Straight from the book — its first piece of advice, in full:

Low-hanging fruit is easy to reach and can be obtained without great struggle. Abolishing Daylight Savings Time (DST) is this book’s first piece of practical advice for a better world. This fruit is hanging so low that it’s practically in the basket.

From its inception, the claim that DST lessens energy consumption has been easily dismissed. Furthermore, since its debut in World War I, energy usage across the planet has become unrecognizable to what it was in 1916. If DST ever did have a claim to reducing energy consumption, those days are long gone.

Not only is DST not considered a positive for society, it has skipped neutral and become a negative. Twice a year, every timekeeping or time-sensitive process must be adjusted. Minor inconveniences such as resetting several clocks are givens, but there are serious implications also. Medical records must be reconciled, often manually; international communication must be adjusted because not all countries use DST, and those that do enter and exit on different dates; and caregivers across the nation must prepare for a sudden surge of cardiovascular events that will be precipitated by DST’s concomitant stress.

DST is an anachronism that is somewhere between annoying and harmful. The experiment has failed, and its lingering has become clutter. The easiest way to streamline a civilization and demonstrate willingness to make positive changes is to end DST once and for all. At the next changing of the clocks, split the difference, shift them by one-half-hour only, and let that be the end of it.

With several million titles published each year, why bother with this one? Why should you spend your time reading it, and why did I spend mine writing it?

This book is about you, me, and our world—the world we inhabit, love, hate, and wish to improve. The pages of this book are as advertised—practical advice for a better world. Practical advice because the ideas herein are tangible and doable; there are no rants, complaints, or soliloquies. Better world because that’s the goal—to make the world better, for you, me, others, and those who come after us.

I am different from you, as are you from the next person, and that person from all others. Each has individual concerns and a unique vision for a better world. Nevertheless, what follows is universal. I have not outlined my own fantasy world or idealistic notions; rather, this work identifies and corrects society-wide systems that affect us all. Only after such societal infrastructure—as I’ve called it—is appropriately mended can the next phases begin.

Whether we wish to relax on a porch, start a business, feel financially secure, fix the climate, or see human beings on other planets, we currently labor in vain upon an unsteady foundation. That fractured concrete is exactly what this book addresses, rising to the occasion with real, practicable solutions that, once in place, will reveal untold possibilities.

Much of what we—as societies and as individuals—face every day is exceedingly complex, yet so much more doesn’t have to be. The opportunities for efficiency and widespread appeal are nearly overwhelming. Few voices, it seems, have announced these possibilities; regrettably, those that have often ignore or underappreciate the aforementioned faulty foundation that must—indeed must—be addressed to allow for the changes needed before one can confidently relax on the porch, step foot on an alien world, or anything in between.

Blueprints abound. All around us are designs for mansions and townhouses and bungalows and off-the-grid vans and cabins and high-rises and more. Opposing opinions argue nonstop about which is better and for whom, or if a universal floor plan is sufficient. I don’t want to make another blueprint because I see that there is a larger, more fundamental issue at hand. Instead, I want to point out that we need to grade the land and remove the shack currently thereon. Furthermore, I want to tell you how. Let’s take care of that first; then, homes can be built.

With high hopes,

Ben LeBoutillier