The Art of Manliness - #602： The Case for Being Unproductive

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast decades ago

00:00:12.160 economists thought that thanks to advances in technology in the 21st century we'd only work

00:00:16.680 a few hours a week and enjoy loads of leisure time yet here we are in the modern age still

00:00:20.840 working long hours feeling like we're busier than ever what happened my guest today argues that

00:00:25.700 we've all been swept up into a cult of efficiency that started centuries ago and it's only been

00:00:29.980 strengthened by advances in technology the remedy do nothing at least nothing productive her name is

00:00:35.880 celeste headley and she's the author of do nothing how to break away from overworking overdoing and

00:00:40.560 underliving we begin our conversation taking a look at what work was like before industrialization

00:00:45.000 and how we moderns work more than medieval serfs celeste then explains how industrialization moved

00:00:49.980 us from task-based work to hour-based work and how that helped change our perception of time and usher

00:00:55.040 in the cult of efficiency we discuss how we've taken this penchant towards over optimization which

00:00:59.700 prevails in work life and applied it to our personal and family lives as well adding stress

00:01:03.720 and stripping us of hobbies and social connections we then dig into how this current moment of being

00:01:07.700 forced into doing less can be used as a time to reevaluate our relationship to work and how we can

00:01:12.300 reconnect with the idea of doing things for their own sake especially cultivating relationships with

00:01:17.000 others after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash do nothing

00:01:21.100 all right celeste headley welcome to the show thank you so you've published a book do nothing how to

00:01:38.160 break away from overworking and underliving so as i say research is me search is there a personal story

00:01:46.960 behind this book like why you decided to write about this topic yeah the book ended up being a

00:01:52.180 combination of deep research interviews with experts and then my own personal journey because

00:01:58.160 frankly it didn't start i wasn't trying to write a book i was writing about something completely

00:02:02.860 different at the time but i was miserable you know i was more financially stable than i'd ever been

00:02:09.420 before in my life i had these ideas about what that would look like when i was really financially

00:02:15.560 stable about you know i'd have time to take salsa lessons and i would travel and it turned out the

00:02:22.520 exact opposite that the the more money i brought in the higher my income went the the less time i had

00:02:28.680 the more overworked i was the more overwhelmed and i ended up getting severe bronchitis like bedridden

00:02:36.080 severity for two times within five months and that's when i sort of knew i needed to figure out

00:02:43.360 what was happening so the research did begin as me search it was simply i was just trying to figure

00:02:49.240 out what was going on with me and how i could solve it and as you in your research you found out that

00:02:54.280 lots of other people feel the same way and even the research like what sociologists psychologists

00:02:59.320 they have found the same thing and in the book you start the first half of the book kind of discussing

00:03:03.800 the problem the source of this problem and you take a look at something you call the cult of

00:03:08.840 efficiency so before we get into this sort of cult of efficiency that we live in in the western culture

00:03:14.920 today what was work and life like before the this cult of efficiency took place that's a really good

00:03:21.800 question because it's important to remember that human beings i mean our species homo sapiens

00:03:27.040 lived a certain way for most of the 300 000 years we've been on the planet and it's only been in the past

00:03:34.080 two or three hundred years that we changed all of that that's super important to remember because it

00:03:40.120 feels right now like the way we live is the way it's done and it's always been this way and that is

00:03:46.340 just not the truth so you know i had to go back quite a bit through whatever labor records we have

00:03:53.660 and frankly our labor records are mostly centered around the european countries and some a little bit

00:04:00.440 from the mediterranean mostly because that's where the records still survive but we happen to know

00:04:06.280 that going back to the days of the greeks and romans people even low the lowest echelons of society like

00:04:13.360 peons and serfs worked less than half a year for most of our history of our species so like not only do

00:04:21.980 they only work about eight hours a day but also if someone got married they took a two-week holiday

00:04:28.460 to celebrate that marriage the things ran in pulses high activity followed by a great deal of

00:04:35.540 leisure so they'd have an intense period of labor during harvest and then all over the world they

00:04:41.380 would celebrate the harvest with weeks of feasting and dancing and music and very very little labor

00:04:48.640 so that is sort of the way we lived for a very long period of time intense labor followed by periods

00:04:54.200 of rest no yeah that the there's the numbers on like how much medieval peasants worked i'm like man

00:04:59.220 i work more than a medieval medieval peasant yeah i mean you wouldn't want to go back to that state of

00:05:03.340 hygiene but certainly in terms of work hours they had had it better than we do and another point you

00:05:10.520 made in the book is the the way they worked was differently in that today we we tend to work by the

00:05:16.100 hour where time is money back then it was based around a task it's like they just okay i gotta

