I used to be a giant creep. I knew I had no social skills, tried to develop some, and it backfired more often than not. For example, I knew I was clingy and unable to tell if people wanted to get rid of me. So I reasoned that I should just hover around people I wanted to talk to and make it unclear whether I was there because of them or by coincidence, so they would feel free to talk to me or not as they wished.
What helped was Internet articles like those linked above. Those actually explain what behaviors are desirable and undesirable, and basics of reading people.
I still don’t know the difference between “You should go away” and “Should I go away?”—verbal expressions of these are identical. “I’m leaving, bye” and “I’m leaving, wanna come along?” are also hard to distinguish.
It’s way too rambly, so I wrote a condensed version; I tried not to change the content except to make it a bit more gender-neutral. If you enjoy his style, read the full version; if you thought “stop showing off and get to the damn point already”, this is for you. It’s a little over 1000 words.
Corrections for things I’ve misunderstood, failed to express, or been unfair to are most welcome.
How to live on 24 hours a day, by Arnold Bennett Condensed by MixedNuts
Preface
Please read this preface at the end, though it’s at the beginning.
Many people have written long reviews of this book, mostly positive. Main criticisms:
tone. It’s a feature.
I said people are lukewarm about their jobs. I concede some are passionate. They’re rare, but sorry. Advice to them: If you’re too tired after work, do what I recommend before working. Get up earlier. Go to bed earlier, or get less sleep; a doctor said adults sleep too much.
I
There’s literature on how to manage with little money, not with little time. But “time is money”, and even scarcer: you can get more money. No matter how short time is, you can never get any more, so forget “When I have more time” and learn to use it.
II
Have enough time already? Congrats; stop reading. For the rest of us:
You probably feel a constant desire to do better. As you suspect, it will never be fulfilled. You should still strive. Want to go to Mecca? Even if you never reach it, it’s better to be journeying than to stay home with a desire you don’t act on. Most of us haven’t done anything about this; our excuse is lack of time.
What we want is to do more than we have to. We have to provide for ourselves and our families; this is hard. Yet when we succeed, and even when we fail, we still crave more.
One way we get more is by reading; fine, but neither sufficient nor necessary.
III
So, we need to manage time better. This is extremely hard. You will never be done; you will sacrifice a lot; you will get discouragingly tiny results. Not so depressing; overcoming is what you want, what makes you human.
When you decide you should begin, just begin; no particular trick to it. No matter how much past time you’ve wasted, future time is unspoilt; just start not-wasting it now.
Don’t try for perfection; if you push yourself too hard, you will break down. Start so small and with so much safety margin you’re sure not to fail; you might not recover from an early failure.
Your day is not full. You spend seven hours working, seven hours sleeping, and I’ll give you another two hours. This leaves eight hours a day. You under-use these.
IV
Case study: a male Londoner. He works from 10 AM to 6 PM, and commute is 50 minutes.
He wants to get work over with; he makes it as short as he can, and doesn’t work at full power. Yet to him work hours are “the day”—he forgets to count the other sixteen.
This is completely backwards! He should regard these hours as a sixteen-hour day, which he can use for himself as he has no job. He will not be tired at work because of this; minds don’t tire, they only need change and sleep.
He wastes very little time between getting up and leaving the house. But as he walks to the station and waits for the train, he is idle.
V
He reads a newspaper in the train. Don’t: a thirty-minute chunk of silence and solitude is precious. Newspapers should be read quickly in moments that would otherwise be wasted.
I’ll skip his work hours. Note that he has a lunch hour he might waste.
After work, he tells himself and his wife he’s tired. He sits for an hour, eats, smokes, sees friends, reads, goes for a walk, plays the piano, drinks—but all of this idly, letting his mind wander. He goes to bed at midnight, having wasted six hours.
You’re not tired after work. You can and do push yourself for particular events. Every other weekday evening, spend an hour and a half doing something important. You’ll soon want more. Make that a priority; take the social cost.
VI
If you are young and energetic, push yourself full time. But on average, six days a week of striving are enough. If you want more, sure, but going back is okay.
30 minutes, six mornings a week, and 90 minutes, three evenings a week are seven and a half hours per week. This seems little, but will add zest to your whole life. It’s not as easy as it sounds; habit change is always hard.
Remember, start small. Allocate much more time than 90 minutes to leave yourself margin.
VII
Practice focusing. When you leave the house, concentrate on a subject, any subject. Your mind will wander; bring it back on topic. Do this for at least half an hour a day.
Since you’re concentrating, you might as well think about something interesting; I suggest Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus.
VIII
Use your ability to focus for reflection. Luminosity makes you happy.
Think before you act. E.g., if your food is over-cooked, you might get angry at the waiter; think, realize this won’t help, and be polite to them instead.
Books may help—I recommend Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Pascal, La Bruyere, and Emerson. They can’t replace reflection.
Reflect during your evening commute. People tend to be in the right mood at that time.
IX
If you like art at all, learn about it, e.g. musical theory. You will enjoy art at a deeper level. See Krehbiel’s How to Listen to Music, Clermont Witt’s How to Look at Pictures, Russell Sturgis How to Judge Architecture.
X
Think about the history of things. Stolen watch? Think about the genetics and environments that made the thief. Watching the sea? Think about geology. This gives weight to everything.
XI
(Good) novels are easy to read, thus don’t count as serious reading. Poetry and philosophy do.
If you dislike poetry, read Hazlitt’s essay on the nature of poetry, and E.B. Browning’s Aurora Leigh.
Read slowly, take time to think.
XII
Don’t get smug. Keep your sense of humor. Don’t resent the unimpressed.
Optimize your time, not others’.
Find out how strictly you should stick to your programme. This is hard.
Don’t rush. If you find yourself constantly afraid of being late for what you have to do next, stop and revise your programme, or deliberately waste five minutes between two activities.
Again, start small. Deliver no matter what—success feeds on success.
Let your tastes choose what you’ll cultivate.