I recently finished How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell. I wasn’t sure what to expect before I started reading the book. I knew that it had been a NY Times Bestseller. I also knew that Odell was an artist, and that intrigued me because artists have distinctive ways of seeing and being in the world. But the idea of a book on how to do nothing seemed odd. 

It’s a good book, and I recommend it. Of course, it’s about a lot more than just how to do nothing. It’s about our attention and how, in contemporary society, our attention has become a commodity. Perhaps worse than being a commodity, our attention is something that, more and more, we give away to others. What’s needed is to take control of our attention and redirect it. At times, that may mean, or at least seem, like doing nothing. Throughout the book, Odell walks us through this, weaving together personal stories with social theory. It’s a worthwhile and enjoyable read. There’s a particularly interesting chapter on refusal, in which Odell draws upon the story of Bartleby The Scrivener, which sparked me thinking about the how refusal figures into creativity.

I initially was interested in reading the book because I’m working on a proposal for a trade non-fiction book, and How to Do Nothing was recommended for me to read to think about structure and tone, and how to write a book that brings together narrative and theory to talk about social issues in a compelling way. And the book is all that. It’s also relevant for thinking about creativity and recovering our time for imagination, curiosity, and play. Because that time is part of what’s lost in the attention economy. We give up our time for imagination, curiosity, and play to do other things. We give our attention over to learning techniques for increasing productivity and efficiency and developing routines to meet other’s expectations. And there is only so much time and attention. Imagination, curiosity, and play are what regularly gets left aside.

But what if it didn’t? Or rather, what if we didn’t? 

What if we were more deliberate with what we attended to?

What if we chose sometimes to do nothing? 

Odell’s How to Do Nothing offers some ideas for how else we might spend our time, and how we might turn back to ourselves, our communities, and the world around us. It’s not so surprising this book was written by an artist. Part of being creative is doing.

Only when we take our attention back can we direct it elsewhere, even (maybe especially) if that elsewhere is in the clouds.