This is a self-help book before this kind of books turned into a trend. it's message is simple but fundamental. we all have the same asset whether poor or rich, young or old, we all wake up every morning with a 24 hours time to invest.

Very clever man, Mr Bennett
And a very quick read.

Escrito hace más de 100 años, este consejero de la buena vida (Editor de la revista Woman de Inglaterra) dedico su vida a las letras, desde la crítica y como escritor. Arnold Bennett -hay una preparación con huevos que lleva su nombre en la capital inglesa- en 12 capítulos-consejos publicados en primera instancia como facsímiles de un diario, intenta convertir en máxima el sabido conocimiento que el tiempo es lo único igualitario para todas y todos. Desde cómo aprovechamos nuestras horas de ocio, nuestro tiempos fuera de los trabajos de 8 horas y quizás en cómo proyectamos la propia existencia. Son 12 pasos, a la usanza de una guía espiritual, para entender que a veces sólo falta un poco de constancia para lograr los cometidos. Publicado originalmente en 1910, está escrito con la perspectiva para aquellos hombres que no debían preocuparse del quehacer doméstico y mucho menos de las millares de distracciones que hoy en día ocurren. Pero que cada tantas páginas te sacará una sonrisa para entender que a veces el tiempo no es más que la forma en cómo ocupamos nuestras vidas. Una lectura muy rápida y ágil para intentar enderezar el tiempo en estos agotadores finales de año, y de época.

(...) “

I really enjoyed this self-help book from 100 years ago for multiple reasons. It's a jolly good read because of the author's style, though I'm biased towards the British style. Also the author have very good insights into how people really work and can express things very clearly.

There were quite a few expressions that I should still look up (the language changed a lot since 1910) and many of the contemporary authors mentioned are unknown to me, but that does not take away from the message.

It is a very short book, one could get it from its Project Gutenberg page, read it, decide what you want to do with it, then you can revisit the Wikipedia summary to revise it any time you feel the need.

Martin Eden was first published Jan 1, 1908 in the US. This was first published Nov 24, 1908 in the UK. My mind can't help connecting these two books, though clearly this would have been something Bennett too was thinking about for many years to come to the points (insights) he did. It should be no surprise that the 'need to exceed our programme' has been around for centuries (at least), although doubtlessly exacerbated now by info overload; and yet, I am always surprised.. And the way Bennett describes it, sounds like the dissatisfaction was all around & commonplace.

What is also seriously noteworthy is 'the first self help book' offers no miracles, only honest reflections to ground you! If only the genre had honoured that.

(Feb 10 edit: Nevermind, I'm going deeper down the rabbit hole. The Improvement of the Mind, 1814.)

--
"But," someone may remark, with the English disregard of everything except the point, "what is he driving at with his twenty-four hours a day? I have no difficulty in living on twenty-four hours a day. I do all that I want to do, and still find time to go in for newspaper competitions. Surely it is a simple affair, knowing that one has only twenty-four hours a day, to content one's self with twenty-four hours a day!"

To you, my dear sir, I present my excuses and apologies. You are precisely the man that I have been wishing to meet for about forty years. Will you kindly send me your name and address, and state your charge for telling me how you do it? Instead of me talking to you, you ought to be talking to me. Please come forward. That you exist, I am convinced, and that I have not yet encountered you is my loss.

--

Now that I have succeeded (if succeeded I have) in persuading you to admit to yourself that you are constantly haunted by a suppressed dissatisfaction with your own arrangement of your daily life; and that the primal cause of that inconvenient dissatisfaction is the feeling that you are every day leaving undone something which you would like to do, and which, indeed, you are always hoping to do when you have "more time"; and now that I have drawn your attention to the glaring, dazzling truth that you never will have "more time," since you already have all the time there is--you expect me to let you into some wonderful secret by which you may at any rate approach the ideal of a perfect arrangement of the day, and by which, therefore, that haunting, unpleasant, daily disappointment of things left undone will be got rid of!

I have found no such wonderful secret. Nor do I expect to find it, nor do I expect that anyone else will ever find it. It is undiscovered. When you first began to gather my drift, perhaps there was a resurrection of hope in your breast. Perhaps you said to yourself, "This man will show me an easy, unfatiguing way of doing what I have so long in vain wished to do." Alas, no! The fact is that there is no easy way, no royal road. The path to Mecca is extremely hard and stony, and the worst of it is that you never quite get there after all.

The most important preliminary to the task of arranging one's life so that one may live fully and comfortably within one's daily budget of twenty-four hours is the calm realisation of the extreme difficulty of the task, of the sacrifices and the endless effort which it demands. I cannot too strongly insist on this.

