stamp 202605161924
Benjamin Franklin used something that we could call a habit tracker today. Or at least it looked like that, although instead of habits, he tracked how good he was at implementing his 13 values in his day.
“I made a little Book in which I allotted a Page for each of the Virtues. I rul’d each Page with red Ink, so as to have seven Columns, one for each Day of the Week, marking each Column with a Letter for the Day. I cross’d these Columns with thirteen red Lines, marking the Beginning of each Line with the first Letter of one of the Virtues, on which Line & in its proper Column I might mark by a little black Spot every Fault I found upon Examination to have been committed respecting that Virtue upon that Day.”
Source: ref-franklin-the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin
Related
- Something extra he added: with his focus shifting weekly, he created a “course” during which he dedicated one week to each value consecutively, and repeated it 4 times during a year. 3e3a1-benjamin-franklin-worked-on-his-virtues-one-at-a-time
- I’m pretty sure that when he referred to “prosecute the present study” and “examination of the day” in his schedule, he referred to specifically this virtues course. 3e3-looking-at-benjamin-franklin-s-schedule-without-his-habit-tracker-is-a-huge-miss