A delightful little book/essay (can one call it a pamphlet if it’s an ebook…?) of 60-ish pages from 1908. I heard about it I believe from some random NaNoWriMo pep-talk or news email or something… Chris Baty or some person with a high position at NaNo randomly mentioned it (wish I could remember where!) and linked to it being free on kindle or gutenberg.org, so I randomly downloaded it at the time and promptly didn’t read it for a year or so.

I finally did.

I found to be fascinating, hilarious, well-written, with some good tips, and basically awesome.

No, I don’t in fact know how to live on 24 hours a day now, but still, it has great ides and I’ll hopefully put some of it to use eventually. Regardless, it’s a splendid read (and short!) and I’m just amazed how brilliant and articulate and funny people from back then were — think the authors of Holmes and Bertie Wooster and Around the World in 80 Days.

I’ve rarely if ever read non-fiction that was as hilarious but also useful as this little pamphlet. Lots of fun and also enlightening!

I kept reading bits of it aloud for the wit and wisdom. :D

Everyone: Read it!

3-4 Star
I heard about this concept many years ago, but didn't know there was a book about it.
Great for those starting out.

This is an amazing little public domain self-help book from the early 1900s. It provides tips for feeling like you're making the most out of every day. It's amazing because it describes the feeling of wasting time in a way that resonates, even though this book was written nearly 100 years before the Internet and modern time-wasting devices. It also feels reassuring that the sense of restlessness that probably many of us experience is a timeless human condition, not some individual failure. Grab it for $0 at the Kindle store.

Starts neatly with the philosophical concept of Time and its importance as resource one cannot buy. Then the author tells us how to grab some free hours here and there to make use of that time. He offers to first control one's mind and fill it with a worthwhile occupation, exercising the mind as we exercise the body. His proposed occupations are literature, art, and science. He ends with some dangers to avoid in this new life plan.

As I'm already trying to make an efficient use of my time, this book will not change my life. Yet, it was interesting to see that living instead of vegetating was already a concern at the turn of the 20th century, and that - apart from a few archaisms - this 1910 book could well have been written yesteryear.

Here some of my favorite quotes:
“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.”
“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.”
“since nothing whatever happens to us outside our own brain; since nothing hurts us or gives us pleasure except within the brain, the supreme importance of being able to control what goes on in that mysterious brain is patent”
“Now in the cultivation of the mind one of the most important factors is precisely the feeling of strain, of difficulty, of a task which one part of you is anxious to achieve and another part of you is anxious to shirk”

Could have used much simple words...

How to live on 24 hours a day?! … Oh tell me about it! I had always thought 24 hours in a day are never enough to do everything I want to do. Oftentimes I wished that a day extended to at least 34 hours. Some other times though, I wished for the clock to stop so that I get to do what I want without compromising the things I NEED to do. The dilemma between the wants and the needs is always a strenuous battle.

But Arnold Bennett managed to pacify and console my soul. Written 102 years ago (!!!), this work has not lost its timeliness and significance. (Now that defines a classic!)

To live is what Bennett teaches us. To LIVE is what we are after – and not simply to exist. This self-help time management guru offers practical and wise steps to earn the real treasure in life – and he is referring to time – not money. “Money is far more commoner than time. When one reflects, one perceives that money is just about the commonest thing there is.”

I felt so good when the author treats the seconds and the minutes of an hour as the “little pearls” of our life. The thought of it is simply beautiful!

while many have found this book invaluable, i think that arnold bennett has brought a chilling perspective to “time is money”. like many i do not live in 24 hours of the day but instead 1/3rds, which may seem insignificant but realizing and understanding that no more time can ever be bought by one man or another is quite the concept not because there is anything more to comprehend but because it is the blatant truth. this short and intimate piece is something i think everyone struggling to find the meaning to their life, and not “muddle” through their days should read. five stars, highly recommend, and takes no longer then an uninterrupted hour of your life to read.

Flowery and funny self-help from the turn of the (last) century, this little book was an uncanny, spot-on description of my daily routine and how I often think of it. It was slightly shocking to hear my modern quotidian hang-ups called out by a guy addressing "clerks" in a time of 36-cent round-trip train tickets, since I tend to think of them as my personal hang-ups. As in, they're my cross to bear and no one else could possibly understand, yadda yadda yadda.

It was pleasantly deflating to be shown in no uncertain terms that my problems weren't new.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"I will continue to chat with my companions in distress—that innumerable band of souls who are haunted, more or less painfully, by the feeling that the years slip by, and slip by, and slip by, and that they have not yet been able to get their lives into proper working order."

