One of Stephen Covey's first concepts in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People deals with Benjamin Franklin's concept of character development. As opposed to personality traits, Franklin tried to become a better person, one virtue at a time. His virtues included:

temperance

silence

order

resolution

frugality

industry

sincerity

justice

moderation

cleanliness

tranquility

chastity

and humility

Not a bad list of items to work on. Just attempting to improve on one per year would yield a tremendous result. From a productivity perspective and certainly in concert with GTD philosophy, getting things done takes discipline, tranquility, order, resolution...we could continue.

I posted earlier in the week about working on virtue as an important part of being more influential. Franklin would agree and I suspect that David Allen would too. He said recently in a Lifehacker interview that "You only need to fine tune the engine to the point where it's not on your mind." Sounds like a process of virtue/character improvement to me. We're not talking about virtue in a moralistic way. It's about getting things done, based on a lifestyle that is constantly trying to improve.

Which virtue will you focus on today?