How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

3,7
Título de livro que não me atrai. Mas é curto e direto, ensina algo bem legal. Gostei!

A witty and succinct work.

This book came as a surprise. Reading the title one could surmise it's just another time-and-business management garbage. But this work, which was written in the last century, by a man of culture, is one of a kind.

"And such is, indeed, the fact. The wish to accomplish something outside their formal programme is common to all men who in the course of evolution have risen past a certain level. Until an effort is made to satisfy that wish, the sense of uneasy waiting for something to start which has not started will remain to disturb the peace of the soul. That wish has been called by many names. It is one form of the universal desire for knowledge. And it is so strong that men whose whole lives have been given to the systematic acquirement of knowledge have been driven by it to overstep the limits of their programme in search of still more knowledge."

I thought of the question one day, and lo and behold, such a book exists. I wouldn't call it a masterpice, but the writing is something I could enjoy and rely on over and over again. It gives some very practical advice, reproaches and warnings when tackling this endeavor that many people come short of achieving all the time--optimally spending one's time. It's also very fun for me to glean the norms of the time when this was written.

For those who have not read it, I will start you off with this: think not of how few hours you have in a day and squander it anyway, but think of how much free time you have total in a week and allot maybe blocks every other day to focused self-improvement. He suggests a way to start slow. He warns you of your human nature. And an interesting one he told me, if I am the sort that sincerely enjoys literature and doesn't just think it a worthy pursuit according to someone else, then I must make time to reflect on the book otherwise I am just consuming words and not digesting the value. I always think there is not enough time to read all the books I want to read so I burn through them, but taking time to fully ponder and discuss them is also part of finishing a book.

I listened to/read this book as Amazon's free book of the month to try out Whispersync with Audible. I'm glad I didn't pay good money for it. It was entertaining at first, but the author drilled the main idea a little too far in the beginning. I got it, thanks. My attention faded by the end. The one thing that struck me was that people over a hundred years ago felt they didn't have enough time in the day to do everything. While "everything" has certainly changed, some things never do.

At the end of the book, the author distinguishes between types of reading material one should consider good uses of time. I'm not sure into which category his own book falls, but I was happy that I listened to it on high speed.

This classic book tells us philosophy of our time consumption. We had to understand basic psychology of human beings to see how we are utlizing our mind & brain power to act on daily tasks.

It is good for anyone who wants to find a clue on how your life is going through days by days unconsciously.

The difference is: it will not give you specific advice (like steps by steps to success), but rather give you an examination of normal days for you to think through and adjust yourself.

Recommended.

I was never the one for self-help books, myself - I haven't read too many - and only picked this one up on a whim, seeing it there and finding its premise mildly intriguing. I guess it gave me something to think about, especially at the beginning, a few good ideas to maybe go through at a later date... but from halfway point on it began to lose me.

Still, it was quick and easy to sift through, so it's not all that bad.

I thought this was excellent. Little over hundred pages long and you can finish it in one sitting. It was written in the early 1900s and the message is still very very relevant today. Arnold Bennett tries to show you how to make the most of the day that you have and focus. I agree with a lot of what he says here because I would like to think that I live by the mentality also. Time is not money. Time is God to many. We are on this earth “for 4 days” as they say in my part of the world so how anyone would not want to make the most of the time that they have with their children and their families is beyond me. To waste away your hours watching Game of Goats or playing fishing games like C.O.D is baffling to me. God designed a play station for us all and we live in amongst it – it’s better than the virtual reality we seem to be slowly crawling into as a race. How can we not embrace it?
•tHe talks about having a great start to the day in and true English style says that a lot can be pivotal on a cup of tea taken early in the morning to get you off to an early and positive star to the day. Starting early is critical.
•tArnold also talks about not being able to waste the tomorrow or many tomorrows which are currently before you. The only thing that you are able to waste is the here in now and the present moment you are in at this point in time which is important to understand. Every day is the beginning of potentially hundreds of days of opportunities in which you can make fundamental differences.
•tArnold talks about the train journey that any in England have into work. He says that that is potentially an uninterrupted 30 / 40 / 50 mins in which you can dedicate your mind to a particular subject and study it in depth. He urges us NOT to read newspapers in this time. He reads papers daily but in snippets and moments that he has free – not that important train journey in in which more challenging materials can be read about and thought over.
•the urges us especially if we are in our youth to take our energy and use it 7 days a week to relentlessly pursue our passions for good. As we get older he believes we should dedicate one day to rest in the week where we can put into perspective what needs to be done and how we should do it. On that resting day we should rely on intuition and be able to flex to the spur of the moment activities as they arise.