00:05:21.360 harvest this field or i gotta paint this painting or carve this sculpture and that was it yeah that's

00:05:27.320 right i mean if something broke or you needed something if you need a new railing for a staircase

00:05:31.720 you went to the person who does that the woodworker and you hired them for a certain amount of money and

00:05:37.640 they did that and then that task was done and then they moved on to whatever the next one was we don't

00:05:44.820 you know when i learned about the industrial revolution in high school and college i don't

00:05:50.240 really don't think i grasped the significance of that moment i really don't think so because through

00:05:57.160 my research what i discovered was almost everything changed after that so in terms of like when time

00:06:03.740 becomes money this is one of those things that we assume has always been but it really is recent

00:06:10.840 when the amount of time is you spend on something is is worth something right because if you were

00:06:17.360 making a staircase you made that staircase you finished and you went home with your check but when

00:06:23.720 factories opened right you were never done you just kept making more stair steps or whatever it was

00:06:30.740 you were in charge of and and there was even these records of employers changing the time on the

00:06:36.940 clocks in order to trick their workers into working more hours they were essentially stealing from them

00:06:42.880 by stealing their time so yeah it was a massive change when our time began to equal the amount of

00:06:51.700 money we made when we we started calculating our value based on our hourly rate and i mean not only did

00:06:58.500 that change the way we work but it changed the way we think of time even when we're not working

00:07:02.920 like there's we always think well there's money associated with that time yeah and and you know

00:07:08.200 it changed our language i traced a number of of words whose meaning changed when this all happened

00:07:13.980 but also you know in terms of wasting time people feel guilty if they are wasting time and what they're

00:07:20.700 really talking about is if you're if your hourly rate is 20 bucks an hour then if you waste an hour

00:07:27.700 you've you've wasted 20 bucks right and this goes back to like benjamin franklin right

00:07:32.740 we we want to blame this all on technology but frankly it's been coming for a very long time

00:07:37.440 they did this one study which i found fascinating where they brought people in and they had them

00:07:43.680 listen to what is really just a gorgeous piece of music it's the flower duet from an opera called

00:07:48.700 lock me and it's luscious but for half of those people when they were doing the questionnaire before

00:07:55.440 listening to the piece of music one of the questions they asked is you know what's your hourly rate

00:07:59.900 meaning they prompted them to think about how much their time is worth and that group of people

00:08:04.940 thought it was too long this three minute piece of music they were really impatient for it to get

00:08:10.360 over with the other ones were just listen to a beautiful piece of music and they were done they

00:08:14.400 said okay that that's it that's all i had to do but if they people were prompted to think about their

00:08:19.540 how much their time was worth they couldn't wait for that to be over with and and if you apply this to

00:08:25.080 your own life even things that you enjoy you may become impatient with because underlying it all

00:08:31.540 is the sense that you're wasting time which means you're wasting money so the switch from task-based

00:08:38.440 work to hour-based work and even if you're salaried you're still thinking in terms of hours right it's

00:08:43.980 like there's like every hour has an roi when managers are thinking about that that was a big change

00:08:49.640 that that was the big shift in the cult of efficiency then also you discuss this in the book

00:08:54.200 too you know max weaver the sociologist made famous about the idea of the protestant work ethic

00:08:58.960 particularly with calvinism there was this idea that well if you if you have wealth if you're

00:09:05.180 successful financially means that you're favored by god so if you work hard and make money that is a

00:09:11.480 sign you're favored so they kind of it there was a religious element at least that was helping spur this

00:09:17.080 idea of just being efficient with your time and constantly doing stuff yeah interestingly enough

00:09:22.780 it was sort of the merging of these different forces economic and philosophical and religious

00:09:28.860 that really sort of cemented it into our psyches there was this idea among religious folk that um you

00:09:35.460 know idle hands are the devil's playground right like if you're not working you're a bad person and that

00:09:40.860 in fact it's the amount of work that you do not just any work but hard work hard labor

00:09:45.740 that earns your way into heaven and there was also this idea that leisure and enjoyment needed to be

00:09:52.480 put off until after death so this all sort of combined with what was also already bubbling up

00:10:00.100 from industry and factories and owners to create an incredibly strong force this protestant work ethic

00:10:08.580 even though the number of protestants has gone down globally the ethic remains behind and not just

00:10:15.660 in the u.s we're talking about all over the world and yeah as you said even though religion has been on

00:10:21.240 the decline for the past you know 50 60 years that idea of like work has become a new religion for a lot

00:10:28.180 of westerners like you know you're we take pride or we see being busy as a virtue yeah and and it's

00:10:35.320 interesting you know that's one of the things i had to trace is like when this happened because if we

00:10:41.180 think back to the days of like you know downton abbey or whatever we're talking about wealthy people who

