How to Live on 24 Hours a Day
Mar. 24th, 2006 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahmichiganIt's been slow at work, and I've been using the down-time to read more on-line. I've found some sites, including "Project Gutenburg" where you can read entire books (mostly older books with expired copyrights) for free. I started by reading "Heart of Darkness" on-line over two days between little spurts of working.
Today, I'm reading what might be one of the earliest time management books ever published, "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day" by Arnold Bennett. He starts with the premise that most of us feel that we barely have enough time to take care of business as usual, but that most of us feel we'd like more time to accomplish something beyond the routine of life. He reminds his readers of the obvious fact that we're never going to "have more time" sometime in the future, so we need to make the most of the 24 hours each day we're all given.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2274
Despite some of the information being *very* British and quite out-dated, a lot of the advice is sound. Here's a passage I particularly like:
"Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.
"A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence. But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure. Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much. Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure. I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success. 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."
Today, I'm reading what might be one of the earliest time management books ever published, "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day" by Arnold Bennett. He starts with the premise that most of us feel that we barely have enough time to take care of business as usual, but that most of us feel we'd like more time to accomplish something beyond the routine of life. He reminds his readers of the obvious fact that we're never going to "have more time" sometime in the future, so we need to make the most of the 24 hours each day we're all given.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2274
Despite some of the information being *very* British and quite out-dated, a lot of the advice is sound. Here's a passage I particularly like:
"Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.
"A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence. But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure. Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much. Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure. I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success. 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."
