively (in those bigger morning and afternoon chunks) and work he could do while he was doing something else, like overlooking his accounts and conducting his personal studies. That undoubtedly gave him some flexibility and ease when he could take care of affairs that were important but could be done at a less active pace among other relaxing activities, like lunching. Actually scheduling time for personal reflection—something most of us probably don’t think to do—shows that he realized it was both a vital activity to pursue and that it had its place during the day, no more or less important than anything else on his docket.

Even with his somewhat slower pace of life (compared to our own, that is), Franklin didn’t always strictly keep to his schedule. That’s fine. I’m sure in his day, like our own, things just came up. The benefit of having that daily plan was that it made him happier to at least try to live according to a schedule. If he didn’t have even an idea of what he wanted to accomplish on a certain day, he’d be lost.

Having a schedule helped Franklin feel more organized and productive, even if he didn’t follow it 100 percent every single day. Simply having something to refer to with premade decisions can lend guidance and structure to a day that wouldn’t exist otherwise. You see, it’s when we are faced with too many decisions that we run into problems. Once you remove the presence of decisions with a detailed schedule, you are far more likely to go along with what needs to happen.

So using Franklin’s overall concept for your own schedule, here are some guidelines you should follow:

Give yourself a couple of daily blocks to focus on your primary work. But provide yourself as much flexibility as you need within those blocks to mentally wander. Large blocks of time are more forgiving and allow you the space to go where the wind takes you.

Schedule some time for recreation, leisure, personal reflection, or socializing with family and friends. Franklin knew these aspects were crucial enough to make room for them, especially personal reflection and understanding what went well and what needed to change during the day. The brain can’t run on full speed all the time.

Treat your personal goals with the same respect as your professional goals—in other words, schedule your self-learning with the same priority as your other responsibilities.

Spend a relatively equal amount of time planning, ruminating, analyzing, and preparing as you do actually taking action. What went well and what didn’t? Make sure you’re doing the right thing instead of the easy thing and that you learn from your mistakes and inefficiencies.

Wash. Definitely find time to wash.

These two habits of Benjamin Franklin—creating overarching goals and plans and adhering to a daily schedule—are techniques we can emulate. Self-discipline isn’t something you can wing; planning is paramount to self-discipline because it is inherently tedious and boring, and sometimes you just can’t give yourself the choice to not work toward your goals. Take a cue from this famous founding father and protect yourself from your worst impulses.