Productivity gurus through time: a match-up

The most-read non-fiction book in America, measured by views on Kindle and listens on Audible, an audio-book service, is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Published in 2018, it has now been on the bestseller list for 277 weeks. Mr Clear’s book, which pulls off the impressive trick of being both ludicrous and helpful, argues that small changes of routine can compound into big improvements, whether your goal is to be more productive at work, to eat more healthily or to develop new skills.A manual on time management and self-improvement might sound modern. But these were also the themes of a bestseller from the early years of the 20th century. “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day”, first published in 1908, is a short self-help book written by Arnold Bennett, a prolific English writer. Bennett’s book was meant to salve the “feeling that you are every day leaving undone something which you would like to do, and which, indeed, you are always hoping to do when you have ‘more time’”. He wrote, in other words, for the same aspirational market as Mr Clear does today. (Another of today’s productivity Yodas, Cal Newport, cites Bennett in “Deep Work”, a book on how to focus.)