00:10:47.520 demonstrated their wealth by their leisure right they played croquet and did hunting and dabbled in

00:10:56.080 painting and they would do amateur theatrics that's all over jane eyre right and but at some point that

00:11:02.600 became contemptible and in fact how busy you were was a marker of how important you are that's incredibly

00:11:09.540 true right now researchers have documented this in a variety of ways but one of the ways they did it

00:11:15.600 was by tracking how many times people mentioned being busy or overwhelmed in like their holiday

00:11:21.000 letters and in the past 20 or 30 years it's gone through the roof and i ask people all the time i'm

00:11:26.980 like how many times per day do do does someone ask how you are and you say busy or how many times do

00:11:34.340 you get that answer when you ask someone how they are that's not normal that's new and it's not a

00:11:41.640 particularly good sign all right so being busy is a new sign of being part of the aristocracy but

00:11:47.240 you're you're making the case we need to go back to that old downton abbey idea of aristocracy like

00:11:50.760 you're an aristocrat if you can play croquet whenever you want um i mean my wife i'm not sure i want to go back

00:11:58.340 to the income i will say this i don't sure i want to go back to the days of the aristocracy but i will

00:12:03.900 say that our income inequality is actually higher now than it was during those times so in fact now

00:12:09.380 the difference in income between a ceo and their average worker is hundreds of times percentages

00:12:15.760 higher than it was between the earl of grantham and his valley so okay let's talk about how this man

00:12:21.280 how this is the whole cult of efficiency manifests itself in work life i mean one thing that's interesting

00:12:26.080 at least in america is that even when americans don't have to work like they still work right for

00:12:33.240 example like most americans don't use all their vacation days and what's going on there isn't that

00:12:38.340 interesting um i think what's one of the things that sort of hit me the hardest just viscerally hit me

00:12:43.960 was to go back through the history of what it took to earn the eight hour work day you know if you go

00:12:52.140 back to the very beginnings of the industrial revolution there were no regulations in place because

00:12:56.020 they hadn't needed them and people were working 16 and 20 hour days i mean it was just incredible

00:13:03.080 they had to fight in england to to put limits on a child's working day to only 12 hours a day

00:13:09.980 so then began this battle between laborers workers and management and people died i mean they died

00:13:19.300 to earn us the eight hour work day and here we are just a few decades later voluntarily giving it up

00:13:27.100 we go on vacation paid vacation those of us who have that privilege and answer work emails and phone

00:13:34.080 calls and read stuff from the office like we just give it up and the other thing that's amazing is the

00:13:40.940 millions and millions of dollars we donate to our employers by not taking our paid vacation so yeah

00:13:48.200 we're at this place where we're where we're choosing to continue working and frankly that's not entirely

00:13:55.540 our fault we have been brainwashed in many cases totally intentionally by the the the sort of the ruling

00:14:03.800 powers of industry we have been brainwashed to think we have to do that there's a number of reasons why

00:14:11.200 that has become the ethos why that's the underlying culture and it's not entirely us what's interesting

00:14:18.740 though you also highlight research is that when that's actually making we think we're being more

00:14:22.700 productive when we work more and we're you know working on vacation working on the weekends working

00:14:26.860 at nights but what the research actually shows people are actually less productive whenever they do that

00:14:31.620 yeah and and you know most of the cases in in terms of this kind of research when you look at the

00:14:37.160 actual data and statistics it turns out to be not what you thought so for example people who go who take

00:14:43.600 their vacation time take at least 11 days or more their paid vacation end up not only being more

00:14:48.560 productive but they're also more likely to get a promotion than people who take fewer than 10 days

00:14:53.800 people who work excessive hours say 50 hours a week or more only make 6% more but as you say

00:15:00.960 they're also the least productive among us are the ones that are working incredibly long hours

00:15:06.180 and i i want to go back to a study that was done pre-tech because this is not the fault of our

00:15:11.480 technology they they did a survey of scientists at the university of illinois sometime in the 1950s

00:15:17.540 and followed them for a very long period of time and they found the least productive

00:15:22.680 were those who worked more than 50 hours a week the most productive were the ones who worked

00:15:28.380 12 to 20 hours a week that where our brains are simply not designed to do their best work

00:15:35.740 when we push them so we are more creative we're less likely to make errors when we're rested when

00:15:41.940 we've had time away from work we are more productive we're more efficient you have to give your brain

00:15:48.000 an ideal situation in order to do its best work and that is never never never never never when you are

00:15:54.440 working really long hours and i think there's also something you talk about there's that principle

00:15:59.160 like work fills the time allotted so if you if you know like i'm going to work 50 hours well a thing

00:16:04.200 that could take you just a few hours like you're going to use all your time to do that thing yeah

