I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed.
Charles Dickens (1858). “The Personal History of David Copperfield ... With Frontispiece by H. K. Browne”, p.356