Think more carefully about what other people’s motives are for their actions and you’ll have an easier time dealing with minor inconveniences.

There is a lot of beauty in the world to notice if you start the habit of pausing.

We think doing nothing is a waste of our time because of the ever-diminishing line between work and leisure.

These are just 3 of the many lessons in this book that have helped me relax more: Most importantly though, you’ll get some valuable tips for beating busyness so you can have more peace. It’s got everything you need to know about why always being connected is bad for you and where the habit came from. That’s why I really loved reading Jenny Odell’s How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. I also enjoy a break from travel, shopping, and all forms of work. It feels amazing to talk less and avoid the internet and devices as much as possible.

Most of all though, I pause everything going on in my life to focus only on what’s most important. I take it as a time to sharpen the saw by reflecting on the previous week and preparing for the week ahead. It is furthermore the cult of individuality and personal branding that grow out of such platforms and affect the way we think about our offline selves and the places where we actually live.Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account*: But the villain here is not necessarily the Internet, or even the idea of social media it is the invasive logic of commercial social media and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction. I am concerned about the effects of current social media on expression-including the right not to express oneself-and its deliberately addictive features. Rather, I am opposed to the way that corporate platforms buy and sell our attention, as well as to designs and uses of technology that enshrine a narrow definition of productivity and ignore the local, the carnal, and the poetic. After all, there are forms of technology-from tools that let us observe the natural world to decentralized, noncommercial social networks-that might situate us more fully in the present.

Jenny odell's how to do nothing