In the book Bennett addressed the large and growing number of white-collar workers that had accumulated since the advent of the In­dustrial Revolution. In his view these workers put in eight hours a day 40 hours a week at jobs they did not enjoy and at worst hated. They worked to make a living but their daily existence consisted of waking up getting ready for work working as little as possible during the work day going home unwinding going to sleep and repeating the pro­cess the next day. In short he did not believe they were really living.

Bennett addressed this problem by urging these "salarymen" to seize their extra time and make the most of it to improve themselves. Extra time could be found at the beginning of the day by waking up ear­ly and on the ride to work on the way home from work in the evening hours and especially during the weekends. During this time he presc­ribed improvement measures such as reading great literature taking an interest in the arts reflecting on life and learning self-discipline.

Bennett wrote that time is the most precious of commodities. He said that many books have been written on how to live on a certain amount of money each day. And he added that the old adage "time is money" understates the matter as time can often produce money but money cannot produce more time. Time is extremely limited and Ben­nett urged others to make the best of the time remaining in their lives.