Can one be great on the four-hour workweek? Sadly, no, according to Catherine the Great (Massie):
She rose every morning at five or six and worked fifteen hours a day. This left perhaps a single hour between the time her official duties ended—usually late in the evening—and the time she fell asleep, exhausted.
Travel did not alter Catherine’s daily schedule. She rose at six as she did in St. Petersburg, drank coffee, and then worked alone or with her secretary or ministers for two hours. At eight, she summoned her close friends to breakfast, and at nine, she entered her carriage to resume the journey. At two, she halted for midday dinner, then resumed an hour later. At seven, long after the fall of darkness, she stopped for the night. Usually, Catherine was not tired and would go back to work or join her companions for conversation, cards, or games until ten.
Before this assembly gathered, however, Catherine decided that she must provide its members with a set of guiding principles upon which she wished the new laws to be founded. The result was her Nakaz, published under the full title Instruction of Her Imperial Majesty Catherine the Second for the Commission Charged with Preparing a Project of a New Code of Laws. It was the work that Catherine considered the most significant intellectual achievement of her life and her greatest contribution to Russia. She began working on the Nakaz in January 1765 and devoted two to three hours a day to it for two years. The document was published on July 30, 1767, and is, in the view of Isabel de Madariaga, the preeminent historian of Catherine’s Russia, “one of the most remarkable political treatises ever compiled and published by a reigning sovereign.”
IN 1796, CATHERINE, in her thirty-fifth year on the Russian throne, was the preeminent royal personage in the world. Age had affected her appearance, but not her devotion to work or her positive attitude toward life. She was heavier, and her gray hair had turned to white, but her blue eyes were youthful, bright, and clear. Even at sixty-seven, her complexion was fresh, and dentures preserved the illusion that her teeth were intact. Dignity and grace were embodied in her bearing, particularly in the way she held her head high and nodded graciously in public. From friends, officials, courtiers, and servants, she drew deep affection as well as respect. She rose at six and wrapped herself in a silk dressing gown. Her movements awakened the family of small English greyhounds sleeping on a pink satin couch next to her bed. The oldest of them, whom she had named Sir Tom Anderson, and his spouse, Duchess Anderson, were gifts from Dr. Dimsdale, who had inoculated her and her son, Paul, against smallpox. They, with the help of Sir Tom’s second wife, Mademoiselle Mimi, had produced numerous litters. Catherine attended them; when the dogs wanted to go out, Catherine herself opened the door into the garden. This done, she drank four or five cups of black coffee and settled down to work on the mass of official and personal correspondence awaiting her. Her sight had weakened, and she read with spectacles and sometimes used a magnifying glass. Once when her secretary saw her reading this way, she smiled and said, “You probably don’t need this contrivance yet. How old are you?” He said that he was twenty-eight. Catherine nodded and said, “Our sight has been blunted by long service to the State and now we have to use spectacles.” Promptly at nine, she put down her pen and rang a little bell, which told the servant outside her door that she was ready for her daily visitors. This meant a long morning of receiving ministers, generals, and other government officials; of reading or listening to their reports; and of signing the papers they had prepared for her. These were working sessions; visitors were expected to object to her ideas and offer their own when they thought she was wrong. Her attitude almost always remained attentive, pleasant, and imperturbable.
Related:
Given this blog’s mild obsession with divorce it is fitting to mention the passing today of one of the world’s great divorcers: Zsa Zsa Gabor, at age 99. Some of her famous (infamous?) quotes:
“I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I get divorced I keep his house.”
“I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.”
“A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he’s finished.”
“I want a man who’s kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?”
“Getting divorced just because you don’t love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.”
Lest optimism get the better of us, here’s a small addendum from wikipedia:
“The Instruction (Nakaz) generated much discussion among Russian intellectuals and exerted considerable influence on the course of the Russian Enlightenment. It was in this document that the basic tenets of the French Enlightenment were articulated in Russian for the first time. Catherine’s work had little practical value however: the Legislative Commission failed to outline the new code of laws and the Instruction never circulated in Russia outside Moscow and St. Petersburg.”
Perhaps the lesson is that the key to greatness lies not in brilliance but in wine, whores, and giant fires.
1) Meetings are not work.
2) All the rest is academic work (I am being generous), or accounting work. That is, not work.