Little Things Add Up
Things can get really messy if you don’t keep track of the little things. That 1/5th of a day left ignored certainly was the culprit back in 46 BC, when Julius Caesar had to declare that the current year would last 445 days in order to get the calendar back in sync with the seasonal and astronomical cycle. He instituted our first attempt at leap years.
It was better, but it wasn’t an exact match with our solar year. Over the next 1,600 or so years, we were off again by about 10 days. Pope Gregory XIII tweaked Julius Caesar’s leap year plan and upgraded us to the Gregorian Calendar.
For many of us, the calendar rules our lives. Deadlines make the biggest impact, usually associated with an event. We’ll use that to work backwards and determine logistics. Good organization usually gets the credit if everything goes according to plan – and hey, this month we have a whole extra day to use.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.” We’re not sure how he got the math to work on that, but it’s the idea that counts. Additional organizing up front allows for smoother operations and better timing on the back end.
