Daily Routines of John Grisham and Ben Franklin

For a long time now, I have been interested in the daily routines of successful people. Here are two of my favories:

Author John Grisham’s routine, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 5, 2008:

When he first started writing, Grisham says, he had “these little rituals that were silly and brutal but very important.”

“The alarm clock would go off at 5, and I’d jump in the shower. My office was 5 minutes away. And I had to be at my desk, at my office, with the first cup of coffee, a legal pad and write the first word at 5:30, five days a week.”

His goal: to write a page every day. Sometimes that would take 10 minutes, sometimes an hour; ofttimes he would write for two hours before he had to turn to his job as a lawyer, which he never especially enjoyed. In the Mississippi Legislature, there were “enormous amounts of wasted time” that would give him the opportunity to write.

“So I was very disciplined about it,” he says, then quickly concedes he doesn’t have such discipline now: “I don’t have to.”

Ben Franklin’s routine, source unknown:

Ben Franklin Daily Routine

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Chris

Attorney & Amateur Golfer