How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell - Reading Notes
Last Updated: 14 June 2026
Hello! Here are some notes and questions that I've been grappling with after reading the aforementioned portions of How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell.
Start date: Nov 2025
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Introduction
- Being busy in today's context can take different forms. However, for the purposes of this introduction, Odell is saying talking about occupying our time in a way that results in selling our time and information --> engaging in a cycle of self-involvement --> creating needs in ourselves that we previously didn't have.
- Doing nothing means... seeing + accepting what is already there (even things that we may perceive as flawed or "useless") --> manifests in connection with the self, others and the environment --> striving for a "placefullness" (vs place-lessness) = getting curious about the ground on which we stand - who was here, what was here + who/what survived, continues to exist here?
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Chapter 1
The chapter opens with considering the current state of things (primarily, the internet, social media etc): there's just a lot of noise and fury. But the question is - is this actually a form of oppression? Silence is the first step to helping us understand that we do have something to say.
"... Stupidity's never blind or mute. So it's not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might find something to say" - Giles Deleuze, Negotiations. (See Footnote 1)
- Labyrinths, gardens and small museums - the physical nature of such places means that one cannot rush straight through. Conversely, one cannot be a passive observer and refuse to move at all. Instead, the twists / turns force a participant to enter a state of contemplation (architecture that facilitates doing nothing). Perhaps, this provides a refuge from our everyday anxieties + desire for shortcuts + preference for noise.
- Decline in public spaces that allow for such contemplation related to a decrease in labour movements, who fought for: "Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight ours for what we will!" (See Footnote 2) They fought for the right for a worker to determine themselves what to do for 8 hours - a right to refuse.
Tools of resistance:
Repair: Choosing to keep ourselves well and whole through the act of maintenance can be counter-cultural, especially when the expectation is to participate in structures that ultimately lead to the human body falling apart.
Empathy:
- achieved via Deep Listening as put forth by the artist Pauline Oliver's, which entails paying attention (listening) to everyday sounds (urban/in nature), words/tunes/sounds from our own consciousness, or any actual music/media consumed. (See note 3)
- trying to understand the perspectives of others via sensitivity - i.e. staying open to interacting with someone else, being curious, being aware that one might change as a result of such exchanges. It takes intention and time.
Practices/Questions for consideration
- Staying busy: How busy am I feeling? What's pulling my attention in a day?
- Repair as a Resistance: I know that I often go onto social media when I am feeling especially tired/exhausted. I find myself saying: "I'm tired", as I tap the Instagram button... Can I recognise the patterns that lead to me getting into such a headspace? Can I start to wind down and initiate rituals that would help me enter a state of rest instead?
- Remembering the body: Nowadays, we often exist primarily in a virtual space. What are some practices that I can integrate into my everyday to help me remain aware of my bodily senses?
- Remembering the country: What are some ways that I can get place-full + explore the bioregionalism of the place that I live in (estate, suburb, country, region)?
- "Multi-farious perspectives": Taken by the idea of labyrinths, gardens, small museums. Spending time and walking through. I'm going to look for a space to explore in the next week.
- Empathy as a Tool: Working off what I heard at Neal Shusterman's talk - what are some stories that I can read up on to try to explore new perspectives, new worldviews that are different from mine?
The idea is that I will actually take some time to engage with these questions above... maybe I'll come back with an update? I'll probably choose 2-3 prompts to work with over the next week, and might write a follow-up post about it, just to reflect on how it's going.
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Chapter 2: The Impossibility of Retreat
"Utopia" literally means "no place". People constantly fail at retreat. See:
- Failed communes of the 60s.
- Silicon valley - the vapidness of technocratic solutions
Where to go from here?
- Exploring the idea of haupstrom:
- abandoning the constant need for productivity
- seeking phenomenon that stands apart from the mainstream:
- the incomplete
- see: the gap between art and life.
- ignite the conversation between where we are and where we could be.
- seek the perspectives of outsiders, minorities, recluses.
- an alternative retreat - the example of thomas merton:
- first, he removed himself from the world and contemplated it from far
- then he came back into the world, recognizing his responsibility to each other (fourth & walnut).
- gives us the premise for a hybrid reaction: standing apart
- live in this world, while believing in another world, where justice has been achieved for all living beings.
Possible exercises
- Notice things that are incomplete. Meditate on them.
- Dream exercise: Write down/Collage what an alternate world could look like.
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Chapter 3: Anatomy of a refusal
What are some past examples of refusal?
The Trainee by Pilvi Takala - a performance art piece where Deloitte consultants expressed great discomfort at witnessing a new colleague sitting at their desk doing nothing.
Diogenes - a Greek philosopher who lived a life of refusal. He deliebrately went backwards, or made a farce of the "normal" lives that he saw around him.