00:16:08.660 exactly and what you're referring to is parkinson's law it's it's an adage that was created by a

00:16:14.220 sociologist that says work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion so if your boss

00:16:20.860 gives you until friday to write a memo it will take you until friday but if they say this needs

00:16:25.100 to be done until two hours you will get it done in two hours that's that's the basic idea and and we

00:16:30.980 will fill our time with meetings that take way too long and we'll sit around the meeting table i mean

00:16:36.260 you've been in those kind of meetings right where people just keep going on and on and on and going

00:16:40.780 off on tangents and you feel like you want to die we will fill our time that way instead of just

00:16:46.200 getting the thing done so that's another part of the problem and one of the things that i note

00:16:51.280 is that while we are bringing work home with us we're also bringing home to work the number one

00:16:56.860 hours for online shopping are during the work day the number one hours the busiest hours for porn viewing

00:17:03.220 are during the work day so no like we we noticed that too like so with our website analytics we have

00:17:10.540 these real-time analytics and we can see when traffic you know where and it's always like 10

00:17:15.640 o'clock in the morning 11 like that's when it starts like noon like lunchtime it's like when it

00:17:20.960 peaks and it starts this decline it's like i can see everyone's like surfing the art of manliness you

00:17:26.680 know those first few hours of work and they're not actually working yeah exactly yeah i mean believe

00:17:31.780 me that they the the scales definitely tip toward work we are deaf work is definitely winning that

00:17:37.800 tug of war but but home life is in there i mean then this is i think it's like one of those

00:17:43.800 unintended consequences of equating money with time because like if you say well i got to be at the

00:17:47.740 office i got to work for eight hours well okay i got to do something so you're just gonna kind of

00:17:53.000 dittle around and you know fill up that eight hours but if you it was just like say hey just get this job

00:17:57.200 done well people are gonna get that done as fast as they can because they don't want to

00:18:00.560 do it right they don't want to spend any more time at the office or work i think it's interesting

00:18:04.620 like we we think we're being more efficient by going to an hour base but it might even be more

00:18:08.380 efficient to just do work as a on a task base oh yeah there's tons of research showing that not

00:18:14.100 only is task-based more efficient but it also is is better for a lot of well-being measures so it's

00:18:22.140 much less stressful to us it gives us these feelings of accomplishment so it raises morale it raises

00:18:28.880 teamwork when you're task-based and you just need to get this one particular task done you're more

00:18:34.360 likely to to rely on the help and expertise of other people as opposed to when the task it just

00:18:41.420 never ends you'll just put your nose down and just keep typing just keep typing at your desk so there's a

00:18:47.140 huge number of benefits to being a task-based workplace rather than a treadmill-based one

00:18:54.020 we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:18:57.500 and now back to the show so you mentioned when you started this book it was you were trying to

00:19:04.840 figure out like why why why did it feel like even though you were in a place better financially that

00:19:10.760 you still feel felt like you were just treading water that you didn't have any time and you highlight

00:19:16.220 research you know that people today often think like we have less time than our our grandparents

00:19:22.780 our great-grandparents that you know we're just just crunched for time but with the research actually

00:19:28.160 shows we our grandparents and great-grandparents worked more than us in often cases and even like

00:19:34.080 did more stuff at home more chores than we are today oh yeah i mean you know this was a an exercise

00:19:40.160 that i ended up doing i came home one day i was exhausted i was like i do not have it in me to make

00:19:45.900 dinner and cooking is something i enjoy by the way so it had nothing to do with that i just felt

00:19:52.880 overwhelmed and i happened to glance in my kitchen and started noticing all the things that i owned

00:19:57.440 that saved me time that my grandmother didn't have so then i took a notebook and i walked around my house

00:20:03.620 and i started adding it up right how much time did i save each week because i had a dishwasher

00:20:07.960 or microwave or robot vacuum or a google home that tells me the weather in the mornings how much time

00:20:16.000 does this all save me and it turns out i've got at least 20 to 30 extra hours every week than my

00:20:21.300 grandmother did and yet and yet she sewed quilts and grew her own herbs and made food and cookies for

00:20:29.500 the pta almost every single week and she was a member of the rotary and the lotus club and all these

00:20:34.840 other activities that she did in addition to doing barbecuing and you know our grandparents

00:20:39.500 you know they'd go on a vacation and then they'd invite everyone over to look at their slides yeah

00:20:44.960 yeah and we look back and we think oh my god how ridiculous is that you know wouldn't it be nice to

00:20:51.040 be able to have that kind of time well don't we why don't we have more time right yeah i mean there's

00:20:59.940 no godly reason why we don't have more time there is no reason why a banker's job today should be

