Last week I reviewed the first chapter of Arnold Bennett’s How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, a Victorian-era personal productivity guide. Next in this continuing series (which has absolutely nothing to do with Jack Bauer) is chapter two, deliciously titled “The Desire to Exceed One’s Programme,” a chapter that he addresses to “that innumerable band of souls who are haunted, more or less painfully, by the feeling that the years slip by, and slip by, and slip by, and that they have not yet been able to get their lives into proper working order.”


In this chapter Bennett exercises that delightful British wit to point out that most people do not “exceed their programme” – that is, their productive day begins and ends at the office. A reminder of this can be strong medicine to me: in the circles I run in, I’m surrounded by people who don’t work typical jobs or who don’t work at all – students, the independently wealthy, the self-employed – and sometimes it helps to feel that I really am in the majority; that there is a common struggle across time between what one must do and what one wants to do.

“If we further analyse our vague, uneasy aspiration, we shall, I think, see that it springs from a fixed idea that we ought to do something in addition to those things which we are loyally and
morally obliged to do.”

Thus Bennett argues, the desire to “exceed one’s program”–to develop oneself outside of these obligations–is universal. He calls it “one form of the universal desire for knowledge.” Heck, he even uses the term “intellectual curiosity,” and we know how I love that, even if I can’t spell it sometimes. I would go further and tie this “uneasy aspiration” to Thoreau’s “quiet desperation.”

“A man may desire to go to Mecca. His conscience tells him that he ought to go to Mecca. He fares forth, either by the aid of Cook’s, or unassisted; he may probably never reach Mecca; he may drown before he gets to Port Said; he may perish ingloriously on the coast of the Red Sea; his desire may remain eternally frustrate. Unfulfilled aspiration may always trouble him.
But he will not be tormented in the same way as the man who, desiring to reach Mecca, and harried by the desire to reach Mecca, never leaves Brixton.”

Poor Brixton. I’m sure it’s a lovely place.

The point here is: personal development is a journey, not a destination. This is an important point to consider if, like me, you find yourself paralyzed by the idea that there is too much to do and not enough time.

Just start. It’s a phrase that comes up again and again in the personal productivity literature. It begs the question, And where does one begin?–and believe me, if you’re the kind of person tormented by lost time, then you’re the sort of person tormented by this type of question. According to Bennett, for many people the “desire to exceed formal programmes takes a literary shape,” and this is where this book turns next. This is also the first question that any personal productivity system will ask you to tackle–and each one has their own answer. FlyLady asks you to shine your sink. GTD starts with ubiquitous capture. Many, many systems ask you to start with your values–what matters the most to you as well as what satisfies you the most.

Each has its benefits. Values-driven systems have the advantage that you really are beginning at the beginning. What’s the use, say, in shining your sink if how your house looks really doesn’t trouble you? But of course, for many people there is such a benefit in her system–a shiny sink is symbolic, and symbols are very powerful. Ubiquitous capture has its appeal if you’re the type who spends many a sleepless night tormented by commitments or ideas that you haven’t written down.

You can’t do it all, so you’re better off picking one. I’m still learning this. I flit from one system to another; one goal to another. Simultaneously I’m trying to implement Zen Habits’ Edit Your Life series, the Simple Dollar’s 31 Days to Fix Your Finances, and Your Money or Your Life’s first step (“What Have You Earned, and What Have You Got to Show For It?”) My fondest wish is to be able to do one thing and be really good at it; to not need to flit from idea to idea like some sort of furtive idea thief. Unfortunately such constancy doesn’t seem in my nature. So frequently I do nothing at all, except look for another system that will “work” better than the first.

What I need to learn is to do one thing at a time, and put my all into it. You might not get to Mecca, but you will probably pull out of the station.

Question to readers: How does Bennett’s “unfulfilled aspiration” affect you? Are you a unitasker or a multitasker? Do you have one system you use, or are you a “productivity junkie?”

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