I’ve been a reader of The Art of Manliness for a while now – if you’re a dude, and haven’t started reading it yet, you’re missing out. One of the recent posts was titled “What Good Shall I Do Today?” and while it starts out rather somber, the post evolves into a very uplifting message. Part of that post includes Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule, which he kept track of in a notebook. I was surprised (and pleased) to see that it closely matches my current daily schedule.
There are certainly some things that I could take from this as improvements. For starters, most of my ‘5-7’ time ends up being Twitter, Facebook, RSS, etc. Not exactly helpful for improving myself. With my new role at TripCase actually starting the workday a bit later, it’s my goal to spend some time reading and meditating in the morning. I’ve got a number of daily devotional books that I accumulated in my youth – it’s high time I dust them off.
The second thing that I noticed is in Franklin’s ‘6-9’ time. I noticed that ‘work’ isn’t there. This is a big one for me, and one that I could improve upon. My personal goal will be to leave my phone somewhere other than my hand/pocket during this time, but we’ll see how that goes.
The overall message was originally ‘What Good Shall I Do Today?’ and that’s certainly something I could focus on in the future. I’ve never been terribly good at journaling, so maybe I’ll pick that up and keep track of the ‘good’ that I do each day, from my point of view.
Ricky Cadden 