stamp 202605170720
Benjamin Franklin chose 13 virtues to practice continually, giving each virtue a week before stepping to the next.
He used a sort of a habit tracker in this way:
- he put the week’s focus virtue on the top of the page, and every morning he put that virtue on his mind - every day of the week he intentionally tried to practice that virtue in a way that he “made no error” regarding that virtue
- he listed all the virtues in a table and in the evening he examined every one of them to see how he performs regarding the one virtue in focus and the others that are left out of focus
He called a 13 week cycle a course and he went through 4 courses a year.
He compared this to a gardener’s way of not trying to weed a whole garden at once, but one garden bed at a time.
Related
- This reminds me of how Gretchen Rubin chose one focus theme for each month of her year during her Happiness Project
- I know she is a biographer for Roosevelt, but I have to check if she came up with focus months on her own or was maybe inspired by Franklin?
- This reminds me of how Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way describes the upward spiral of progress. Sometimes it feels like we are going round and round, but actually we are going upwards on a mountain road. We see the same view time after time after time, but actually from a slightly different angle every time.
- I find this method appealing, because (a) it lessens the burden of “aiming for a perfect day”, and (b) it keeps it interesting. - ((b) is important from an ADHD standpoint. 1c3a-publishing-my-zettels-is-a-kindness-towards-my-adhd-self-about-that-i-felt-insecure-for-long)
- When Franklin refers to “prosecute the present study” in his famous daily schedule, I’m pretty sure he refers to the week’s focus virtue and not just any study topic in general. 3e3-looking-at-benjamin-franklin-s-schedule-without-his-habit-tracker-is-a-huge-miss
- Franklin also ordered his virtues so they build upon each other. 3e3a1a-the-13-virtues-of-benjamin-franklin-build-upon-each-other