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Poor Richard says:

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg’d it
would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but
to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then
to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro’ the thirteen;
and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of
certain others, I arrang’d them with that view, as they stand above. Temperance
first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so
necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained
against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits, and the force of perpetual
temptations. This being acquir’d and establish’d, Silence would be more easy;
and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improv’d in
virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtain’d rather by the use
of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was
getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to
trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I
expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies.
Resolution, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain
all the subsequent virtues; Frugality and Industry freeing me from my remaining
debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the
practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc., etc. Conceiving then, that, agreeably
to the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be
necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination.

I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I
rul’d each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of
the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I cross’d these columns
with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first
letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might
mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been
committed respecting that virtue upon that day.

I determined to give a week’s strict attention to each of the virtues
successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to avoid every the
least offence against Temperance, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary
chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first
week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I suppos’d the habit
of that virtue so much strengthen’d, and its opposite weaken’d, that I might
venture extending my attention to include the next, and for the following week
keep both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go thro’ a
course compleat in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who,
having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at
once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the
beds at a time, and, having accomplish’d the first, proceeds to a second, so I
should have, I hoped, the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the
progress I made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots,
till in the end, by a number of courses, I should he happy in viewing a clean
book, after a thirteen weeks’ daily examination.