DON'T WASTE ODD MINUTES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 165, 14 April 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

DON'T WASTE ODD MINUTES.

DON'T THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO—DO IT! Don't wa te your odd minutes! Be one of those practical, cheerful people who recognise and seize the little everyday opportunities of life, which are the "pennies" that ccmbine to make the "pounds" of a wise man s fortune. "No time!" is the weakest excuse ever invented for doing nothing. A woman has been known to spend half aJ. hour laying a tea-table for fou " persons—a little task she might have accomplished with ease in four minutes. All the time she was doing it she was talking, telling a friend of hers how terribly busy she always was. how much there was to do and think abcut in her small household, how she "never had a minute to spare for reading or learning anything," and so on.

She. let twenty-six spare minutes vanish for ever during that cne operation. She probably wasted three or four hours every day in the same manner —say twenty-four hours, or a whole day and night, every week—* fifty-tw9 days in each year. TEN YEAKS THROWN AWAY IN A LIFETIME! She actually lost one whole year in every seven —ten years thrown away in a lifetime —and she said she had "no time' to learn anything! Why, she could have become an expert in any art, science, profession or hobby she cared to take up, if she had the capacity to be great in anything. What a lot can be done in the intervals between working and resting. How often do you sit, or stand, thinking about what you have to do instead of doing it, thinking over what you have done instead of giving your brain a rest or starting something fresh Hew often do you find yourself simply staring—at the blotting-paper, at the newspaper or book, which you are not reading, at the man in the train or tram who doesn't interest you in the least, at the rain or fog the window which only puts you /"j a bad temper, at the flies on the ceiling, or the dust in the road, at anything in fact which happens to be in sight at the moment. CONCENTRATE YOUR MIND. When a man does that, some peopeople s.ay, "His wits are wool-gath-ering." That's a mistake. Hypnotising yourself gathers nothing, except a burden of regret for the future. If you are going to think, think ra. tionally. Concentrate your mind on it. There is no harm in watching other people work. It isn't laziness, but part of every sensible man's education to learn just how things are done. Never miss a chance of noticing others U work. See hew they do things. Take hints from the competent quick worker. Learn from the incompetent crawler —how not to win success, to achieve fame, to do the things that are worth doing and gain the prizes that are worth waiting for. It was the thought of an odd minute that gave steam power to tlie modern world. The concentrated mental effort of odd minutets, here and there, may make you healthy, wealthy, and wise.