How Did People Like Marcus Aurelius Schedule Their Day Without Modern Watches/smartphones?

[Lorcan]

In the realm of self development. I have heard it is important to have a set schedule to preform activities throughout the day to get the most of the time one has. To have a set time to sit down and meditate as such.

I was having thoughts that how did Marcus Aurelius schedule his day without modern timekeeping methods. I would think that the position of the sun would be an inaccurate way of trying to tell the time time just by eye, and sun dials and the sun position would not work whenever it was cloudy, and surely water-clocks seldom worked.

So how did these people make do in a time before modern time keeping? Did these peole have a disadvantage?

I would think that someone such as Marcus Aurelius would have been to busy running the empire to have it had mattered that he had specific schedule for his personal development.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Lorcan

[Joseph Maynor]

Wow.  This is a great question.  You should get Seneca's "Moral Letters to Lucilius" which is available in audiobook read very well, on Audible.com.  One of the first letters is something like -- how to manage your time and prevent distraction.  It's awesome.  If you can get this audiobook it will be totally, totally worth it for you.  There's so much wisdom packed in there.  It's basically the philosopher/Roman senator Seneca instructing a friend on life-philosophy issues.  And the letters are written like little essays, so they were likely intended for a wider audience, not just for Lucilius.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Visitor]

Their world (in the past) was more geared towards efficiency (quality), which requires mindfulness. These days efficiency is no longer important but quantity. Life today is about how fast can you get things done, Scheduling became paramount to fit in quantity into every spare moment of time. Rush, rush, rush, work faster, do it now! That is what we get paid to do by most businesses today.

[Loreena]

They did it on slates and stones that magically sprang to life whenever they were called and they still do in museums. 

And sometimes they stood in the hot sun. That gave them energy. 

But it was mostly drinking and partying in groups that gave a boost to work next morning. 

It was a way of life. 

Slates are more powerful than smartphones. 

[Lorcan]

17 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Wow.  This is a great question.  You should get Seneca's "Moral Letters to Lucilius" which is available in audiobook read very well, on Audible.com.  One of the first letters is something like -- how to manage your time and prevent distraction.  It's awesome.  If you can get this audiobook it will be totally, totally worth it for you.  There's so much wisdom packed in there.  It's basically the philosopher/Roman senator Seneca instructing a friend on life-philosophy issues.  And the letters are written like little essays, so they were likely intended for a wider audience, not just for Lucilius.

I will add it to my book wishlist. Thank you for the suggestion.

[Lorcan]

13 hours ago, Visitor said:

Their world (in the past) was more geared towards efficiency (quality), which requires mindfulness. These days efficiency is no longer important but quantity. Life today is about how fast can you get things done, Scheduling became paramount to fit in quantity into every spare moment of time. Rush, rush, rush, work faster, do it now! That is what we get paid to do by most businesses today.

So what you mean by this is that, whenever Marcus Aurelius or whomever went to sit down and do some self-help work to meditate, contemplate or I think he did negative-visualization or whatever. That marcus did not go "right, I am going to sit here for 20 minutes" as he did not have a way to accurately record 20 minutes, instead he simple sat and meditated until he was content with how long he had sat?

I often tried to do this when meditating, to preform meditation in a timeless way. It seems reality changes when your not wearing a watch. When I sit and meditate without a watch or alarm, much like marcus would of had to do for his meditation, negative vizualization or whatever he was doing, I get agitated on deciding when to get up from the meditation as not to halt it prematurely.

However , meditating with a watch bring about a certain patience releif. Whenever I ever have my watch on me when meditating and I become un-patient, I look at my watch and see how much time is left until 20 minutes is up. I find that this helped with the impatience I experiance during the meditation but much intensified the thoughts in my mind "When is it over, what time is it, ho long is left?"

Perhaps Marcus or the buddha or whoever meditated until they felt like they had mediatated enough.

Such as when one goes to train in the gym without a watch or paying attention to time, simply exercise until your muscles and body tell you via sweating/constriction and aching that you have exercised "enough".

However, trying to figure out if you have meditated enough without keep a watch is much more difficult, impatience comes about alot more quickly for novice meditators such as myself then one would start to sweat considerably or have ones muscles constrict or ache considerably in a gym.

This is why I have prosed the initial question."How Did People Like Marcus Aurelius Schedule Their Day Without Modern Watches/smartphones?"

I do not just mean meditation, I also mean any self-help habit preformed back then.

[Lorcan]

5 hours ago, Loreena said:

They did it on slates and stones that magically sprang to life whenever they were called and they still do in museums. 

And sometimes they stood in the hot sun. That gave them energy. 

But it was mostly drinking and partying in groups that gave a boost to work next morning. 

It was a way of life. 

Slates are more powerful than smartphones. 

What do you mean they did it on stone tablets that "magically sprang to life"? And what do you mean they still do it in mueseums. I doubt mueseum administrators use stone or wax tablets to schedule their day or keep records.

"

And sometimes they stood in the hot sun. That gave them energy. 

But it was mostly drinking and partying in groups that gave a boost to work next morning. 

It was a way of life. 

Slates are more powerful than smartphones. "

 

Wait help? Help me understand, how is this relevent to the question.

What do you mean slates are more powerful than smartphones???????

[Loreena]

4 minutes ago, Lorcan said:

What do you mean they did it on stone tablets that "magically sprang to life"? And what do you mean they still do it in mueseums. I doubt mueseum administrators use stone or wax tablets to schedule their day or keep records.

"

And sometimes they stood in the hot sun. That gave them energy. 

But it was mostly drinking and partying in groups that gave a boost to work next morning. 

It was a way of life. 

Slates are more powerful than smartphones. "

 

Wait help? Help me understand, how is this relevent to the question.

What do you mean slates are more powerful than smartphones???????

For them, slates were sacred. So when did something they did it with a religious fervor and seriousness. 

Our way of life is lazy. They were strong energetic people. And because they got their dose of entertainment every evening, they'd feel radiant and energetic every morning. 

However we live a 24 7 life with little break. In fact entertainment is considered unhealthy and a waste of time and indeed it is a waste of time as we sit in front of TV. That actually makes us more tired. 

But if you went with friends to a small gathering where you dance and laugh and have fun you'd actually come out feeling refreshed ready to start the new day with energy, that would save a lot of time. However the present generation is just not aware of such a lifestyle that people lived back then. 

Standing in sun is a huge source of Vit D and energy which is underrated. 

They would travel on foot and horses, that would make their muscles naturally strong. 

We are far behind. We can't even imagine their level of tolerance and strength and how the present lifestyle has pretty much left us lazy and useless. 

Their stones were sacred. So they had to follow whatever they wrote. 

If they lived today, they'd actually achieve 100 times more than us. We're nowhere near as capable. 

[ParanoidAndroid]

They didn't have smartphones to distract them   Seriously though, imagine how much more we would get done if we had no smartphone, internet, computer, tv, video games, films, etc. Why would they need to say that at exactly such and such as time I will meditate or write or whatever. They would just do it less precisely, that in the morning they would meditate, then have something to eat, then do something else etc.

Also, you mentioned the Buddha. Well since he was enlightened he probably didn't need a schedule. From what I understand enlightened people are spontaneous. 

 

[Nahm]

@Lorcan he told people to.