“Well, of course, all children do grow out of their naughty ways if you can only live till then.” – Dorothy Canfield in The Home-Maker
The 4% Fix by Karma Brown
I’m a sucker for books about productivity and creativity and making time for meaningful pursuits and all that jazz, but this one just didn’t do it for me.
Brown’s main idea is that by getting up an hour earlier every day (for her, that’s 5 am – shudder) one can use that time to pursue a personal goal. That’s it. That’s the 4% fix. Go to bed an hour earlier so you can get up an hour earlier and do that thing you want to do before the day fills up with all the things you have to do.
This is perfectly reasonable (if not exactly revolutionary) advice, but there’s a weird insistence here on getting up at 5, as though extreme early birds are the only people who ever accomplish goals.
When I write my book on making time for meaningful pursuits (which’ll be never, apparently, since I am NOT voluntarily getting up at 5) I’ll also emphasize the importance of reserving an hour a day, but reserving it whenever it fits in with one’s own circadian rhythms and daily schedule. The only difference between taking an hour at 5 am or taking it later in the morning (or mid-afternoon or late in the evening) is that later risers don’t get to brag about how early they get up.
books
lady’s mantle in the rain
Working in the garden this morning while the farmer was spreading manure over the adjoining field: good for my microbiome or great?
garden, photos
The Pothunters by PG Wodehouse
To ensure my TBR list is truly unmanageable, I recently set a goal of reading all Wodehouse’s works in order of publication and…oh boy. Dude was prolific. This is going to take a while.
Wodehouse’s first novel was The Pothunters, published in the UK in 1902. Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg because I don’t think I’d have had a prayer of finding it anywhere else.
There are flashes of the trademark Wodehouse wit and humour here, but this is definitely the work of a young writer who hasn’t yet mastered his craft. I enjoyed the glimpse of life at a British boys’ boarding school at the very beginning of the twentieth century, baffling though it is.
Recommended only for a Wodehouse super-fan.