2nd read and audible listen. This is good stuff!! Quirky, funny and delightfully relevant despite the age.

Got prompted to re-read after listening to How to Have Your Best Year Ever: Strategies for Growth, Productivity, and Happiness. These books share some of the ethos

Learned about this book from Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. These pair wonderfully.

Strongly recommended

___

My notes:

I have seen an essay, ‘How to live on eight shillings a week’. But I have never seen an essay, ‘How to live on twenty-four hours a day’. Yet it has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time you can obtain money – usually. But though you have the wealth of a cloakroom attendant at the Carlton Hotel, you cannot buy yourself a minute more time than I have, or the cat by the fire has. (Location 102)

You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. A highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself! For remark! No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive. (Location 107)

In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect. Genius is never rewarded by even an extra hour a day. (Location 111)

Strange that the newspapers, so enterprising and up-to-date as they are, are not full of ‘How to live on a given income of time’, instead of ‘How to live on a given income of money’! Money is far commoner than time. When one reflects, one perceives that money is just about the commonest thing there is. (Location 120)

We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is. It is the realisation of this profound and neglected truth (which, by the way, I have not discovered) that has led me to the minute practical examination of daily time-expenditure. (Location 131)

Herbert Spencer, in my opinion the greatest mind that ever lived, (Location 166)

the chief beauty about the constant supply of time is that you cannot waste it in advance. (Location 196)

you will fall out of that habit of muttering to yourself at 11.15 p.m., ‘Time to be thinking about going to bed.’ The man who begins to go to bed forty minutes before he opens his bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not living. But remember, at the start, those ninety nocturnal minutes thrice a week must be the most important minutes in the ten thousand and eighty. They must be sacred, quite as sacred as a dramatic rehearsal or a tennis match. Instead of saying, ‘Sorry I can’t see you, old chap, but I have to run off to the tennis club,’ you must say, ‘…but I have to work.’ This, I admit, is intensely difficult to say. Tennis is so much more urgent than the immortal soul. (Location 292)

Let us now see where we stand. So far we have marked for saving out of the waste of days, half an hour at least on six mornings a week, and one hour and a half on three evenings a week. Total, seven hours and a half a week. (Location 310)

You practise physical exercises for a mere ten minutes morning and evening, and yet you are not astonished when your physical health and strength are beneficially affected every hour of the day, and your whole physical outlook changed. Why should you be astonished that an average of over an hour a day given to the mind should permanently and completely enliven the whole activity of the mind? (Location 317)

To do something else means a change of habits. And habits are the very dickens to change! Further, any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. (Location 324)

People complain of the lack of power to concentrate, not witting that they may acquire the power, if they choose. And without the power to concentrate – that is to say, without the power to dictate to the brain its task and to ensure obedience – true life is impossible. Mind control is the first element of a full existence. (Location 340)

When you leave your house, concentrate your mind on a subject (no matter what, to begin with). You will not have gone ten yards before your mind has skipped away under your very eyes and is larking round the corner with another subject. Bring it back by the scruff of the neck. Ere you have reached the station you will have brought it back about forty times. (Location 349)

By the regular practice of concentration (as to which there is no secret – save the secret of perseverance) you can tyrannise over your mind (which is not the highest part of you) every hour of the day, and in no matter what place. (Location 357)

I do not care what you concentrate on, so long as you concentrate. It is the mere disciplining of the thinking machine that counts. But still, you may as well kill two birds with one stone, and concentrate on something useful. I suggest – it is only a suggestion – a little chapter of Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. (Location 362)

For myself, I know nothing more ‘actual’, more bursting with plain common sense, applicable to the daily life of plain persons like you and me (who hate airs, pose, and nonsense) than Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. Read a chapter – and so short they are, the chapters! – in the evening and concentrate on it the next morning. You will see. (Location 365)

The exercise of concentrating the mind (to which at least half an hour a day should be given) is a mere preliminary, like scales on the piano. Having acquired power over that most unruly member of one’s complex organism, one has naturally to put it to the yoke. Useless to possess an obedient mind unless one profits to the furthest possible degree by its obedience. A prolonged primary course of study is indicated. (Location 377)

conduct can only be made to accord with principles by means of daily examination, reflection, and resolution. (Location 398)

all martyrs are happy, because their conduct and their principles agree. (Location 400)

I may also mention Pascal, La Bruyère, and Emerson. (Location 411)

Yes, books are valuable. But not reading of books will take the place of a daily, candid, honest examination of what one has recently done, and what one is about to do – of a steady looking at one’s self in the face (disconcerting though the sight may be). (Location 412)

