How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

“You say your day is already full to overflowing. How? You actually spend in earning your livelihood - how much? Seven hours, on the average? And in actual sleep, seven? I will add two hours, and be generous. And I will defy you to account to me on the spur of the moment for the other eight hours.”

Guilty as charged.

What this is

This essay/booklet of ~35 pages was first published in the UK in 1908 (two years later in the US). It was aimed at Edwardian men who commuted by train to work in an office, weren’t burdened by many domestic chores when they got home, and wanted to improve themselves and thus be happier. It’s an early example of the self-help genre that mixes the highbrow (Marcus Aurelius, Pascal, and Tchaikovsky) with dry show more humour and lots of metaphors (a skeleton at a feast, a pilgrimage to Mecca, playing scales on a piano).

Time, not money, is what matters

The core idea is that, as individuals, we focus on budgeting money, but not time, although the latter is more precious.
“If you have time you can obtain money - usually. But… you cannot buy yourself a minute more time than I have.”
Yes… and no. It’s true that people can steal our money but not our daily quota of time. But they can certainly waste our time (though I often manage, unaided), and although we can’t acquire more than 24 hours per day, we can try to increase our lifetime total by healthy living.

Perhaps a better point is that we tend to think of our work hours as “the day”, and so don’t fully value or plan the remainder. Bennett advocates consciously making space in our days to cultivate the mind. Allocating regular time slots isn’t for me, but just being more deliberate and appreciative is a good aim.

Image: Cartoon “time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time” Hmmm… (Source)

Read, but not novels!

“You need not be devoted to the arts, not to literature, in order to live fully.”
I love literary fiction, and I like to think it improves my mind, understanding, and empathy (though enjoyment is my primary motive). However, Bennett is right to say that “literature is not the only well” to slake one's thirst for self-improvement. Learning about other subjects, especially the arts, increases our enjoyment of them.

But I part ways here:
“Good novels never demand any appreciable mental application on the part of the reader.”
I suppose the fiction of the time tended to be more straightforward, but even so…

More positively, he stresses the importance of thinking about what one reads, and after more than a dozen years writing reviews on GR, I know the benefits of doing so.

Sleep less?!

Bennett thinks most people sleep too much, out of a mixture of habit and lack of anything else to do.
“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.”
He quotes a GP (family doctor) who said “Most people sleep themselves stupid” and suggests going to bed later or rising earlier, to gain an extra hour or two of useful time a day. He assumes seven hours a night (in another chapter), but everything I’ve read lately is about the dangers of too little sleep.

Congruence

Bennett asserts that one’s principles need to align with how one lives, which is why there can be joy in martyrdom. He then extrapolates from the odd premise of sorrowful burglars:
“What leads to the permanent sorrowfulness of burglars is that their principles are contrary to burglary. If they genuinely believed in the moral excellence of burglary, penal servitude would simply mean so many happy years for them.”

Is it still relevant?

I’m not an Edwardian or a man, and before the Covid pandemic forced me to work from home 13 months ago (and counting), I drove myself to and from the office. Nevertheless, I’m a fan of Bennett’s fiction, he writes this in an engaging way, and the general ideas are still valid.

“When you leave your house, concentrate your mind on a subject.” Just one.
“Mind control is the first element of a full existence.” (One’s own mind.)
It’s non-spiritual, and the urge to live in the moment in order to have a meaningful life, rather than merely exist, echoes contemporary mindfulness.

Image: Cartoon: Charlie Brown says, “We only live once, Snoopy”. Snoopy replies, “Wrong! We only die once. We live every day!” (Source)

It’s also pragmatic: setting small targets and allowing for slippage, especially at first. He explicitly warns against believing it can all be fixed by writing an ambitios and detailed timetable.
“I am all for the petty success. A glorious failure leads to nothing; a petty success may lead to a success that is not petty."

Quotes

• “Philosophers have explained space. They have not explained time. It is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle… 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!”

• After the evening meal, “you see friends; you potter; you play cards; you flirt with a book; you note that old age is creeping on; you take a stroll; you caress the piano.... By Jove! a quarter past eleven. You then devote quite forty minutes to thinking about going to bed.”

• “The most important of all perceptions is the continual perception of cause and effect… while it lessens the painfulness of life, adds to life's picturesqueness.”

Further reading

• This essay is long out of copyright and is available free, on Gutenberg in various digital formats, HERE.

• I also recommend Bennett’s fiction, which is always a delight, and is also available free on Gutenberg, HERE. Some novels are humorous while others are more serious, but all those I’ve read have been very enjoyable. I’ve reviewed seven on GR, HERE.

• For an old-fashioned approach to using time efficiently, but aimed at women, see Kay Smallshaw's How To Run Your Home Without Help, which I reviewed HERE.

• For a rather different and contemporary take on knowing yourself and organising your life and mind, see Mark Hebwood’s Happiness Rules, which I reviewed HERE.

Bonus humour

If work isn’t the purpose of life, what is one’s life’s work? Mitchell and Webb tackled this in a short sketch, “Our Life’s Work”, which you can listen to, HERE. It’s funny, but uncomfortably relatable. Bennett’s essay steers us along a better bath, allocating time to what we care about. show less

I am not normally drawn to philosophy, which seems to me, like religion, to get caught up in eddies of meaningless dispute. Nor am I drawn to self-help, which seems to be one or two good sentences surrounded by a tremendous amount of padding. Sometimes, not even one good sentence. Anyway, I had gotten the idea that this was funny (I don't know where I came by that idea), so that's why I started it. "It'll make a nice little palate cleanser," I thought.

