Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee

“A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout.”—Arianna Huffington “This book is so important and could truly save lives.”—Elizabeth Gilbert “A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less.”—Adam Grant We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can’t we just take a break? In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost—we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile. Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It’s time to reverse the trend that’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.

Everyone should read this book. There's so much information presented in this book. Information was organized and well presented; it was easy to follow.

Kinda think everyone should read this book! It starts with an eye-opening history of labor and the work week and then makes you have a crisis about work/life balance and capitalism

You don't need a whole book to tell you that overworking yourself can lead to health problems and stress you the f*ck out entirely. Less work and more leisure time would be awesome. Everyone knows that.

Still some good points and some interesting bits on the history of work. 2/5

Once again, the right book has come along at just the right moment. I am personally struggling with work life balance. Shelter in Place gave me, for the first time since I started working at the age of 12 with babysitting jobs, a few uninterrupted days off. I never even really got maternity leave. So, now that I am back to work (40 hours) on site, I'm struggling a bit with some major, major life questions.
Headlee attempts to shed some light on some of these same questions I have been pondering. The first bit, which I loved was a kind of history of work and how the 40 hour work week has come about. Then she dissects the mental and physical effects this is having on us personally and culturally. Finally she gives us some goals to shoot for if (like me) you are over it. There is no one-size-fits-all answer here. It's up to the reader to absorb what she is saying and to use it or not. I'm closing this book with a better understanding of what I have been picking up on-and perhaps lacked to words to name or describe in detail.
It's important to note, and Headlee states it over and over again, that a person's life can be completely changed UP TO A CERTAIN INCOME LEVEL by money, after that money cannot bring happiness. I too lived paycheck to paycheck for many years and the stress over not having enough to pay the bills far outweighed any stress I was sweating about my true purpose in life. This book will not lay out a system of how to reach that level. Headlee credits the sheer luck that one of her TED talks went viral as to why she is still not in that spiral. This is not a how-to book, it is more of a here is why book.