Chap­ter V rais­es a sharp ques­tion that most peo­ple avoid ask­ing: how much of our day is actu­al­ly used with inten­tion? It begins by draw­ing atten­tion to our morn­ing rou­tines, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the com­mute. Many indi­vid­u­als fill this time with news­pa­pers, not nec­es­sar­i­ly for insight, but out of habit. These moments pass quick­ly, often for­got­ten as soon as they occur. The author chal­lenges the val­ue of this rit­u­al, point­ing out that rushed news diges­tion offers lit­tle depth or last­ing under­stand­ing. There’s no call to aban­don the news altogether—just a shift in where and when it’s con­sumed. Instead of spend­ing prime men­tal ener­gy on shal­low read­ing, morn­ings could be a gold­en win­dow for self-reflec­tion or men­tal cul­ti­va­tion. A qui­et train ride or bus jour­ney can become an unin­ter­rupt­ed stretch of time to think clear­ly or process deep­er ideas.

The cri­tique of news­pa­per read­ing isn’t about elit­ism; it’s about oppor­tu­ni­ty cost. Time spent glanc­ing at head­lines might be bet­ter used pon­der­ing a per­son­al goal, lis­ten­ing to thought­ful audio con­tent, or plan­ning the day with clar­i­ty. The mind, fresh from rest, is capa­ble of focused think­ing before the work­day begins. This hour is not trivial—it’s a hid­den asset, often wast­ed. The author sug­gests that news­pa­pers be read lat­er, in brief snip­pets that don’t eat into pro­duc­tive stretch­es. It’s not an attack on stay­ing informed—it’s a reminder that infor­ma­tion isn’t always the same as wis­dom. Shift­ing read­ing to moments of less cog­ni­tive demand opens up the morn­ing for true engage­ment with thought. When we adjust where our focus goes, the rewards unfold through­out the day.

After work, many peo­ple enter a mode of men­tal drift. The evening, instead of being pur­pose­ful, becomes a blur of unstruc­tured activ­i­ty. Whether it’s chat­ting idly, flip­ping through chan­nels, or shuf­fling through social feeds, time escapes unno­ticed. The author acknowl­edges the real­i­ty of fatigue but insists it isn’t a wall we must accept with­out ques­tion. Fatigue, he argues, can often be over­come by engag­ing the mind rather than let­ting it sag. Men­tal ener­gy, like phys­i­cal ener­gy, can respond pos­i­tive­ly to stim­u­la­tion. Pas­sive rest doesn’t always refresh; often, a shift in activ­i­ty is more revi­tal­iz­ing than sim­ply doing noth­ing. And that’s where the evening holds promise.

The chap­ter chal­lenges read­ers to carve out just nine­ty min­utes every oth­er evening for delib­er­ate men­tal engage­ment. Not the kind of work we asso­ciate with pres­sure or dead­lines, but activ­i­ties that wake up curios­i­ty and invite inner growth. This doesn’t mean quit­ting relax­ation altogether—it’s about find­ing bal­ance. The author pro­pos­es a sim­ple struc­ture: com­mit to one or two evenings a week. Set a time, stick to it, and treat it as a per­son­al appoint­ment. The rewards, though grad­ual, are cumu­la­tive. One finds that time slows a lit­tle dur­ing these focused ses­sions. What once felt like a long day end­ing in exhaus­tion now feels like a full day fol­lowed by progress.

A par­tic­u­lar­ly insight­ful point the author makes is about dinner—how this sin­gle dai­ly rit­u­al often splits the evening, cre­at­ing a sense that there isn’t enough time to com­mit to any­thing mean­ing­ful. But by adjust­ing when and how din­ner is placed with­in the evening, one can recov­er a sur­pris­ing­ly usable block of time. If an unin­ter­rupt­ed hour and a half can be estab­lished, it opens the door to activ­i­ties that fos­ter iden­ti­ty and pur­pose. Whether it’s learn­ing a lan­guage, revis­it­ing a long-aban­doned hob­by, or even jour­nal­ing, the impact is real. These aren’t hob­bies for the sake of keep­ing busy—they are forms of men­tal exer­cise. In choos­ing how to spend this time, indi­vid­u­als shape who they are becom­ing.

It’s also impor­tant to real­ize that this pro­pos­al doesn’t add strain—it removes it. The stress that often lingers at day’s end isn’t always phys­i­cal; it can come from feel­ing unac­com­plished or unful­filled. A men­tal­ly stim­u­lat­ing evening, even just twice a week, recharges more than hours spent scrolling or pas­sive­ly watch­ing. Over time, this small act of reclaim­ing the evening has rip­ple effects. Sleep becomes more rest­ful, mood improves, and the next day is approached with more con­fi­dence. Even pro­duc­tiv­i­ty at work can improve when the brain is trained to han­dle thought with clar­i­ty and pur­pose.

What’s strik­ing about this chap­ter is its refusal to accept mod­ern rou­tines as fixed. It invites read­ers to take own­er­ship of their time—not in a rigid, joy­less way, but with a sense of empow­er­ment. It doesn’t demand the removal of plea­sure or rest but calls for an ele­va­tion of how we define them. The author sug­gests that ful­fill­ment comes not from mind­less leisure, but from delib­er­ate action. When time is used to build, learn, or reflect, it feeds the soul in a way enter­tain­ment alone can­not. And sur­pris­ing­ly, once this shift begins, the appeal of wast­ed time begins to fade. It’s replaced with some­thing rich­er: sat­is­fac­tion.

Ulti­mate­ly, Chap­ter V offers a prac­ti­cal and pro­found message—our lives are shaped in the small, often unno­ticed hours. The way we use those hours mat­ters. They are ours to com­mand, not sim­ply to endure. Rework­ing how we approach morn­ings and evenings may not seem rev­o­lu­tion­ary, but it can qui­et­ly trans­form every­thing else. Not because time itself changes, but because we do. This chap­ter calls on us to see dai­ly hours not as bur­dens to escape, but as tools to shape the life we want to lead.