How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day (1910) | Hacker News Reader

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day (1910)

gutenberg.org

135 pointskamaal34 comments

An interesting essay from 1910 about making the best use of one's time on earth. Taking from it a single self-referential idea:

"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.

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."

I was confused, the header says "Release Date: August, 2000" but it definitely sounded like 1910 English (also, seemed weird to talk about people living on 1£ a day). Thanks for clearing that up.

Reminds me of the book Ecclesiastes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes

"While Qoheleth clearly endorses wisdom as a means for a well-lived earthly life, he is unable to ascribe eternal meaning to it. In light of this perceived senselessness, he suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life, such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one's work, which are gifts from the hand of God."

Why? That seems to be making a very different point (and not a very valuable one, in my opinion).

Gaining knowledge (or wisdom if you like) can be "vain" if you forget to live ;)

Imho that is a very valuable lesson.

It doesn't say that, though -- he perceives "wisdom" as senselessness and something with no "eternal meaning", in contrast to the simple pleasures of daily life, which (apparently unlike wisdom) have supernatural approval and eternal value.

That's not helpful. True wisdom doesn't ignore physical reality. It doesn't deny basic pleasures; it illuminates them. And it's the only way to find sense in the world -- directly, not just mouthing the words provided by a human authority.

Maybe another way to phrase it a century later, is the purpose of an education is to give you interesting things to think about (as opposed to the purpose of training). Therefore if you choose not to think, you're kinda wasting your time getting educated.

Or if the purpose of literature is to make you think about interesting things, yet you absolutely insist on not thinking, save your time and don't read it.

Discussion from LessWrong a couple of years ago, the first comment is a condensed tl;dr summary:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/37y/how_to_live_on_24_hours_a_day/

I recommend reading the original; the summary doesn't capture its style (and may not capture its substance, for all I know). This is interesting as a piece of rhetoric as well as advice.

At a glance, this is a book about productivity and time management. Any self-respecting productive manager of time would not waste an entire day reading such outdated and overly verbose prose.

TL;DR FTW

[EDIT]

I'm back, I just read the tl;dr version and I'm absolutely pumped! That really hit the spot. Going to listen to some of these film scores: http://songza.com/listen/action-movie-scores-songza/ and do what I thought would take a day in 4 hours.

This is an awesome tldr - Bennett's tone and verbosity where killing me, this way I at least have a clue as to what he was going on about....

I don't think Bennett would approve of the tl;dr's lol.

Not only should you take the time to read it, you should be spending another 45 minutes reflecting.

I translated the Spanish version:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Como-Vivir-Veinticuatro-Horas-melusi...

I have this book on my bookshelf! It's a small volume with very large margins. Seeing it laid out on a single web page made me check if the Gutenberg version really is the whole thing. It is.

IIRC, it's pretty good.

This is one of the best pieces of writing in English I have ever read. While it doesn't completely qualify as a self-help book (it discusses mainly the philosophy of life), it is miles ahead anything available today.

You should sample the work of writers who take pride in the quality of their writing & ideas, not just the latest "100 tips to success in business" book.

So much of the writing we read is written by amateur writers who are professionals in some other realm.

I should probably offer suggestions, which is hard; but try this recent nonfiction essay by novelist & essayist Hilary Mantel:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

Or read the first few pages of The End by Salvatore Scibona (click "look inside the book" on Amazon):

http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Salvatore-Scibona/dp/B0035G02D...

These are both fiction-writers; I'm struggling to think of really high-quality non-fiction writing, but that's just because I haven't read any recently... An example, at least -- Christopher Hitchens covers some of the same territory as Richard Dawkins, but his writing is head & shoulders above.

I liked this a lot, though I disagree with his position on fiction (i.e. "if it's difficult it's not worth reading"). I get his point though.

And speaking of difficult literature, many points in this little book reminded me of David Foster Wallace's awesome commencement speech from some years back, which you can listen to (un-idly!) in two parts, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vET9cvlGJQw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEjVnB7AeBQ

I feel like I'm reading about the time cube and I'm educated stupid.

I help run a leadership conference where there is a significant portion of the time devoted to small group reflection. I find personal reflection greatly rewarding and practice it weekly now, this has made me consider a daily practice. There is something to be said for a led reflection with someone you trust. They will ask the questions that you know you should ask yourself and it really kickstarts the process.

It's interesting to read his opinion on sleep. tldr: most people sleep too much because they don't have enough to do, and most people would be healthier if they slept less.

I'm curious what has changed, I've heard you should sleep as much as your body wants (and to consult a doctor if that's more than 8-9 hours a day). Is it just that people sleep less today and the advice is relative?

Consistently only getting < 6 hours a sleep per night is associated with a higher risk of stroke, IIRC.

The advice is relative to the sleeping habits of the target audience.

The author talks about servants as if they are assumed, and in his example case of an average day, the person gets up at 9am, and goes to sleep by midnight.

That's NINE hours of sleep that he's saying is too much.

TL;DR please

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Live_on_24_Hours_a_Day

cheers, this was also posted - a summary of each chapter http://lesswrong.com/lw/37y/how_to_live_on_24_hours_a_day/

TL;DR: Set aside 90 minutes a day for self improvement. Mostly through knowledge gain, mostly through books.

Still, I recommend skimming the work. There's some good stuff in the chapters. If short of time skip the storytelling at the start.

Thanks, another members posted this, if you've already read the original this might re-inforce the points in plain old english :) http://lesswrong.com/lw/37y/how_to_live_on_24_hours_a_day/

You can get it on your Kindle for free: http://www.amazon.com/How-Live-Hours-Day-ebook/dp/B0084AHN6C...

Interesting that there's no original publication date on public domain works in the Amazon store.

Am I the only one that thinks 90 minutes a day is horribly inadequate? Personally, I aim for something like 8 hours... Is this just because the book was written a hundred years ago and there wasn't that much to learn back then?

How do you have time for anything else?

Eight hours for work, eight hours for reading and learning, eight hours for sleep and commute. I relax on the weekends - sleep a bit more, play some games, go out with friends, etc. I guess I'm just a boring person...

It's only boring if it's boring to you. But if you're spending eight hours on reading without any time spent reflecting on it, it's just words in your head.

"Boring" would be the last thing I'd call it, but you have to admit - it's a pretty short list.

It depends mostly on what I'm reading, if I'm reading a math textbook I usually do more "reflecting" than actual reading, I create small programs like imaginary number calculators, function plotters, etc. that let me play with the thing I'm reading about. With programming books I always try to write something, but make it something different than the examples in the book. Sometimes I wander off to Google and then find out the thing I needed was covered in the next chapter, but you get the idea :)

I usually read fiction only before I go to bed, so when I'm finished reading I have some quiet time. Your brain gets really weird right before you fall asleep, but I guess at least it's something.

Librivox recording (audiobook) here:

http://librivox.org/how-to-live-on-twenty-four-hours-a-day-b...

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