Do Less
Confronting our culture of busyness and progress with a simple suggestion
There was a moment a number of years ago that is seared into my memory.
My daughter was standing in the yard, she was maybe 2.5 at the time, and I had been called home to watch her because my partner had been struck by some strange vertigo that prevented her from getting out of bed. Reluctant to use up one of my sick-days, I opted to try and work remotely while watching my kid. She was asking me to hide a bunch of toys around the yard for her to find, and I was on my phone trying to respond to whatever work thing was occupying my attention at the time. Play with me, play with me, she kept asking. Here comes the part I’ll never forget.
“Just let me finish sending these emails.”
She looked back at me with a mix of disappointment and confusion. She didn’t know what an email was. She didn’t care about whatever was going on at my work. All she heard was her dad saying that his phone was more important than playing with her. It was the beginning of a new relationship to work for me. One that I’m still struggling with and trying to figure out, but keep on the front of my perspective at all times.
Worshipping at the cult of busy
I’m personally of the opinion that there will be no long term study done that will look back at the rise of the smartphone and social media and say it was a good thing for us. This isn’t to say that there aren’t benefits, but overall I think the evidence is mounting against them in terms of our health and wellbeing.
But, I don’t really want to write about smartphones or social media right now. What I want to think about is the role this technology plays in another problem: how busy we all feel.
I’m not sure about you, but it feels like there is no shortage of Very Important Things™ vying for my attention on any given day. Whether I open my inbox, my task list, or my news feed; they’re all full of things that feel both essential and urgent. Every item demanding my immediate attention and response. And now with the exciting promise of remote work1 and the technology that enables it, that list of Very Important Things™ follows us into every corner of our lives, making every moment full of productive potential. 👍2 Struggling to keep up? Don’t worry, there’s an entire industry of productivity experts, methods, and tools that all promise to help you manage that overwhelming list of Very Important Things™ and become a more efficient person. You’ll be able to do it all — by doing even more.
Are we the real tools?
Of course, technology has played a crucial role in getting us to where we are now. Every major shift in progress has been made possible, in part, by the technological advancements of its time. The printing press, the steam engine, the telegraph, electric light, the automobile, computers… Each new era further demonstrates humanity’s mastery over our physical limitations, enabling us to accomplish even more. As our productivity became less constrained by natural rhythms such as seasons or the rise and fall of the sun, our entire relationship with work changed. As we wound down the 20th century and moved into the 21st, this technology driven change sped up to a rapid pace.
In 1958, Hannah Arendt3 made an interesting distinction between tools and machines that I believe has important implications for where we are today. A tool is meant to serve the worker by making repetitive tasks easier. It is designed to complement the natural movement of the task and the physical form of the person using it. Consider a well made handplane: the weight and shape of it works with your natural stance and movement, fits comfortably in your hands, and turns the task into a nice rhythmic flow. A machine, however, does the opposite. It is made to increase efficiency, demanding that the worker’s body and movement adjust to its mechanical needs. Something like the assembly line comes to mind. Our labour serves the machine’s productivity, rather than the other way around.4 The danger then, Arendt wondered, is whether machines are made to make things or whether things are made to serve the existence of the machines.
“For a society of labourers, the world of machines has become a substitute for the real world... so that the apparatuses we once handled freely begin to look as though they were ‘shells belonging to the human body as the shell belongs to the body of a turtle.’” (The Human Condition)
A chilling foreshadowing of our present relationship to our phones.
Hold on, isn’t this a newsletter about everyday environmental activism? Why are you talking about productivity and technology?
There is a fundamental disconnect between us5 and a right relationship with the world. Somewhere at the core of it is a belief that we can tame the chaos and take control of the world in a way that makes it work for us. Our history of technological progress is the repeated story of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, striving to control the forces of nature for our own prosperity.6 However, as we are increasingly coming to a greater awareness of — and something that Indigenous communities have never forgotten — is that all of this striving is just creating more chaos.
Our insistence on infinite growth on a finite planet is leading us towards dire consequences. And while we may finally be waking up en masse to this reality, that insidious belief in progress-as-saviour still remains. Sure, technology made the mess; but better technology can get us out of it! Just let us mine all this lithium and we’ll get things back on track.
