How To Do Nothing

How To Do Nothing makes you more productive and helps you have more peace by identifying the problems with our current 24/7 work culture, where it came from, and how pausing to reflect helps you overcome it.

In the late 1800s, workers in America wanted 8-hour workdays. In the words of a popular trade union song they desired “eight hours of work, eight hours of rest, and eight hours of what we will.”

Essentially, they needed time outside of work to do nothing. In the 20th century, their effort paid off and the 8-hour workday became the norm.

It seemed like all was well until recent events have confused us all as to the real difference between work and leisure.

People used to consider economic risk as something that only businesses needed to worry about. Society got used to the idea that if you got a job and worked hard, they’d take care of you. But these days the typical job isn’t so secure anymore.

That’s because labor movements that protected workers’ rights lost power in the 1980s. Now, you have to take your financial freedom into your own hands.

Combine this with the beginning of the information age and you get people competing against one another for gigs. Freelancing is on the rise as a popular way to gain the financial security that a job no longer can.But the problem is, we’ve been conditioned to believe that the best way to thrive in this economy is to never stop working. It’s easy to see why we think that doing nothing is so terrible!

Imagine this. The sun is about to set over the Pacific ocean. A greeter checks you in and directs you to sit in a folding chair as he reminds you not to take pictures. You sit in silence with the other guests, watch the sunset, clap, then enjoy refreshments together. Sounds a little weird, right? Well, this is a new form of art by Scott Polach called Applause Encouraged. It perfectly summarizes what it means to do nothing. This innovative art also lets us see how important noticing the world around us is. Rather than creating beautiful scenes for people to enjoy, Polach’s work simply directs attention to it. The author calls this attention-holding architecture. It’s anything that encourages being present and contemplating that our busy lives usually prevent. I got to experience the power of this myself one afternoon while dealing with some anxiety during college. A friend’s mom, upon seeing how worked up I was, directed me to go into their backyard and just sit. She told me to consider the details of everything I could see and just be curious about it all.…