Bartleby - from the story Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville. The story was about a clerk, Bartleby, who was hired to work in a law firm. After a period of working as per normal, Bartleby started to refuse to do work and any tasks asked of him, responding instead with "I prefer not to".
Why were they refusing?
From the website of Pilvi Takala: "What provokes people about this ‘non-doing’, aside from the strangeness, is the element of resistance. The non-doing person isn’t committed to any activity, so they have the potential for anything. It is non-doing that lacks a place in the general order of things, and thus it is a threat to order. It is easy to root out any ongoing anti-order activity, but the potential for anything is a continual stimulus without a solution."
Diogenes believed that the people of Greece were conforming to norms that perpetrated greed and corruption. The fact that everyone thought that this was a "normal" way to live was so bizarre to him. The majority of the people around him seemed to be blind to the fact that this was actually far from normal.
Bartleby: Bartleby was seen as going one step further. He refused to do what was asked of him, he also "questioned the terms of the original question" - perhaps demonstrated by his ultimate demise of starvation in prison.
What are the consequences of not refusing?
Grind or die: Odell observed an increased workaholism in her students, perhaps due to their bleak economic circumstance and lack of options moving forward. Is it a coincidence then that this is the generation whose attention is most scattered? Perhaps their sense of hopelessness means that it takes an extra dose of strength to harness their attention and direct it toward the things that matter. It may be easier (and preferable) to numb. Noting that with the numbing, comes a fragmentation and scattering of attention that impacts not just the individual, but society as a whole. The prospect of change dwindles.
What options do we have?
With will, training and desire, perhaps we can learn how to master our attention. We can train our attention to be able to be withdrawn and instead directed toward the things that matter. To be able to expand and grow our attention spans would be a gift, which may allow for a remaking of the self and a remaking of the world around us.
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Chapter 4: Exercises in Attention
I confess that I was expecting a chapter with a greater focus on practical tips/exercises for attention. Instead, what I received was a meditation on perception - an encouragement to recalibrate my senses, so that I can shift the relationship that I have with myself, others around me and the land I am on.
It felt quite difficult to follow the thread of the chapters. What I got was to learn from the examples of certain artist:
David Hockney originally shunned photography for painting, believing that the latter more accurate reflected the relationships that humans have with space and time. However, he eventually came to be a huge proponent of photography. He used photographs to create new dimensions in his landscapes. Viewers were now no longer bound to being a passive consumer, "through a keyhole". Now, they could put themselves in the shoes of the "painter" - looking forward, up, down and around. Each frame, represented by a photograph, presented a different perspective to both viewer/artist.
John Cage used his stage performances to recalibrate the way that his audiences listened. They were absurd and non-conventional in that often, music was not played on instruments. By using silence, time and the occasional unexpected element, audiences were forced to sit and listen to everything. When they went home, whether consciously or unconsciously, they continued to use this way of listening to operate - realizing that real life echoed art.
Barrett Newman's paintings brought a sense of intimacy to the experience of looking. Here, Odell brings in the idea of seeing objects in their fullness by introducing Buber's philosophy of "I and Thou". This means seeing objects/beings as they are, as opposed to simplifying or reducing what is in front of us into any one term or category. By accepting the invite of the Newman to see the painting in its fullness, it is possible for such pieces of art to take on a previously unnoticed sense of life.
The common vision of all three artist: that what is around us (our daily lives) is "endlessly fascinating" - "... the familiar and priximate environment is as deserving of this attention, if not more, than those hallowed objects we view in a museum."
Notes on the Process
I've been reading, note-taking and reviewing these pages by way of mindmaps, in order to help me process what I've been reading.
On the one hand, it's started to get a bit tedious because I feel a need to go over the material a few times for me to get a grip on the author's message.
On the other hand, it has been a luxury to acknowledge that I have the time to do this exercise, without fear of critique by others. It has also been refreshing for me to slow down, for once. I often feel that I gorge myself on media.
I do anticipate that I will get somewhat impatient with myself and eventually stop reading this book because of the friction that comes with such copious note-taking? So I might need to consider how to adjust my approach so that it's less involved...
Notes on referencing
I know this is just a blogpost, but I'm still paranoid about plagiarism, LOL. So anyway, I'm just going to take a more diligent approach but it's still a bit loose. I'm reading on my Kobo/Phone via Libby so the page numbering is variable/varied. If Odell/Publisher finds this, please do pardon.
- Quoted in Chapter 1, Odell.
- Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 1 - as quoted in Chapter 1, Odell.
- Pauline Oliver's, Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice (New York: iUniverse, 2005), xxii - as quoted in Chapter 1, Odell.