Benjamin Franklin has watched your morning routine.
He has concerns.
You wake at 4:47 a.m.
Not 4:45.
That would be ordinary.
4:47, because somebody on a podcast said successful people don't wake up at round numbers.
You immediately drink thirty-two ounces of water containing electrolytes, Himalayan salt, creatine, collagen, and something called “mitochondrial support.”
Then comes sunlight exposure.
Breathwork.
Gratitude journaling.
Cold plunge.
Mobility.
Meditation.
Red-light therapy.
Protein.
Ten minutes barefoot in the grass.
By 6:15, you have completed fourteen activities designed to optimize your life.
You have not yet actually lived any of it.
Benjamin Franklin would like a word.
The Original Productivity Influencer
To be fair, this is partly Franklin's fault.
Few historical figures have done more damage to people who would like to sleep until eight.
Franklin was obsessed with self-improvement.
His Autobiography contains perhaps the most famous daily schedule in early American history.
He divided the day into blocks.
He rose at five.
He asked himself:
“What good shall I do this day?”
Then he washed, planned his day, studied, ate breakfast, and worked.
At night he asked:
“What good have I done today?”
LinkedIn would have adored this man.
Franklin also created a system for cultivating thirteen virtues.
Temperance.
Silence.
Order.
Resolution.
Frugality.
Industry.
Sincerity.
Justice.
Moderation.
Cleanliness.
Tranquillity.
Chastity.
Humility.
He kept a little chart and marked his failures.
Congratulations.
Benjamin Franklin invented habit tracking.
In 1728.
Your $9.99-a-month app has been disrupted by a man wearing stockings.
But Look More Closely
There is, however, something modern productivity culture tends to leave out when borrowing Franklin.
His morning schedule from five until eight included:
“Rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness; contrive day's business, and take the resolution of the day; prosecute the present study; and breakfast.”
Three hours.
Three.
Modern productivity influencers cite Franklin waking at five.
They rarely mention that he apparently spent the next three hours washing, thinking, reading, eating, and generally getting himself organized.
There is no 5:07 HIIT session.
No 5:31 manifestation journal.
No 5:42 mushroom coffee.
Franklin's routine contains something almost completely absent from the modern optimized morning:
time.
He wasn't racing through wellness activities so he could congratulate himself for completing them.
He was preparing to have a day.
The Cold Plunge
Franklin does approve of one thing.
Cold water.
Damn it.
Franklin was an enthusiastic swimmer and wrote about the health benefits of bathing. During his years in London, he even took what he called “air baths.”
These consisted of sitting naked in his room with the windows open.
For perhaps half an hour or an hour.
Benjamin.
“It is invigorating.”
Put your pants on.
Franklin believed exposure to cool air could be healthy and disliked excessively warm rooms.
So when you proudly show him the $6,000 refrigerated cold-plunge tub on your patio, he is intrigued.
Then you tell him what it cost.
He stops.
“You paid how much for cold water?”
Six thousand.
Franklin looks toward a nearby river.
He has identified a more economical provider.
The Supplements
Next comes the cabinet.
Franklin opens it.
Magnesium glycinate.
Vitamin D.
Fish oil.
Creatine.
Ashwagandha.
Greens powder.
Probiotics.
Prebiotics.
Nootropics.
Electrolytes.
NAD boosters.
Franklin is fascinated.
He was intensely curious about medicine and human physiology. He experimented constantly, corresponded with physicians, and took public health seriously.
Then he notices the labels.
SUPPORTS CELLULAR VITALITY
“What does that mean?”
Nobody knows.
PROMOTES OPTIMAL WELLNESS
“And this?”
Also unclear.
Franklin smiles.
Now he understands.
This isn't medicine.
It's advertising.
And Benjamin Franklin knows advertising.
He spent decades in the printing business.
He knows exactly what is happening here.
Someone has taken a substance worth twelve cents, placed it in a black bottle, printed LONGEVITY on the side, and sold it to you for $74.
Franklin is no longer impressed.
He is jealous.
“Early to Bed…”
Then you make the mistake of quoting Franklin to Franklin.
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Franklin sighs.
Yes.
That appeared in Poor Richard's Almanack.
But Franklin's relationship with sleep was somewhat less Instagrammable than the quotation suggests.
He enjoyed company.
He enjoyed conversation.
He enjoyed food.
He enjoyed wine.
He enjoyed chess.
He once wrote an essay complaining that Parisians wasted enormous amounts of candle wax by staying awake late and sleeping through daylight.
His proposed solution included firing cannons at sunrise to wake everyone.
So yes, Benjamin Franklin believes you should get up earlier.
Benjamin Franklin also thinks the government should shoot artillery outside your bedroom until you comply.
Choose your influencer carefully.
The Optimization Problem
Franklin's real objection arrives around 7:00.
You're stressed.
You haven't completed your breathing exercise.
Your readiness score is down.
Your sleep tracker says you only achieved 17 percent REM sleep.
Your watch says your recovery is poor.
Your glucose monitor did something upsetting after breakfast.
Your meditation app says you've broken a 43-day streak.
You look miserable.
Franklin asks:
“Do you feel unwell?”
No.
“Are you ill?”
No.
“Then what is the problem?”
My metrics are bad.
Franklin stares at you.
Here is a man who spent his life measuring things.
Ocean currents.
Temperature.
Electricity.
Population.
Postal routes.
He loves data.
But even Franklin understands something you've forgotten:
The measurement is supposed to help the life.
The life isn't supposed to serve the measurement.
The Thirteen Virtues
Franklin pulls out his old virtue chart.
You expect vindication.
Instead, he tells you something interesting.
His system failed.
Not completely.
But Franklin discovered that trying to achieve moral perfection was considerably harder than designing a chart for moral perfection.
“Order,” in particular, gave him trouble.
He admitted that his faults were numerous.
Eventually, he became somewhat amused by his inability to eliminate them.
He compared himself to a man buying an axe who wanted the entire surface polished as brightly as the edge.
After exhausting himself trying to remove every blemish, the man finally concluded:
“I think I like a speckled ax best.”
There it is.
Benjamin Franklin, patron saint of self-improvement, discovered the problem with self-optimization.
At some point you have to stop polishing the axe.
What Good Shall I Do This Day?
Franklin isn't against routines.
He loves routines.
He isn't against exercise.
Or learning.
Or planning.
Or improving yourself.
He built an entire life around those things.
What he doesn't understand is why your morning requires forty-seven separate products and a Bluetooth connection.
His own famous routine revolved around two questions.
In the morning:
What good shall I do this day?
At night:
What good have I done today?
That's basically it.
Not:
What is my HRV?
Not:
Have I entered ketosis?
Not:
Did I receive eleven minutes of direct morning sunlight before caffeine?
Just:
What am I going to do with the day I've been given?
And then:
Did I do it?
Franklin looks at your supplements.
Your cold plunge.
Your smartwatch.
Your habit tracker.
Your meditation streak.
Your $11 bottle of electrolyte water.
Then he looks at the clock.
It's 8:03.
You've been optimizing yourself for three hours.
Benjamin Franklin has already eaten breakfast.
He's read a little.
He's thought about what he'd like to accomplish.
And now he's going to work.
But first he opens a window.
Removes his clothes.
And sits down.
Okay.
Maybe don't copy everything Benjamin Franklin did.