00:21:06.080 taking the same amount of time it took in 1975 zero so what are we doing so what are we doing like

00:21:14.280 what is going on like why why do we feel over overwhelmed well there's a number of reasons for

00:21:19.040 that and in this this is the part where i start to talk about our technology so here's a big reason

00:21:25.660 why we feel overwhelmed it is that if some people if they get a few minutes during the day to take a

00:21:32.160 break the way we take a break is we pull out our smartphones and we like page through social media

00:21:37.340 or we check our email or we do a little online shopping the thing is is that your brain can't

00:21:44.700 distinguish between that and working as far as your brain is concerned you're basically still sitting

00:21:50.420 at your desk working at your job you have not taken a break so you get to the end of your work

00:21:56.560 day and you have taken no breaks at all and it gets a little bit worse than that when you actually

00:22:01.780 look at the neuroscience so even having that smartphone present and visible is a drain on your

00:22:10.020 brain try not to make a rhyme but there we go your brain is thinking about that phone whenever it is

00:22:16.520 visible if you work on a desktop and your email inbox is open all the time your brain is sitting

00:22:22.980 there thinking about it it is preparing itself it is expending energy to respond to a notification

00:22:29.240 in case it comes in it's in that ready mode all day long and we know that it's so it has such a huge

00:22:39.360 impact on your brain that if you have your email inbox open in the background all the time

00:22:43.960 your iq drops by 10 to 12 points same basic concept if you have your smartphone visible

00:22:50.100 so that's part of the reason we feel overwhelmed is because as far as our brains and our physiology are

00:22:56.440 concerned by the way we aren't ever taking a break we even take those phones into bed something like

00:23:02.580 a third of people admit they've answered their phone while they were in the shower

00:23:05.700 man that's that's you're in a bad place if you're doing that yeah well i mean the other thing

00:23:10.700 until you talk about why we're feeling more overwhelmed than say our grandparents or great

00:23:13.560 grandparents is that are the we treat our family life our home life we're starting to treat it more

00:23:18.260 like work yeah and it we've we've raised the expectations of what we're supposed to be doing

00:23:23.480 with our free time and so now that you talk about how you research like people men and women

00:23:29.380 i mean particularly women are spending more time doing working on chores like cleaning the house

00:23:34.380 than like your grandma did or great grandma did and you're spending more parents are spending

00:23:39.800 more time with their with their kids than say grandparents or even parents did it's like why

00:23:45.460 are we what's going on there like why are we making home life more stressful than it needs to be

00:23:50.720 yeah the standards for cleanliness have gone through the roof the standards for what your house looks

00:23:56.960 like how new all of your things must be have gone through the roof if you're gonna garden you can't

00:24:02.360 just have a garden you have to have the ultimate garden right if you're if you're sitting at home and you

00:24:06.400 have a few extra minutes you say hey i could make some curtains let me go on pinterest pinterest is

00:24:11.580 the devil because it just forces people to think that what they have is not good enough it means that

00:24:17.740 you don't want to make the a cookie recipe you want to make the ultimate cookie recipe right we just

00:24:23.900 never stop improving ourselves and this is tough because the impulse for self-improvement is good and

00:24:30.780 healthy we've just taken it way too far well yeah it's being like i mean recreational activities like

00:24:36.680 even that the standards for that have gone up you you're mentioning your your grandparents like they

00:24:40.580 do a barbecue or you'd come over and look at slides and that would be like hey that was a nice evening

00:24:44.980 now you would never think about it if you're going to do a barbecue it had to be primo luxe yeah the

00:24:50.620 best and so people don't even do it because they're just like completely overwhelmed by the thought of it

00:24:55.940 yeah exactly the stakes are too high or or you end up like a friend of mine who did a barbecue

00:25:00.980 she lit her grill and then ordered a caterer to bring barbecue over so it would be perfect but she

00:25:09.500 lit her grill and all that so it would look like she just was pulling these these ribs off the grill i

00:25:15.940 mean come on who cares right who cares who cares man if someone invites me over free food i don't care

00:25:22.040 what it is like i'm coming over eat some food have some conversation that's all i need and i'm happy

00:25:27.200 yeah the bar is so low yeah it's incredibly low incredibly low so okay so we've talked about the

00:25:33.620 problems now this is kind of a unique situation we're talking right now we're in the middle of this

00:25:37.680 covid 19 coronavirus pandemic where everyone's shut in their home they're not working now for some

00:25:42.720 people they've lost their job right they're they're not and but for other people they're working from

00:25:48.400 home they're not working as much it's causing like a re-evaluation of of of work in their life

00:25:54.780 what have your what have your thoughts been about this whole thing in regards to your book as you've

00:25:59.780 been seeing this i mean first of all i would say i lost my job essentially my income is almost entirely

