How to Do Nothing

I’m frantically trying to finish How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell before my digital library loan expires in two days. It’s this month’s book club pick. Unfortunately, while I’m a glutton for leadership, mindfulness, and inspirational non-fiction, I can’t help falling asleep every time I pick this one up.

My 12 year old observed: “Mama, this really doesn’t seem the right book for you. You’re not a person who can do nothing,”

“Mama, stop listening to this book, you’re going to fall asleep and make us crash!” added my more opinionated 9 year old from the back seat of the car.

As we drove back from our last blissful mini summer getaway, the girls were getting sick of me ranting about the book I had to read. I moaned about how I didn’t care for the history of communes or the vast works of Henry David Thoreau or any stories about Diogenes. I was getting angry reading / listening to a book tracing the history of How to Do Nothing.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a vague longing and feel a sense that I should do more nothing. I speak and teach about the balance of being versus doing— that many of us corporate workers and Silicon Valley technologists are overwhelmingly focused on getting shit done, moving on to the next milestone, goal, product launch, or promotion… whatever it is that needs to happen next. Existing in this state of doing can keep us in go-go-go mode with the accompanying state of anxiety and stress. Yet it’s also an implicit expectation of the way we should be in the world. We are expected to study, take tests, get good grades, to do well in school so that we can get to better schools, which will get us a job, and then lead to better jobs. It’s all a state of doing things, and once which I’m very good at. And simultaneously, it felt that I was terrible at doing nothing.

Type A Traveling

When I was 25, my then-boyfriend and I took 7 months off from our jobs to embark on a round-the-world trip. While you’d think that we had all the time in the world to leisurely soak up the environment of each city or country, this wasn’t the case. I traveled with a philosophy of scarcity — there is so much world to see and I have so little time to see it all, so let’s go as fast as possible. In my type A traveling, we hit 7 countries in the first 2 months. We rarely spent more than one night in any destination. I needed to hit it all! Eventually we encountered a forced slowdown — my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in the middle of the trip and I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with her in Bangkok. The tail end of our trip in Asia was small jumps to neighboring countries before returning to Thailand, then a glorious 2 months through much of China. But the pace was much the same. The only time we spent 3 nights in a single location other than Bangkok was when we were both delirious with fevers and ear infections in Guilin.

Eventually we had young kids and I stubbornly refused to slow down, continuing world adventures with them in tow. My concession to naptimes and kids that didn’t have the stamina to explore a new city from 9am to 9pm was staying for 3 nights in each destination. There’s so much world to see!

My kids and I went to Japan last year — a short 8-day trip squeezed into spring break week. I’d been there many times, so was finally able to truly slow down and let the kids set the pace. We skipped most of the temples (though I snuck in a couple on my own as they rested) and must-see tourist destinations instead spending hours in various kawaii animal cafes, people-watching in Harajuku, and eating our way through all the foods we could find. We even spent a day in Nara Park lounging on the grass with the deer, happily reading and drawing— doing nothing, if you will.

Travel with Covid

Now we are in the 6th month of Covid-19. Many of us are working harder than ever, doing double-shifts of work and educating kids. First responders continue to settle into this new everyday urgency of their jobs. Many people in tech are filling the time they used to spend commuting or walking between meetings heads down focused on their laptops. Yet, there is still more time and space as we are not socializing as much as before.

This summer, we didn’t go visit my family in Thailand. We didn’t travel to a new country. Instead, we went on local getaways every other week. We’d drive off and camp for 3–4 days. It was a slower mode of travel. One that focused on doing all the things required for outdoor survival. We spent hours setting up camp, cooking, cleaning, making fire, and breaking down camp. There was plenty of time to do nothing— go for walks in the wood, a paddle on a lake, chill on the hammock, and roast smores around the campfire. It was travel and it was a different type of slow travel. It felt soothing, calm, and rejuvenating. It gave us all a fresh perspective and appreciation of family.

As I remember all these travels, they were each perfect each in their own way. Some had more activity. Some had more doing nothing. Some were more planned. Others had room for spontaneity. All the travels provided fresh new perspectives and was a different mode than the day-to-day monotony of weekdays and weekends.

My Version of Doing Nothing

I’ve realized that my version of doing nothing can be a more active than other people’s. I have a restless soul and thrive on newness and the next shiny experience. I also have a yearning for the whitespace that opens up unplanned time for creativity, learning, and making things. I’ve found that “doing nothing” means doing something in a different way. Being able to deviate from default mode, the routine of weekdays and weekends to do something useful or frivolous that’s just different. Yet through all these activities, it means being present. Being aware of what is happening and slowing down to enjoy and savor the moment. My version of doing nothing includes:

Pulling weeds from the garden and chopping back tree branches in a rare sunny San Francisco afternoon
Rocking in my hammock writing a blog post, with a People magazine, frivolous beach read, and a leadership book all within my grasp.
Having a detailed plan for the day including activities, socially distanced friends to see outside, cooking plans for lunch and take-out plans for dinner. And then being able to dump it completely at a whim or because a power outage has de-railed all the plans
Having a luxurious whole afternoon of nothing, and being able to spontaneously decide what I want to do with it

I’ve realized that there are a ton of shoulds around doing nothing. I should meditate. I should take a nap. I should relax into self-care in a bubble bath. I should do a digital detox weekend. And I lean into throw all those shoulds away. Having the luxury to do nothing is having the luxury to have a plan and shred it to bits when something else catches my fancy.

What’s your version of doing nothing?

Tutti TaygerlyAugust 20, 2020