Confession: I don’t really have a problem with disconnecting/ doing nothing/ having vast amounts of unstructured time/ ‘resisting the attention economy’ (hmmm… is that a confession or a boast…?).

Nevertheless, I picked up Jenny Odell’s book, How to Do Nothing, partly because I found her more recent book, Saving Time, interesting.

Odell examines the impact of technologies that allow us to make use of every moment of every day; the fact that our ‘attention’ has been monetized; and how we can ‘refuse’ these impositions. Odell suggests that the most radical thing we can do is nothing.

Nothing is harder to do than nothing. In a world where our value is determined by our productivity, many of us find our every last minute captured, optimized, or appropriated as a financial resource by the technologies we use daily.

Firstly, the book was published in 2019 and some parts are dated –  for example, it’s fair to say that our awareness of how algorithms are used and the all-pervasive impact of organisations such as Google is now more broadly understood (but if you’re not feeling up-to-date, get hold of Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams for a bananas behind-the-scenes account of Facebook).

That aside, I had a couple of issues with How to Do Nothing. Primarily, it reads like an academic text. There are some interesting philosophical and social history inclusions, but you have to really concentrate when you’re reading this stuff – it’s complex and requires your full attention.

It is within a blasted landscape of neoliberal determinism that this book seeks hidden springs of ambiguity and inefficiency. This is a four-course meal in the age of Soylent.

Gosh.

Additionally, there is an element of privilege underpinning the premise. Odell acknowledges that the book refers to western societies, however, it probably doesn’t go quite far enough to emphasise that within western societies, you have to be in a position of privilege in order to make choices about how to spend your time. I’m sure that someone who is working three jobs and still can’t make ends meet, would love the opportunity to ‘slow down’ or ‘disconnect’.

At its core, Odell’s message is one that I’m onboard with – that is, how to make space for the things that can’t be ‘quantified’ (in capitalist/ economic terms) but contribute to our well-being (as a society and on a personal level).

The point of doing nothing, as I define it, isn’t to return to work refreshed and ready to be more productive, but rather to question what we currently perceive as productive. 

For Odell, it’s hanging out in a large public rose garden close to her home and bird-watching, but she delves into various other examples including connecting with strangers and enjoying public spaces, and the importance of art (in all its forms – Odell used lots of examples, including this). As I said at the beginning, I have no problem doing stuff that isn’t quantifiable (and I spend a lot of time on such activities), but ‘doing nothing’ is a luxury.

Lastly, the title (and the opening chapter) imply that there will be some top tips on how to do nothing (or rather, resist the ‘attention economy’). There aren’t, but I did like the truth in this –

What is needed, then, is not a ‘once-and-for-all’ type of quitting but ongoing training: the ability not just to withdraw attention, but to invest it somewhere else, to enlarge and proliferate it, to improve its acuity.

Overall, I found the ideas in this book a little too abstract and out-of-reach, and the writing hard work. Instead of ploughing through this text, I suggest you use the time to look at the trees. Or a rose garden. Or the sunset.

2/5