Pretty good

James' thoughts are wise, and he has a great voice, but this didn't quite set my world on fire. Every time he started telling a lengthy story (i.e. tough mudder, Oscars) I groaned inwardly. With judicious skipping this is a pretty good listen.

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A Guide To Happiness

Following on from James's earlier work, the excellent 'Stuffocation', Time & How to Spend It goes far further than the title suggests. Beautifully written, this work weaves stories with theory & scientific findings to show the best experiences for a happy, fulfilled life. Entertaining, thought provoking and life changing in equal measure. Read this book, take on board the principals & changes suggested and live a life worth living. A++

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Brilliant and potentially life changing

I'd read Stuffocation a while ago and this is the natural progression. Once you've become less consumerist and thrown away all your stuff, what do you then? Create stories, of course.

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1 person found this helpful

Time well spent

This book is time well spent. James is knowledgeable and engaging and makes complicated ideas easily digestible. His book will help you think differently about how you spend your time, today and in the future. Ultimately it’s a book that will make you think and smile - both are good things. Enjoy!

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Amazing

Highly recommend this book.

Both informative and entertaining.

Deals with a wide range of subjects .

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Great book - just the start of time spent well

I bought this book after enjoying Wallman’s first book, Stuffocation. If you’re looking for an enjoyable way to spend your time this is a great start... which won’t end when you put the book down.

This book is a timely guide for the modern age of how to avoid empty fast food type experiences, eg endless scrolling on social media and slumping in front of box sets, which are ultimately detrimental to your long term quality of life. Instead, it offers a guide to live your life in a way that will improve your experiences, relationships and ultimately the happiness of you and the people in your life.

I listened to the audiobook, with Wallman’s cool East London accent, it would be easy to dismiss him as the Shaman of Shoreditch, but that would be a mistake. Wallman has aggregated the scientific findings of the brightest psychologists, anthropologists and economists from the world’s best universities and distilled it into an entertaining and consumable format.

I then bought the physical book because there is gold in these pages that I wanted to study.

Wallman is fast becoming best in class at outlining the pitfalls of modern society and setting a framework for a happier, healthier and more fulfilling life.

If you want to improve your quality of life and relationships, for around the price of your Netflix subscription, I’d advise you invest in this book... then tell your friends about it!

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2 people found this helpful

Fascinating and life changing.

So many interesting ideas. Especially that we should have XQ (experience quotient) as well.as IQ and EQ - because we all need to be better at having experiences - it's not something we're taught. Really enjoyed this thought-provoking book.

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Time well spent.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Find out for yourself and make the most of your time!

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An interesting concept ruined by needless waffling

I'm 2 hours in and the author had said nothing of substance relating to what the book is supposedly about (using your time in a more satisfying way).

He's currently waffling on about how humans have evolved to tell stories and oddly drawn from some (unlisted) studies stats that suggest people who tell depressing stories are more sad, and those who tell happy stories are happier. From here he makes a leap to 'therefore, if you tell happier stories you will live a happier life'.

Hold on - isn't it more likely if you're already happy you'll tell happier stories? And if you're already depressed your stories will reflect that?The author has made similar leaps elsewhere.

The book started off promising and there may yet be useful information in here, but you would think 2 hours into a 10 hour book would have had something useful by now. Far too much padding. No idea why the stories of Star Wars, Harry Potter and The Wizard of Oz have been mentioned. Get to the point!

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9 people found this helpful

Utter Nonsense. “Wish It. Want It. Do It.”

I’ve never reviewed an audio book before I’ve finished it. But for this one I feel compelled to act as soon as possible in order to give others an opportunity to avoid wasting either money, credit...or time...on this total crap.

This book starts, and continues interminably with an endless, aimless, meaningless stream of filler, low-brow, random drivel of unrelated anecdotes, unrelated historical events, asking unrelated rhetorical questions and espousing self-conscious, irrelevant flowery descriptions of ‘human experiences’. Colours, sounds and shapes.

As you read or listen to this, you have the growing feeling that you’re listening to a 13-year-old reading paragraphs randomly chosen from the Encyclopaedia, or an insecure undergraduate student recounting everything they can think of to try to show they’re clever but ending up sounding confused and vulnerable.

It’s made worse by vague claims to ‘scientific proof’, name dropping academics from serious academic institutions. It’s further worsened by repeated, deeply cringeworthy ‘right-on’, ‘down with the kids’ references: like randomly mentioning dance music tracks or going on Twitter or that the author’s point is like The Matrix movie (yep...).

Every now and the author starts randomly listing things. ‘Here’s 5 ways to be a hero...’. This occurs a lot and the lists are useless and instantly forgettable, despite often being very painfully repeated over and over again.

The book is utter, utter nonsense. It distils down to something like ‘good experiences lead to happiness, happiness leads to success’. It’s the equivalent of the first chapter of Brian the dog’s book in Family Guy: ‘Wish It. Want It. Do It.’ The pages could be blank, to be filled out by the reader with whatever they want.

There is not even a hint of irony in the narrative of this book that the reading of it is an absolutely monumental waste of the reader’s time.

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15 people found this helpful