I first heard of the 24 hour technique about 3 decades ago. In an issue of the now defunct Frets magazine Dan Crary suggested it but didn't claim to know why it works. I tried it then and have been using it ever since. I wouldn't say that, for me, strings last 3X longer as Mark suggests but it takes them a lot longer to go dead if you give them 24 hours before playing.
Zepp Country music, mostly a banjo dealer, demonstrates a good way to restring banjos on his website which also works well on guitars at the tuning heads.