Ha! This is brilliant stuff. Okay, Bennett was clearly a product of his time, and he's writing rather pointedly to a white, middle-class adult male, working in the City. The premise is straightforward: sure, you probably hate your job, but that's only 40 hours out of your week. If you show more really wanted to, you could devote some serious time to thinking. About anything really. Books are good (Bennett likes poetry and essays, but considers novels to be to easy if they're written well). But there's also music, and history, and the natural sciences. They're all good, too.

In 1912 college education was still pretty restricted. Public schools, lecture series, libraries, the mass publishing of books were among some of the many ways intended to improve the common people. Bennett isn't particular, he doesn't care what people devote themselves to as long as it is an intellectual hobby. He doesn't care much for your body, although you're welcome to give it some exercise now and then. Crafts won't do, you understand. He doesn't want you to take up playing an instrument, we wants you to take up music appreciation.

Really, Bennett wants you to blog. He wants you to develop a narrow fascination with something specific, learn everything about it that you can, and devote time to really thinking about it; there's no better thinking that, as he mentions, preparing to write on a topic. From this effort, Bennett assures you, will derive numerous benefits in life enjoyment and a decrease in boredom. So, get to work blogging or reviewing: it'll make you a better man.*

Seriously, I do think it would be a good idea to make this required reading in high school, followed by in depth discussion. For most people, whatever satisfaction they derive from work, it isn't the main focus of happiness. For most of us it is the time spent gardening, or reading, or solving sudoku, or building trains, or directing community theater, or blogging about hideous cakes; that is what *really* satisfies us. Growing up, we are constantly asked what kind of job do we want to have, but "bureaucrat", though necessary, isn't defining. Maybe we should be clearer on that.


* Woman doesn't enter into it. Women are presumably too busy taking care of all the other stuff that needs to happen in order for the men to be free to pursue intellectualism. show less

I enjoy reading books written 100 years ago. The writing style is delightfully different, and it is intriguing how words have changed. Not to mention attitudes. Nowadays, a book with this title would tell us how easy it is, and cheer us on - "you can do it." Not this book. It was written when cheerleading was not the self-help style.

After bantering the reader for a while, he gets around to some suggestions. For those who don't like his suggestions, he has other suggestions. In any case, mind control is the key to happiness. He advocates spending half of the evenings of the week in developing the mind. He gives some suggestions on how to train the mind. Even if you like literature don't just read. There needs to be thinking involved. show more And if you enjoy reading, it should not just be novels. To him, poetry is "the highest form of literature." It might take a while before I want to read poetry. Alas, my education did not cultivate that interest.

“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.” (How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett, Page 4 of 25)
(I have another edition that is 113 pages long)

The Kindle edition is quite inexpensive. Being published over 100 years ago, a free edition is probably available.

CONTENTS (Of the 24 page edition)
PREFACE
I THE DAILY MIRACLE
II THE DESIRE TO EXCEED ONE'S PROGRAMME
III PRECAUTIONS BEFORE BEGINNING
IV THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE
V TENNIS AND THE IMMORTAL SOUL
VI REMEMBER HUMAN NATURE
VII CONTROLLING THE MIND
VIII THE REFLECTIVE MOOD
IX INTEREST IN THE ARTS
X NOTHING IN LIFE IS HUMDRUM
XI SERIOUS READING
XII DANGERS TO AVOID show less

This is a beautiful little book.

It's pithy, blunt and eminently practical.

The lessons in the book are extremely valuable today. I will buy the print version as soon as possible

Refreshing way of looking at the 'normal life' (the rat race), packed with memorable quotes, and a delightful audiobook-companion while planting a fig tree.

Heard about this book from the Backlisted podcast, so I figured it would be a good idea to start the new year with a short and sweet self-help book. The examples are dated since this book is over 100 years old, but the advice is still (mostly) true and applicable. I at least feel motivated to stop wasting so much time.

This is a fantastic book that really hit home for me. We all have only 24 hours everyday, yet, no mater how we spend the preceding 24 hours we get 24 more the very next day! Perhaps we should learn how to live on those 24 hours and not waste so much of them.

It is a book full of common sense that may have been more common in the author's day than it is now. It is so short you have no excuse for not reading it.

The chapters:

The Daily Miracle: the gift of 24 hours.

The Desire To Exceed One's Programme: Cautions against setting up an unrealistic schedule that eventually burns you out and encourages you to live less than to the fullest.

Precautions Before Beginning: There is no magic cure, jump in!

The Cause of the Troubles: Your day is actually show more two days and you are wasting one of them.

Tennis and the Immortal Soul: You are not actually tired at the end of the workday, you just tell yourself that, stop it.

Controlling the Mind: Give yourself to learning how to concentrate.

The Reflective Mood: Know Thyself.

Interest in the Arts: You CAN be well rounded and like it!

Nothing in Life is Humdrum: Study your environment and delight in it.

Serious Reading: (my favorite chapter!) think about reading, don't just take to it and satisfy in only the volume.

Dangers to Avoid: Don't be a prig and, be flexible. show less