The Economies of “Time” Management

"183 nights between 20 March and 20 September times 7 hours per night of candle usage equals 1,281 hours for a half year of candle usage. Multiplying by 100,000 families gives 128,100,000 hours by candlelight. Each candle requires half a pound of tallow and wax, thus a total of 64,050,000 pounds. At a price of thirty sols per pounds of tallow and wax (two hundred sols make one livre tournois), the total sum comes to 96,075,000 livre tournois. "An immense sum," the astonished Franklin concluded, "that the city of Paris might save every year." Franklin went on to suggest that when dawn breaks, church bells should be rung to wake the citizenry and get them started off right "Every morning as soon as the sun shall rise, church bells and, if necessary, cannon shall inform the citizenry of the advent of light and "awaken the sluggards effectually and make them open their eyes to see their true interests ... All the difficulty will be in the first two or three days; after which the reformation will be as natural and easy as the present irregularity. ... Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is probable he will go willingly to bed at eight in the evening."

Everyone had a good laugh, and Franklin's reputation as a premier wit was reinforced. But the notion of time shifting was now documented, and the years witnessed society engage in agrarian time cycles (which Franklin espoused) and modified them by daylight savings times to give the "sluggards" an extra hour of sleep.

Ultimately, however, we found the negative economics of artificial light replaced with the savings of 24-hour production efficiency. In any case, shift work is here to stay.

Source:

Benjamin Franklin Excerpts from the original essay"An Economical Project" in Journal de Paris, April 26, 1784

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