The solitude of the evening journey home appears to me to be suitable for it. A reflective mood naturally follows the exertion of having earned the day’s living. (Location 415)

Mr Krehbiel’s ‘How to Listen to Music’ (Location 443)

The man who is imbued with the idea of development, of continuous cause and effect, perceives in the sea an element which in the day-before-yesterday of geology was vapour, which yesterday was boiling, and which tomorrow will inevitably be ice. (Location 471)

You need not be devoted to the arts, not to literature, in order to live fully. The whole field of daily habit and scene is waiting to satisfy that curiosity which means life, and the satisfaction of which means an understanding heart. (Location 497)

Novels are excluded from ‘serious reading’, so that the man who, bent on self-improvement, has been deciding to devote ninety minutes three times a week to a complete study of the works of Charles Dickens will be well advised to alter his plans. The reason is not that novels are not serious – some of the great literature of the world is in the form of prose fiction – the reason is that bad novels ought not to be read, and that good novels never demand any appreciable mental application on the part of the reader. (Location 502)

It is only the bad parts of Meredith’s novels that are difficult. A good novel rushes you forward like a skiff down a stream, and you arrive at the end, perhaps breathless, but unexhausted. (Location 505)

Therefore, though you should read novels, you should not read them in those ninety minutes. Imaginative poetry produces a far greater mental strain than novels. It produces probably the severest strain of any form of literature. It is the highest form of literature. It yields the highest form of pleasure, and teaches the highest form of wisdom. In a word, there is nothing to compare with it. (Location 509)

If poetry is what is called ‘a sealed book’ to you, begin by reading Hazlitt’s famous essay on the nature of ‘poetry in general’. (Location 516)

Aurora Leigh, and its author E.B. Browning. It happens to be written in verse, and to contain a considerable amount of genuinely fine poetry. (Location 522)

I have two general suggestions of a certain importance. The first is to define the direction and scope of your efforts. Choose a limited period, or a limited subject, or a single author. Say to yourself: ‘I will know something about the French Revolution, or the rise of railways, or the works of John Keats.’ And during a given period, to be settled beforehand, confine yourself to your choice. There is much pleasure to be derived from being a specialist. (Location 533)

The second suggestion is to think as well as to read. I know people who read and read, and for all the good it does them they might just as well cut bread-and-butter. They take to reading as better men take to drink. They fly through the shires of literature on a motor car, their sole object being motion. They will tell you how many books they have read in a year. (Location 536)

Unless you give at least forty-five minutes to careful, fatiguing reflection (it is an awful bore at first) upon what you are reading, your ninety minutes of a night are chiefly wasted. This means that your pace will be slow. Never mind. Forget the goal; think only of the surrounding country; and after a period, perhaps when you least expect it, you will suddenly find yourself in a lovely town on a hill. (Location 539)

The first is the terrible danger of becoming that most odious and least supportable of persons – a prig. Now a prig is a pert fellow who gives himself airs of superior wisdom. A prig is a pompous fool who has gone out for a ceremonial walk, and without knowing it has lost an important part of his attire, namely, his sense of humour. A prig is a tedious individual who, having made a discovery, is so impressed by his discovery that he is capable of being gravely displeased because the entire world is not also impressed by it. Unconsciously to become a prig is an easy and a fatal thing. (Location 546)

Hence, when one sets forth on the enterprise of using all one’s time, it is just as well to remember that one’s own time, and not other people’s time, is the material with which one has to deal; that the earth rolled on pretty comfortably before one began to balance a budget of the hours, and that it will continue to roll on pretty comfortably whether or not one succeeds in one’s new role of chancellor of the exchequer of time. (Location 551)

Another danger is the danger of being tied to a programme like a slave to a chariot. One’s programme must not be allowed to run away with one. It must be respected, but it must not be worshipped as a fetish. A programme of daily employ is not a religion. (Location 556)

On the other hand, a programme is a programme. And unless it is treated with deference it ceases to be anything but a poor joke. To treat one’s programme with exactly the right amount of deference, to live with not too much and not too little elasticity, is scarcely the simple affair it may appear to the inexperienced. (Location 562)

The last, and chiefest danger which I would indicate, is one to which I have already referred – the risk of a failure at the commencement of the enterprise. (Location 576)

There are men who are capable of loving a machine more deeply than they can love a woman. They are among the happiest men on earth. This is not a sneer meanly shot from cover at women. It is simply a statement of notorious fact. (Location 601)

Watch the inventors. Invention is not usually their principal business. They must invent in their spare time. They must invent before breakfast, invent in the Strand between Lyons’s and the office, invent after dinner, invent on Sundays. See with what ardour they rush home of a night! (Location 605)

