How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

What if the most radical thing you could do right now was nothing? Not laziness — but a deliberate, principled refusal to surrender your attention to the systems designed to extract it. Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy is one of the most original and necessary books of the past decade: part field guide, part political manifesto, part love letter to the art of paying attention to the right things.

Odell — an artist, critic, and passionate birder — argues that our attention is the most precious and most overdrawn resource we have. In a world where every platform competes to monetize our hours, she makes the case for something different: bioregionalism, deep listening, birdwatching, and the slow, patient practice of noticing what is actually in front of us. This is not a call to unplug and retreat from the world, but to re-engage with it — more fully, more carefully, and on our own terms.

For readers drawn to contemplative and critical nonfiction, How to Do Nothing is a rare book — for those who feel the cost of constant connectivity in their bones, for nature lovers and artists, for anyone suspicious of the attention economy but uncertain how to resist it, and for readers who want their inner life back.

Explore more contemplative reading: Turn to The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer for a meditation on stillness as adventure, or The Book of Delights by Ross Gay for a daily practice in paying attention to what brings you alive.

What You’ll Discover

• A bold argument for reclaiming your attention from the platforms designed to sell it
• Odell’s vision of “doing nothing” as an act of political and ecological resistance
• Lessons from bioregionalism, birdwatching, and the art of deep, patient noticing
• A challenge to capitalist narratives of productivity, efficiency, and techno-determinism
• One of President Obama’s Favorite Books of 2019, named a best book of the year by Time, The New Yorker, NPR, and more

Jenny Odell is an artist, writer, and professor at Stanford University. Her work explores the intersections of technology, nature, attention, and place. How to Do Nothing grew from a talk she gave at a design conference and became an unexpected cultural touchstone — praised by The New York Times Book Review as “a complex, smart and ambitious book that blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifesto.”

Perfect for: Readers overwhelmed by the attention economy, nature lovers and birdwatchers, artists and creative practitioners, fans of Pico Iyer or Ross Gay, those exploring digital minimalism or intentional living, readers interested in ecology, place, and bioregionalism, anyone who suspects that slowing down is a form of resistance, and gift seekers looking for a book that is both timely and timeless.

Quality hardcover edition | ISBN 9781612197494. Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing — a New York Times bestseller and a quietly radical guide to winning back your life, one moment of attention at a time.