Green growth and productivity mastery are made up of the same stubborn insistence that the solution to the problem can be found by just repeating the problem again — only different. One is just a micro version of the other. But the true answer to both is not found in doing more, it’s in doing less.
Do less things but focus on the ones that matter. No doubt, our constant busyness is bad for us and bad for the planet. More things mean more time and more resources. Yes, they all seem important; but a move towards less means figuring out which things truly matter and spending your finite time and resources on those. If we learn to do this in our personal lives perhaps it can trickle up.
Do some things because they bring real value to you and the world. It may be time to look at the things we’re putting into the world. Do they bring real joy or pleasure? Are they making the world a better place? Or are the things we spend our time making just a consequence of the machines we work for? This is a good question to ask of the physical things we make, the digital things we make (emails, tweets, another photo of a coffee), and really any output of our work.
Do things that connect you more deeply with the people and world around you. Has the technology you use become a substitute for the real world? Try to spend more time on things that bring you into a better relationship with people and the natural world. Touch grass as the kids say.
Do no things (sometimes). Turns out not every moment needs to be productive. The idiom was always, the world will keep spinning if you take a break. I’ll go even further and say that the world actually needs us to take more breaks. We got a brief glimpse of the positive impact a brief global slowdown had in the early stages of the pandemic. Perhaps one of the most radical things we could do for the planet is inspiring a movement of doing nothing more often.7
And remember, it’s okay to start small and in ways that feel possible to you. Even if it’s turning your phone off for an hour or going for a leisurely walk or giving yourself permission to slow down a bit — you just did less.
Thanks for reading to the end,
Ben Bartosik is the marketing manager for Evergreen Canada, a national non-profit transforming public spaces in our cities to build a healthier future for people and our planet. He is also a guest writer for the Whale and an advocate for the work of SCGC.
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Just a quick note to say that I am extremely pro-remote work. Having to commute into an office to do work that I could just as easily do at home in order to prove that I’m working is nonsensical to me. Commuting is connected to a decrease of life satisfaction. The downside that has come with remote work is that we carried bad habits from in-person into remote settings but now lack the physical boundaries between work and personal space.
On a related note, there’s been interesting research done on why we seem to have our best ideas in the showers and the relationship between problem solving and uninterrupted thinking space. Basically, our brains need time to process and the constant flow of information and demands prevents this. Cal Newport references this in his fantastic book, Digital Minimalism, where he explores the relationship between mental health and the brain needing time to process without interruption.
This is a fascinating section to read in light of the current conversation around AI. Arendt was writing in response to the growing threat of automation and how our bodies and our labour were being forced to adapt to work the machines. Today we’re being told the most secure knowledge work jobs will be those that are trained in prompting AI.
Us is a tricky term here. At it’s most broad level I mean humanity; but it cannot be denied that this is a problem perpetuated by some people more than others. Perhaps more specifically I am referring to people who represent a privileged position within certain socio-economic categories. Yet even that falls short of a good definition. It speaks of systems, and those of us who make up the different parts of that system — both knowingly and unknowingly. It is anyone who promotes or participates in the consumptive and exploitative patterns that are robbing the planet of its health and future. I know at least I’m speaking to myself.
The question of whether or not Prometheus is a hero can really depend on your interpretation of human progress. Either way, I think it’s worth noting that Mary Shelley’s subtitle for Frankenstein was ‘the modern Prometheus.’
This one may sound a bit far fetched, but I encourage you to read the book The Day the World Stops Shopping for inspiration. It imagines what this sort of slowdown might look like.
Love the re-posing of what 'less' might mean.
Everyone wants more, or at least that is what one would assume through an experience of any platform that relies on advertising. It's become so saturated in our culture that it's practically a good in and of itself.
But less of those things that take us away from what is meaningful seems to be a pretty simple and good notion.
I'm reminded of Mr. Creosote from Monty Python as far as the insatiable desire for more goes. Doesn't end well...
Wonderful article Ben!