00:26:06.200 event-based i do keynote speeches and workshops and consulting for companies and that's all been

00:26:12.640 canceled for the foreseeable future i totally get it i'm not complaining i'm in a much more secure

00:26:18.200 position than other people who've lost their job i am not living paycheck to paycheck i'm just saying

00:26:22.780 it's a it's an experience many people are going through all over the country and i also get that

00:26:29.680 if you are forced to do nothing it might sound insensitive for me to say hey you should do nothing

00:26:36.720 but there's a difference between what i'm telling you to do and then being forced out of unemployment

00:26:41.020 i can't make any comments about how difficult it is for people right now to make their bills

00:26:45.500 that's horrible and i i hope that the policymakers step up and make that easier for people but i can

00:26:52.140 talk about the fact that people are bored at home because we've gotten rid of the things that

00:26:56.680 used to occupy our time you know i was looking at twitter about a week ago and i saw these nurses

00:27:02.880 who started to put out the call for people to sew face masks because they're better than nothing and

00:27:09.280 they you know they put out a sewing pattern and i was thinking to myself how many people still sew

00:27:14.200 right how many people still have a sewing machine in their home because it really hasn't been that long

00:27:20.320 since there was a sewing machine in almost every home right that it hasn't been that long since almost

00:27:27.040 every guy had a workbench and a bunch of tools in their garage or somewhere in their home and could

00:27:32.760 tinker and fix things right now if something breaks you're sol because we don't know how to fix stuff

00:27:39.880 anymore so we have gotten rid of these hobbies that don't have a value a capitalist value right that can't

00:27:49.820 increase our brand or work as a side hustle or bring in any kind of income or career building value right

00:27:57.860 we've gotten rid of that stuff and so when we go home not only is our home permeated with the tools

00:28:03.540 of our actual work but it also we emptied it of the stuff that we consider to be a waste of time

00:28:09.980 so my advice to people is is try to do something that's not worth anything try to do something right

00:28:18.780 now that you just enjoy for its own sake and it can't be instagrammed effectively or shared and it

00:28:25.560 won't earn you money on etsy just try it maybe you'll stink at it but that's okay it's okay to

00:28:32.600 fail in a world where everything doesn't have to be leveraged and that's one of the in the book you

00:28:39.280 said one of the solutions is this to this overwhelming overwork is to to focus on ends and not just means

00:28:45.320 yeah that's so important and i think there's some confusion about goal setting you know we've become

00:28:52.360 very very goal oriented and you know in in moderate amounts that's totally healthy and fine goals can

00:28:59.360 really motivate you and keep you on track but there's a difference between means goals and end

00:29:04.200 goals right like one of my end goals is to make the world a better place to leave the world at least

00:29:09.780 slightly better than when i found it right and goals are um non-negotiable they generally don't change

00:29:17.600 over the course of your life for the most part they can but they'll last for a long time they're

00:29:22.420 not trackable they're not specific they're not measurable like you know the smart system of goals

00:29:28.780 so that's an end goal and what it means is i can choose all kinds of means goals for that i can have

00:29:34.560 one job that might help me get there or another one might work just as well i was a all of my training

00:29:40.480 and as a professional opera singer and if i had stayed with that absolutely that would have fed

00:29:46.520 into my end goal but i became a public radio journalist and that also is totally fine to help

00:29:52.460 me reach that end goal right like your means goals can change all the time but you have to be careful

00:29:57.500 to make sure that your means goals are are helping you reach one of your real end goals what we're

00:30:03.640 doing right now is just willy-nilly choosing means goals and even worse we're choosing means goals

00:30:08.660 that worked for somebody else but may not work for us we'll read these articles that say five things

00:30:14.360 successful people do every single morning right and so we'll be like okay from now on i'm getting up

00:30:19.640 at 4 30 every morning and i'm making my bed and i'm you know drinking 20 ounces of water just like tom

00:30:25.140 brady but we never stop and evaluate whether that means goal is actually accomplishing something

00:30:31.120 significant for us because if it's not dump it that's just adding and yet another thing for you to do

00:30:37.820 adding stress and complexity to your day and not moving you forward one thing i think when you were

00:30:44.100 talking about we've kind of emptied our homes of the these hobby things i think one reason like people

00:30:48.980 work more you know at least before this whole thing started this covid thing happened it's like they

00:30:53.120 didn't know what to do with themselves in their free time so they're just like well i guess i'll work

00:30:57.100 it's something to do yeah i think that's very much true and and part of that is because we've gotten

00:31:02.980 rid of our hobbies it's also because we're so much more isolated and anti-social than we we were in the

00:31:09.240 past you know human beings survived because we were community-based because we were a hive mind and i say

