This isn't like your New Year's Resolution to stop eating cake every night (what, just us?), or to make sure you put your dirty clothes in the hamper. This a full-on, total makeover, personality overhaul. And in case we didn't understand, his dad is here to interpret for us: "Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he's got about improving his mind? He was always great for that. He told me I et like a hog once, and I beat him for it" (9.108)
What this list also tells us is that James Gatz believed in the American Dream. He believed that you really could work your way up through hard work, resolve, and self-control—just like another young, impoverished boy who made schedules: Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin's autobiography contains a suspiciously similar daily agenda. And notice that young James—like Mr. Franklin—was interested in electricity and inventions?
The problem, as Gatsby (no longer Gatz) learns, is that it doesn't actually work that way. The American Dream is just that—a dream. All that hard work and discipline only earned him ill-gotten gains, and it set him on the path to untimely death.