If you imagine that you will be able to achieve your ideal by ingeniously planning out a time-table with a pen on a piece of paper, you had better give up hope at once. If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillusions; if you will not be content with a small result for a big effort, then do not begin. Lie down again and resume the uneasy doze which you call your existence.

"Não rangemos os dentes ao lermos Anna Karenina" perdoe-me a insolência, mas fale por você

همزمان با کتاب تمرکز کال نیوپورت این کتاب رو هم انتخاب کردم که بخونم که اتفاقاً تو یکی از فصل های آخر کتاب نویسنده به این کتاب هم اشاره میکنه.
اول چیزی که باعث شد بخوام این کتاب رو بخونم سالی بود که این کتاب نوشته شده بود. یعنی سال 1908، انگار بعضی از سوال ها و دغدغه ها فارغ از زمان همیشه درگیر ادمی بوده. خیلی وقت ها به موضوع شتاب زدگی در عصر حال و عدم برنامه ریزی فکر میکنم ولی حین خوندن کتاب دیدم انگار وقت تلف کردن و نالیدن که وقت کم هست و وقت خالی نیست شامل الان و این لحظه نمیشه و صد سال پیش هم آدما درگیرش بودند.
صحبت های بنت تو این کتاب با ی لحن کنایه آمیز و نیش دار بیان میشه که به نظرم جالبش میکنه. نکته ها و حرف هایی که میگه برای این روزگار قابل توجه و قابل اجراست. کتاب رو با این موضوع شروع میکنه که فارغ از اینکه چه شخصی باشی در هر روز 24 ساعت داری و بنا به موقعیت و فاکتور های دیگه این 24 ساعت از شخصی به شخص دیگه کم و زیاد نمیشه و بنت از این امر به عنوان دموکراسی ایده ال نام میبره. تمرکز ،مراقبه ، مطالعه جدی و ی سری نکات دیگه از مواردی هست که بنت بهش پرداخته . ی نکته دیگه که برای من جالب اومد مثال موسیقی بود که گفته بود میتونی خودت رو اموزش بدی که موسیقی رو بفهمی حتی اگه از اول بگی از موسیقی متنفری. این برای من از این جهت اومد که به خودم گوشزد کنم هر چیزی رو نبینم و هر چیزی رو گوش ندم و هر چیزی رو نخونم . چون سلیقه ام از همین موارد شکل می گیره. اگه گوشم رو آموزش بدم که موسیقی خوب رو گوش بده در واقع سلیقه شنوایی مو رو به شکل بهتری که از نظر خودم بهتر هست شکل دادم.
فایل صوتی کتاب و با ی لهجه ی نا معمول گوش دادم که متعاقباً توجه و تمرکز بیشتری رو برای فهم مطالب خود کتاب مطلبید. حجم کم کتاب باعث شد 4 بار کتاب رو گوش بدم و نوت برداری کنم. کتاب رو به صورت تک کتاب پیشنهاد نمی کنم . اما اگه تو زمینه تمرکز، رشد، برنامه یزی و ... دغدغه دارید به عنوان یکی از اون مجموعه کتاب هایی که باید خونده بشه پیشنهاد میدم. پس لذت و امتیاز من تنها به این کتاب نیست و در کنار مطالب دیگه ای هست که در این مورد دارم میخونم.

4.4/5 i think, really good book, review to come i promise

A gem. You have to forgive the Victorian, male-centric view to get at the insights in this book.

The fundamental point is that arranging one's life so that twice a week you can do 90 minutes study in an evening and can reflect on that and one's self whilst commuting to work the next day - is the foundation for a profound shift into meaningful specialisation / expertise and achievement.

It requires mental discipline to keep to the task at hand but the payoff is progress to a purpose aligned with one's interests.

To read a self-help book written more than a hundred years ago is interesting. The book, as was written for the people of a century before, doesn't talk about tech or Internet addiction while talking about being productive or living the life fully.
It was an interesting read and I have got two new book recommendations from it so I think it's worth it.

Is this one of the first self-help books of the last century? The style is certainly in line with 1910 but the ideas are even more relevant - surely? - today in the age of TV and the interweb.

This book is not amazing, in fact the advice it offers is often outdated and not even applicable in a world where work, study, fun and even love evolve online. What was amazing, however, was the deep sense of comfort and understanding it gave me. I simply love Bennett in a strange, religious kind of way. He sounds so soothing and wise to me, I could follow him to the end of the world and never doubt a word of his. Or maybe it is just that he somehow manages to articulate many things I feel inside. Like this one for example:

'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. I say this with sad consciousness of the fact that the majority of people do not read poetry.'