15. Manage busy lifestyles by adding more time to the day
The modern lifestyle can be and often is hectic and pressure-filled from arising in the morning through retiring at night. It often seems that the myriad of devices designed for the purpose of making daily life more manageable, and creating more leisure time, in fact, do the opposite. Communication is constant, and the pressure to respond to every message, whatever the source, eats into all other activities. Nearly all devices are thought necessary to clean the home, do the laundry, cook the meals, balance the books, go to work, meet deadlines, complete projects, and schedule time off, require someone to operate them, and the pressures on time are enormous. Relatively few have household servants today.
Mrs. Beeton was not aware of virtually any of the pressures of modern time, beyond those necessary to maintain a home and have meals prepared on schedule. Still, she listed many pressures during her day too, and suggested that they could be dealt with successfully through two simple means. First was the preparation of daily schedules in the form of lists, with each task checked off when accomplished, as a measure of success and a source of further motivation. She also suggested that those unable to complete their lists successfully because there wasn’t enough time in the day could easily remedy the problem. She suggested simply getting started earlier through the expedient of getting up earlier.