Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Revisiting the Harvard Classics in Fifteen Minutes a Day? Doable!

I am finding that my 15 minutes a day reading in the Harvard Classics is both doable and enjoyable. My life is quite full as a wife, a homeschooling mother, a grandmother, co-owner of a school, co-owner of an organization, and ward primary president. Maybe my life is not as full a schedule as a mother of a newborn, a two year old, and home educating older children! However, a full life nonetheless. 
I want to know that what I am asking of my mother scholars to do, is doable.  So, I am strictly confining myself to 15 minutes a day for at least 30 days, if not the next 90 days. I do not own the set yet and am reading it online. I turn on a timer and when the alarm goes off I finish the paragraph and write on a sticky note where I left off and stick it to my laptop hand rest. Then the next day I waste no time finding my starting place. 
I am used to reading books in such a way that I find moment here and there and liking to complete them quickly, mostly because I am impatient and want to know whats next. This 15 minute a day pace is affords a new perspective, a refreshing time to think and ponder deeper. I have been saving my reading for the end of the day.  I will now move my reading time earlier in the day and also play with different times to see when my mind is most clear and my time least distracted. I just wanted to keep a space between my scripture time and my classics time so I could relish and ponder both. Maybe scriptures before breakfast and classics after lunch? Yeah!  Quiet time is back!!!
If I can carve out 15 minutes a day on a regular basis, why not 16 or 17 minutes?  What would happen if I just had the book, or had it on a handheld device, then would I discover minutes here and there? For now, I am enjoying the first work in volume one- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

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