"But he will not be tormented in the same way as the man who, desiring to reach Mecca, and harried by the desire to reach Mecca, never leaves Brixton."

"[Our aspiration] springs from a fixed idea that we ought to do something in addition to those things which we are loyally and morally obliged to do."

"Until an effort is made to satisfy that wish [to do something more], the sense of uneasy waiting for something to start which has not started will remain to disturb the peace of the soul."

"There is no magic method of beginning. If a man standing on the edge of a swimming-bath and wanting to jump into the cold water should ask you, 'How do I begin to jump?' you would merely reply, 'Just jump. Take hold of your nerves and jump.'"

"[Ardour] is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, 'I've had enough of this.'"

"A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence."

"In the cultivation of the mind one of the most important factors is precisely the feeling of strain, of difficulty, of a task which one part of you is anxious to achieve and another part of you is anxious to shirk."

A playful, intelligent and seemingly timeless look at time and the negligent way we spend it.
After reading Buried Alive by Bennett and enjoying the humour and pace, I read this with high expectations.
It doesn't disappoint.
Though Bennett assumes a conversational tone, the text is ripe with insights into human nature and can easily be read in a single setting.
Strongly recommended, though written a hundred years ago, most if not all of the suggestions are still relevant to contemporary life.

Reflections and lessons learned:
“The man who begins to go to bed 40 mins before he opens his bedroom door is bored… that is to say he is not living!”

I remember a moment of extreme frustration whilst trying to help my kids learn to ride bikes - not easy but why was I getting so annoyed? It was pandemic so there weren’t many time constraints on us as a family? But I remember suddenly starting to sing the Lemonheads lovely tune “it’s about time” - I was feeling the pressure of the world and this felt like it should happen quicker - we were putting the hours in so why was I feeling like it was wasted? Of course it wasn’t, but this book covers methods for valuing time - a bit dated in parts, but useful as a reminder that the grains in the sands of time are always there

Một cuốn sách nhỏ, ngắn nhưng chất chứa những tinh túy về cách tận dụng và trân quý thời gian từ đầu thế kỷ 20
https://thuvienthaodien.wordpress.com...

Đây là một trong những cuốn self help hiếm hoi hông làm mình có cảm giác khó chịu, kiểu chuyên đi khuyên người khác phải thế này thế nọ theo một nguyên mẫu mà ông tác giả thấy phù hợp (thường là với mấy ổng thôi). Hay là nhờ bác Nguyễn Hiến Lê chuyển ngữ mượt mà quá, làm mình cảm thấy cuốn sách cũng dễ thương và nhẹ nhàng như sách của bác vậy.

Có lẻ những châm ngôn sống kiểu "Hãy trân trọng thời gian", "Sống như thể hôm này là ngày cuối" ... thì chúng ta đã nghe đến nhàm tai rồi. Ở cái thời đại sách self help xếp đầy cả một thư viện nhỏ, thì ai ai cũng nói được và được nghe những câu truyền cảm hứng vậy. May sao cuốn sách bé bé xinh xinh này thực sự giúp chúng ta có thể tận dụng thời gian như thế nào cho có ích, cho có ý nghĩa với rất nhiều hướng đi khác nhau cho mỗi ngày.

Đối trọng với những câu châm ngôn sống, là những lời than thở bất hủ của chúng ta "Tui bận lắm", "Tui hông có thời gian đâu", ... Kiểu mình thấy giới trẻ bây giờ lúc nào cũng bảo bận, mà toàn "bận" những chuyện gì đâu đâu hông hà, kiểu bận chở bà đi tập tạ với chở ông đi bán bông ... Và với những tips nho nhỏ này, thì chúng ta sẽ biết cách xử lý 24 giờ thế nào cho hiệu quả.

Người ta thường xem nhẹ mấy cuốn nhỏ nhỏ vầy, kiểu chỉ xem chơi cho qua ngày đoạn tháng. Đó là tại tác giả đã phải chắt lọc tinh túy để cuốn sách được ngắn thôi. Chứ nếu muốn viết kiểu tràn giang đại hải từ 30 trang thành 300 trang cũng chẳng gì khó khăn. Đó là lý do với mấy cuốn self help trăm trang hiện nay, mà mình toàn phải đọc lướt, chắt lọc, gạch xóa để chắt lọc lại còn chục trang để học tập thôi đó.

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Sống 24 Giờ Một Ngày - Arnold Bennett (1908)
Sài Gòn, 28/12/2018 ; ®Mỹ
Đánh giá: 7/10 điểm

This was a waste of time. It was grueling to just get through 25 percent of this.