How to Live on 24 Hours a Day
Arnold Bennett, Joanne Libre
Paperback
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Aug. 26, 2018)
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day With following enhanced features easy, enjoyable and fast read satisfactory both to children and adult readers attentive editing fluid text formatting The Book in Brief In the book, Bennett addressed the large and growing number of white-collar workers that had accumulated since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. In his view, these workers put in eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, at jobs they did not enjoy, and at worst hated. They worked to make a living, but their daily existence consisted of waking up, getting ready for work, working as little as possible during the work day, going home, unwinding, going to sleep, and repeating the process the next day. In short, he didn't believe they were really living. Bennett addressed this problem by urging these "salarymen" to seize their extra time, and make the most of it to improve themselves. Extra time could be found at the beginning of the day, by waking up early, and on the ride to work, on the way home from work, in the evening hours, and especially during the weekends. During this time, he prescribed improvement measures such as reading great literature, taking an interest in the arts, reflecting on life, and learning self-discipline. Bennett wrote that time is the most precious of commodities. He said that many books have been written on how to live on a certain amount of money each day. And he added that the old adage "time is money" understates the matter, as time can often produce money, but money cannot produce more time. Time is extremely limited, and Bennett urged others to make the best of the time remaining in their lives. This book has seen increased appeal in recent years due to the explosion of the self-improvement phenomenon, and the book has much relevance in today's world. In the book, Bennett offers the following advice: View the 24-hour day as two separate days, one encompassing the 8-hour workday and the other a 16-hour personal day to be accounted for and utilized. Train your mind daily to focus on a single thing continuously for an extended period, 50 minutes in his "average case" example. Reflect on your self. Claim 90 minutes an evening for three evenings a week, to start with. More time can be found, but Bennett recommends starting small, instead of attempting a large enterprise and failing. Those 90 minutes can be claimed in the evening, in the morning, on the train to and from work, or other time that isn't put to good use. He recommends evenings for most people, but it depends on your schedule. Use that 90 minutes to improve yourself. Over the course of weeks and months, the knowledge gained in those chunks of time will add up to a significant amount. Literature is not the only means of self-improvement. Other reading can be very beneficial, including learning more about your business, learning about the "causes and effects" of things, and learning about history and philosophy. He doesn't recommend reading novels for self-improvement. He highly recommends poetry, especially verse novels such as Milton's "Paradise Lost".