This is but a short glance at a theory, a thought, on a key of Benjamin Franklin’s prolific ability to create and do.
For those striving to be more productive, seeing the practical steps of his path is a helpful endeavor.
Having lots of eggs in lots of baskets is often frowned on. And yet Franklin was a polymath.
If you are unfamiliar with Polymathy this great “defense of polymaths” in Harvard Business Review is a good read – https://hbr.org/2012/05/in-defense-of-polymaths
It’s my theory that his wide range of interests and pursuits, rather than hurting his productivity, lent to his ability to accomplish tasks in ways that a person in only one field would not think to. In other words, to borrow the phrase from Kuhn’s Scientific Revolutions, he was an out-of -the-box thinker in the way he approached solving problems and getting things done.
To put it another way, – he leveraged the power of The Link
At the same time, none of that would have helped him if he did not possess another equally important skill:
Self management.
In Franklin’s Autobiography he outlines his method of “self improvement” that he calls “Art of Virtue”.
Good self management helped him to push to exceptional levels of output in a wide range of roles/fields. Indeed, He accomplished, in multiple fields, achievements that many would be happy if only they could attain to in just one field over the course of a lifetime.