Why Constant Learners All Embrace the 5-Hour Rule

Benjamin Franklin did this 1 hour a day, 5 hours a week. Why you should do it too.

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At the age of 10, Benjamin Franklin left formal schooling to become an apprentice to his father. As a teenager, he showed no particular talent or aptitude aside from his love of books.

When he died a little over half a century later, he was America’s most respected statesman, its most famous inventor, a prolific author, and a successful entrepreneur.

What happened between these two points to cause such a meteoric rise?

Underlying the answer to this question is a success strategy for life that we can all use, and increasingly must use.

The five-hour rule

Throughout Ben Franklin’s adult life, he consistently invested roughly an hour a day in deliberate learning. I call this Franklin’s five-hour rule: one hour a day on every weekday.