are making three ears of corn grow where one grew before; efficiency engineers

are eliminating useless motions and products from our factories: catch the

spirit of the age and apply efficiency to the use of the most valuable asset you

possess--time. What do you do mentally with the time you spend in dressing or in

shaving? Take some subject and concentrate your energies on it for a week by

utilizing just the spare moments that would otherwise be wasted. You will be

amazed at the result. One passage a day from the Book of Books, one golden ingot

from some master mind, one fully-possessed thought of your own might thus be

added to the treasury of your life. Do not waste your time in ways that profit

you nothing. Fill "the unforgiving minute" with "sixty seconds' worth of

distance run" and on the platform you will be immeasurably the gainer.

 

Let no word of this, however, seem to decry the value of recreation. Nothing is

more vital to a worker than rest--yet nothing is so vitiating to the shirker. Be

sure that your recreation re-creates. A pause in the midst of labors gathers

strength for new effort. The mistake is to pause too long, or to fill your

pauses with ideas that make life flabby.

 

_Choosing a Subject_

 

Subject and materials tremendously influence each other.

 

"This arises from the fact that there are two distinct ways in which a subject

may be chosen: by arbitrary choice, or by development from thought and reading.