00:31:17.000 that you know sometimes we like to think we survived because we were the smartest or the most logical

00:31:21.640 which is balderdash so the way that human beings have survived and thrived is through community

00:31:29.660 you know the only way human beings can take down a bison and i might say that there's only two

00:31:35.960 species that can take down that really take down bison because bison are freaking impressive animals

00:31:41.000 and that's wolves and humans and they're both pack animals it means we rely on each other we we can

00:31:47.200 have very sophisticated communication skills that allows us to figure out who's the best on horseback

00:31:52.840 who has the best aim with a spear right who knows how to butcher that kind of animal and it means that

00:31:59.280 as a group we are so much more powerful than we are as individuals it means we need each other

00:32:05.520 but also we've stopped joining clubs we've mostly stopped playing pickup baseball or pickup basketball

00:32:12.320 we don't belong to the rotaries anymore we don't have those neighborhood barbecues

00:32:16.540 a third of americans have never even met their neighbors so yeah we don't know what to do because we

00:32:24.000 don't have a home life we've just integrated our home lives with our work so much that when we're

00:32:30.180 not at work there's nothing right people pull into the garage shut the garage door go into their house

00:32:36.420 that even yeah well and so one thing you so right now that's you know doing all these social things

00:32:41.200 kind of hard right with but but you talk about in the book like make you're making the case bring back

00:32:46.560 talking to people on the phone yeah that'd be great yeah use your phone as a phone right like

00:32:52.900 what's why why what's it about what's the the superiority of phone talk conversations over text

00:32:57.740 conversations this was uh one of the most interesting areas of research that i got the

00:33:04.660 opportunity to go into which is the power of the human voice it is really underestimated you know i this

00:33:12.920 is the example i use all the time like have you ever called up a friend and they said hello and you

00:33:17.740 immediately said what's wrong yes like that is some incredibly sophisticated information that you have

00:33:26.720 just picked up in a fraction of a second that is how much information is encoded into the tone and

00:33:33.920 volume of our voices that we are on an so far and on an intangible level right now we can't track it now

00:33:40.540 we are evolutionarily and biologically designed to pick up on the information coding that's in the

00:33:47.700 sound of a voice and it goes deep man like they even done studies where they've had people read

00:33:53.480 opinions they don't agree with in in any form on the internet in a book in a newspaper and they find

00:33:59.820 that when you read it you are much more likely to think that person disagrees with you because they're

00:34:04.660 stupid and they don't understand the core concepts but if you hear them say that same opinion in their

00:34:09.740 own voice you're more likely to think they disagree because they have different experiences and

00:34:14.260 perspectives which suggests that it's the sound of our voice that actually humanizes us to one another

00:34:21.680 that we have been reliant on our voices for so many hundreds of thousands of years that that is what

00:34:28.060 allows us to recognize another human being another member of our species so it's totally understandable

00:34:34.820 that as we stop hearing voices as people reject phone calls and send text backs that say can't talk

00:34:41.160 what's up um that of course we've begun to dehumanize one another we're not we're not making that connection

00:34:49.460 that allows us to create connections right but it's also it's ridiculous to me that we keep coming up with

00:34:57.480 ways to replace the human voice when the human voice is so spectacularly efficient and effective

00:35:03.460 there just is no other way to communicate that is more effective than the voice defaulting to email

00:35:08.660 is one of the dumbest things that we do it's a such a time waster well yeah i've noticed like sometimes

00:35:14.480 things can be solved with a phone call like a lot faster like five minute phone call and then instead

00:35:20.120 you try to do it an email that goes over like hours or even days you know these are this chain it's like

00:35:25.260 that could have been done fixed in just five minutes with a phone call absolutely and i recount one of

00:35:31.460 those in my in the in the book this ridiculous chain of emails that went on into the like i think it

00:35:38.160 reached almost 140 emails and then i said i put my foot down i said call each other and it was taken

00:35:45.160 care of in five five or six minutes i mean not only that but emails make you more likely to escalate

00:35:51.340 conflict they make you less likely to cooperate i mean there's some things that email is very very

00:35:57.960 good for but most things your voice is going to be better and it's going to make you feel better

00:36:04.020 yeah i mean i found myself when i read that i've noticed that i found myself in the past year like

00:36:09.580 calling people more often right i called people all the time when i was in high school because that's

00:36:13.560 how you talk to your friends but now like i'll call my friends who like live in town

00:36:18.360 just to talk and i'll go for a walk catch up hey what's going on i'm like man i feel like i'm in

00:36:23.960 1997 again this is pretty cool yeah and i remember i'm i'm imagine i'm probably a bit older than you

00:36:30.640 are but i can remember how awesome it was to sit there at the phone and like lie down on my bedroom

