12 Habits for 2023
Did you know that Ben Franklin didn’t only invent the urinary catheter and the lightning rod, but also the habit tracker?
You might have heard of Benjamin Franklin’s 13 necessary virtues. He made a list of the 13 virtues he wished to emulate. Then he drew up a table and checked in every evening on whether or not he lived up to his standards.
Sounds a lot like the good old habit tracker, that you might know from the Bullet Journal system etc, right?
However, there was a little twist.
Old Ben was a clever boy, and he knew that it would be nearly impossible to focus on 13 virtues every single day. He always tried to live up to all of them, of course. However, each week, he picked one virtue to focus on and tried not to break the chain on this single virtue.
The number 13 is also not arbitrary. As everybody knows, Ben was a huge geek, and so he picked a number that allowed him to cycle through each virtue exactly four times per year.
For 2023, I plan on doing a similar thing. I don’t think it matters that it’s a new year. Any day will do. I just had the idea today, so why not?
Instead of virtues, I will focus on habits. They are easy to track and very powerful (I don’t have to tell you that).
I’m not sure if I should make my focus periods a week or a month long. I will try Ben’s system first and adapt if necessary since I consider him to be smarter than me.
Here are my 12 habits:
1. Idea Machine Habit
2. Brain Dump
3. 3 MITs
4. Honesty
5. Compliment
6. Publish
7. 15 min of Creativity
8. No trash talk
9. 15 min music
10. 3 Zettel in Zettelkasten
11. What I learned today + questions
12. No multitasking
Some other habits that I find valuable, but that didn’t make it to the TOP 12 are:
- Real listening, without thinking about a response, while the other person is talking
- Time Tracking
- Sketchbook Practice
I’ll talk a bit more about every habit, once I start working on it more intensely.
Want to join me? What are 12 habits you would like to establish during the next year?
(Btw, Ben Franklin started this practice believing that it would only take him about a year to perfect his virtues. Turns out, it took him a lifetime and even then, he couldn’t get perfect scores most of the time. So don’t worry if you miss a day.