They don’t want golf, bridge, limericks, novels, illustrated magazines, clubs, whisky, starting-prices, hints about neckties, political meetings, yarns, comic songs, anturic salts, nor the smiles that are situate between a gay corsage and a picture hat. They never wonder, at a loss, what they will do next. Their evenings never drag – are always too short. (Location 607)

It is said that men are only interested in themselves. The truth is that, as a rule, men are interested in every mortal thing except themselves. They have a habit of taking themselves for granted, and that habit is responsible for nine-tenths of the boredom and despair on the face of the planet. (Location 635)

It is indubitable that a large amount of what is known as self-improvement is simply self-indulgence – a form of pleasure which only incidentally improves a particular part of the machine, and even that to the neglect of far more important parts. (Location 710)

My aim is to direct a man’s attention to himself as a whole, considered as a machine, complex and capable of quite extraordinary efficiency, for travelling through this world smoothly, in any desired manner, with satisfaction not only to himself but to the people he meets en route, and the people who are overtaking him and whom he is overtaking. (Location 713)

The brain is a servant, exterior to the central force of the Ego. If it is out of control the reason is not that it is uncontrollable, but merely that its discipline has been neglected. (Location 770)

The brain is the diplomatist which arranges relations between our instinctive self and the universe, and it fulfils its mission when it provides for the maximum of freedom to the instincts with the minimum of friction. (Location 778)

Here is the foundation of an efficient life and the antidote for the tendency to make a fool of oneself. It is marvellously simple. Say to your brain: ‘From 9 o’clock to 9.30 this morning you must dwell without ceasing on a particular topic which I will give you.’ (Location 803)

The human machine is an apparatus of brain and muscle for enabling the Ego to develop freely in the universe by which it is surrounded, without friction. Its function is to convert the facts of the universe to the best advantage of the Ego. The facts of the universe are the material with which it is its business to deal – not the facts of an ideal universe, but the facts of this universe. Hence, when friction occurs, when the facts of the universe cease to be of advantage to the Ego, the fault is in the machine. It is not the solar system that has gone wrong, but the human machine. Second great principle, therefore: ‘In case of friction, the machine is always at fault.’ You can control nothing but your own mind. (Location 890)

‘All that’s old. Epictetus said that. Marcus Aurelius said that. Christ said that.’ They did. I admit it readily. But if you were ruffled this morning because your motor omnibus broke down, and you had to take a cab, then so far as you are concerned these great teachers lived in vain. You, calling yourself a reasonable man, are going about dependent for your happiness, dignity, and growth, upon a thousand things over which you have no control, and the most exquisitely organised machine for ensuring happiness, dignity, and growth, is rusting away inside you. (Location 904)

You remark sagely to your child: ‘No, my child, you cannot have that moon, and you will accomplish nothing by crying for it. Now, here is this beautiful box of bricks, by means of which you may amuse yourself while learning many wonderful matters and improving your mind. You must try to be content with what you have, and to make the best of it. If you had the moon you wouldn’t be any happier.’ Then you lie awake half the night repining because the last post has brought a letter to the effect that ‘the Board cannot entertain your application for,’ etc. You say the two cases are not alike. They are not. Your child has never heard of Epictetus. On the other hand, justice is the moon. At your age you surely know that. (Location 909)

The secret of calm cheerfulness is kindliness; no person can be consistently cheerful and calm who does not consistently think kind thoughts. (Location 969)

Ninety per cent of all daily friction is caused by tone – mere tone of voice. (Location 1014)

He who speaks, speaks twice. His words convey his thought, and his tone conveys his mental attitude towards the person spoken to. (Location 1019)

Criticise less, even in the secrecy of your chamber. And do not blame at all. Accept your environment and adapt yourself to it in silence, instead of noisily attempting to adapt your environment to yourself. Here is true wisdom. You have no business trespassing beyond the confines of your own individuality. In so trespassing you are guilty of impertinence. (Location 1151)

Annie Besant’s Thought Power, (Location 1328)

Said Balzac in La Cousine Bette, ‘A crime is in the first instance a defect of reasoning powers.’ (Location 1496)

success signifies something else. It may be divided into four branches: (1) Distinction in pure or applied science. This is the least gross of all forms of success as we regard it, for it frequently implies poverty, and it does not by any means always imply fame. (2) Distinction in the arts. Fame and adulation are usually implied in this, though they do not commonly bring riches with them. (3) Direct influence and power over the material lives of other men; that is to say, distinction in politics, national or local. (4) Success in amassing money. This last is the commonest and easiest. (Location 1873)