00:36:35.340 floor and just talk to my friends for hours and like you say they live like they lived like down the

00:36:41.140 street and i'd probably just seen them in history class or something still found a ton of things to talk

00:36:47.060 about yeah i mean it's very it's it's really comforting and we like we are naturally biologically

00:36:54.080 rewarded for talking about ourselves anyway talking about yourself activates the same pleasure center in

00:36:59.580 the brain as sex and orgasm or and heroin i should say so it's going to be very pleasurable but it also

00:37:07.600 brings that comfort of a human voice the human voice increases your sense of belongingness and this is

00:37:14.200 one of the things i emphasize in the book is that after survival after you've supplied your need for

00:37:19.900 shelter food water etc sleep the number one need that a human being has is for belongingness

00:37:26.620 freud was wrong it's not sex it's community and if you don't have that if you don't fulfill that

00:37:34.120 then you will have health consequences i mean it will not directly kill you but it will lead to

00:37:41.320 earlier death and that's how serious it is loneliness degrades your internal organs and one other thing i

00:37:47.800 would say about this is that social media and and digitally mediated conversations do not fulfill the

00:37:54.600 need to belong yeah you need that voice and so one thing that people are doing now with because they're

00:37:59.840 they're stuck at home they can't go out and talk to their friends like they're using zoom like you know

00:38:04.260 getting group chats going i mean have you been doing that have you found that uh sort of it does it

00:38:09.080 scratch the itch i have i mean i know some people are finding it now to be exhausting to use zoom

00:38:14.520 and that's partly because of what i said before that if you're using your screen that you also use

00:38:19.220 for work then your brain while you're zooming is confused it probably thinks you're still working

00:38:24.620 in addition to getting the social benefits you're also getting a little tired so it's okay to not use

00:38:30.280 zoom zoom is great absolutely i suggest it but if you're feeling tired just you know just use the

00:38:36.440 phone it's totally okay but you know we do know through research that teleconferencing is almost

00:38:42.200 as good as being in person when it comes to the effectiveness of the communication and fulfilling

00:38:48.880 social interaction so absolutely use zoom or skype or whatever your your platform is of choice but

00:38:56.020 also remember it doesn't have to be zoom you just need to hear a voice this lets a lot of people

00:39:01.600 they're home because maybe they're out of a job or maybe they're working from home what do you think

00:39:07.140 people can do like during this time this is like a time to like reevaluate all right besides trying

00:39:11.060 to you know take care of the day-to-day stuff this is a time to reevaluate your life what do you what

00:39:14.960 do you hope your book like questions people can start asking about their relationship to work

00:39:19.920 i mean that's exactly what i i want is i want people to start asking themselves some questions

00:39:25.840 and one of the best responses i've seen and i've seen it over and over is i'm going to buy one of

00:39:30.280 these for my boss because we we need a global reconsideration of working hours we need a global

00:39:39.060 reconsideration of what is healthy work-life balance but even more so we need a global reconsideration of

00:39:47.480 what are pro-human habits because i would say i would go so far as to say our habits right now are

00:39:54.300 anti-human they they lead to the early death of human beings in the united states the the life

00:40:02.520 expectancy has dropped for three years in a row and the doctor the who was the lead author on the most

00:40:08.780 recent report they asked him what was killing people and he said despair so i i need us to start

00:40:16.620 talking about this stuff but talking about it in a way that takes into account history because we're

00:40:25.000 about to get a bunch of of thought think pieces and and books and people blaming it all on the

00:40:30.720 smartphone if and that's that's as far back as you go we weren't we aren't going to solve the problem

00:40:35.260 we have to really come to grips with what has changed over the past 300 years why it's changed

00:40:41.800 whether some of these changes occurred without us really putting thought into them and the

00:40:46.140 consequences the unintended consequences and if it happened as recently as two or three hundred years

00:40:51.860 that means it can change back well celeste this has been a great conversation where can people go to

00:40:56.820 learn more about the book in your work the easiest thing is just go to celesteadley.com i've gathered all

00:41:02.520 this stuff there and there's plenty of links to buy the book from you know a big retailer or from

00:41:07.980 indie bookstores as well so that's the easiest fantastic well celeste headley thanks for your

00:41:12.020 time it's been a pleasure thank you have a great day my guest today was celeste headley she's the

00:41:16.560 author of the book do nothing it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find

00:41:20.760 out more information about her work at her website celesteheadley.com also check out our show notes at

00:41:25.360 aom.is slash do nothing where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:41:30.000 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at artofmanliness.com

00:41:42.020 where you can find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles we've written over the

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00:42:13.480 this is brett mckay reminding you not only listen they win podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#602： The Case for Being Unproductive

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