BUT WHERE WOULD YOU HAVE PUT PURPLE COO, MR FRANKLIN

I was fascinated to see another of Ben Schott’s miscellanies in The Times the other day, this one for 2008. I adore all of Schott’s miscellanies, indeed I am a magpie when it comes to random, but interesting, bits of knowledge. I love them for the same reason that I love charity shops - you never know what you are going to find. Both are a cornucopia - to use Rumsfeld’s expression - of unknown unknowns.

I suppose I am of an age when schools considered it their job to prepare you for the unknown. The syllabus was considered merely as an irritating guide to what books to read; provided you were learning something it didn’t really matter what. Such attitudes, sadly, went by the wayside a long time ago. No longer are we educated and left to do things on our own initiative, we have to be ‘trained.’

Still, while Ben Schott continues to turn out his marvellous miscellanies the quest for random knowledge goes on. Included in his eclectic calendrical list of ‘Ephemerides’ you can find the colours that beekeepers paint Queen Bees each year to distinguish this year’s bee from last; and Benjamin Franklin’s schedule for an Ideal Day.

Now I have to confess to being a fan of Benjamin Franklin who was born poor in what then weren’t the United States. His is the classic rags to high politics story - he went on to sign the Declaration of Independence making the immortal remark - ‘Gentlemen, we must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.’ And not only politics, but science too. In his spare time he invented the lightning conductor and determined the course of the Gulf Stream.

And it was all done, not by vast intelligence, but by application and perseverance combined with a few well-thought out basic principles. Nevertheless, from his many biographies one question shrieks out: however did this man organise his time to get so much done?

Now I am someone who agonises about my time - how can I get more out of my day while still managing to remain sane and amused? I think most of us harbour a secret belief that others organise themselves better than we do. In fact trying to understand how other people run their lives is part of the fascination of blogging, or reading diaries. So to learn the Great Man’s recipe for organisation, just in time to make a New Year Resolution, seems propitious.

Benjamin Franklin’s ‘schedule’ is admirably simple. He divides the day into six periods of which two are for work, the remaining ones being morning, (pre-work); dinner, (between work); evening, (after work); and sleep. It is a fairly common pattern. We wake up, dress and have breakfast. Then we work, stop for lunch and work again. Then we finish work, eat some food, relax a bit and go to bed. But how much time do we allocate to each?

Split between these six periods my own average day looks like 2, 4, 0.5, 5, 5, 7.5. I find it hard to get from alarm clock to my office in under two hours, though this includes a morning walk and certainly some planning and newspaper reading. I work about nine hours but find it hard to manage much more than half an hour for a quick lunchtime snack. Sometimes I work a bit in the evening, but it depends on what you call ‘work.’ Certainly I do housework, like most of us I suspect.

I know I don’t read enough, relax enough, take enough exercise, but I still feel guilty about taking two hours to ‘get-up.’ On the other hand it is about the only time I get to myself.

Franklin’s schedule is interesting and reassuring. He actually takes three hours to get ready, rather than my two, filling this period with useful self-discipline such as ‘contriving the day’s business’ and ‘taking the ‘resolution of the day.’

He then works for four hours before taking a two hour lunch (or rather dinner as it was then the custom to take the main meal at midday) while reading or perusing his accounts. Then another four hours of work and he is ready (after ‘putting things away’) for ‘supper, music or diversion,’ while reviewing what he has achieved. Seven hours of sleep follows.

He acknowledges that he can’t always structure his time like this and he did have the advantage that most of his domestic arrangements were taken care of. Even so the balance of his day between work and other activities is interesting, his long lunch and three hour ‘morning’ providing all sorts of opportunities to better balance the day with ‘non-work’ tasks and reading.

Even so, can I really afford a two hour lunch? And where would he have slotted Purple Coo, I wonder?