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Franklin’s Twenty-Four Hours

In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin describes his rule of Order: “every part of my business should have its allotted time.” One page of his little book held a “scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural day.” He rose at five. He worked from eight to eleven and from two to five. From twelve to one he read or looked over his accounts, and dined.

Franklin admits that Order “gave me the most trouble.” A master of a business, he wrote, “must mix with the world, and often receive people of business at their own hours.”

The Muted Microphone

In the final presidential debate of 2020, on October 22, each candidate had two minutes of uninterrupted time at the start of every 15-minute segment. During those two minutes, only the speaking candidate’s microphone was open.

The Commission on Presidential Debates made the change after the first debate, in which President Donald Trump had frequently interrupted former Vice President Joe Biden.

Reclaiming My Time

On the floor of the House of Representatives, speaking time is allotted in minutes. A member who controls the time gives some of it to others: “I yield two minutes to the gentleman from California.” Unused time is handed back: “I yield back the balance of my time.” When the time runs out, the chair announces that it has expired.

A member who has yielded time to someone can take it back with the words “Reclaiming my time.” On July 27, 2017, Representative Maxine Waters used the phrase repeatedly while questioning Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The video spread widely, and the phrase became a popular saying.

Thirty Minutes a Side

At the Supreme Court of the United States, an oral argument is scheduled for one hour, with 30 minutes for each side. The Court’s guide for counsel says that the justices generally do not question the lead counsel for either side during the first two minutes of argument.

The Marshal of the Court times every argument. A white light means that five minutes remain. When the red light comes on, counsel may finish answering a pending question but “should not present a summation.”

Hard Stop

I have a hard stop at three. — I must leave at three, and I will.

Got a sec? Do you have a minute? — May I interrupt you? The question comes before the interruption.

Let me find time. Grab 15 minutes on my calendar. — Let us book a slot. Or: book the slot yourself.

Send me an invite. — Make it a calendar entry, so that it exists.

I’m back-to-back all day. — My day has no open slot.

I blocked off the afternoon. — I reserved the time in my calendar, so that no one else can book it.

I’ll let you go. — I know your time is limited, so I am ending the conversation.

Let’s Do Lunch

Let’s do lunch. Let’s get coffee sometime. By 1985 a Los Angeles Times columnist was already joking about the first: “Let’s do lunch sometime, have your girl call my girl.”

MIT’s office for international students explains such invitations to new arrivals. An American writer on the page says that when people say “Let’s get lunch!” it “seems like they don’t really mean it.” If an American is serious, “they will propose a time and place.”

Emails Past Midnight

In August 2015 The New York Times published a long report on working life at Amazon. The Times reported that “emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered.”

Jeff Bezos responded in a memo to staff: “The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day.”

The Cycle of Responsiveness

In 2012 Leslie Perlow of Harvard Business School published Sleeping with Your Smartphone. In her survey of about 1,600 managers and professionals, 70 percent checked their smartphone within an hour of getting up. “26 percent confessed to sleeping with their smartphones.”

“Our respondents were caught in what we have come to call the cycle of responsiveness.” Those who do not keep up “risk being branded as less committed to their work.”

At the Boston Consulting Group, Perlow tested planned, predictable time off for consultants. After four years more than nine hundred teams in thirty countries had taken part.

Leisure Is a Waste

In 2021 four researchers from Ohio State, Rutgers and Harvard published studies on people who agree with statements like “Time spent on leisure activities is often wasted time.” Such people enjoyed leisure less. They also reported lower happiness and more depression, anxiety and stress.

Their advice was practical. “If leisure can be framed as having some kind of productive goal, that helps people who think leisure is wasteful,” said Rebecca Reczek of Ohio State.

Remember That Time Is Money

On July 21, 1748, Benjamin Franklin wrote “Advice to a Young Tradesman,” addressed to “my Friend A. B.” Early in the piece he writes: “Remember that Time is Money.” A man who can earn ten shillings a day and “sits idle one half of that Day” has lost more than the sixpence he spent on amusement. “He has really spent or rather thrown away Five Shillings besides.”

The phrase itself is older. It was in print by 1719.