{"id":499,"date":"2013-07-02T08:18:33","date_gmt":"2013-07-02T12:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/?p=499"},"modified":"2013-07-02T09:36:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T13:36:13","slug":"doing-nothing-is-the-new-doing-something-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/doing-nothing-is-the-new-doing-something-2\/499","title":{"rendered":"Doing Nothing is the New Doing Something"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">Recently, I noticed this absurd trend of gallantly and heroically doing nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>About 19 months ago, I accidentally left my cell phone home and traveled out of town on business. When I arrived at the hotel, I needed to find the conference organizer. I used my laptop to call her via Skype &amp; explained that I forgot my cell phone.<\/p>\n<p>I found not-carrying a phone to be extremely advantageous that week. No one changed plans with me at the last minute, since they had no way of reaching me. And I received no interruptions, so I got tons of stuff done.<\/p>\n<p>When I got home, I didn&#8217;t want to return to my life as a cell phone carrying goofball. So I didn&#8217;t. I just stopped carrying a phone. No big deal, right?<\/p>\n<p>Oh, no. Some folks made a huge deal out of it. I got four main questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>Was I making some kind of social statement?<\/strong> (Not really. I forgot my phone one day, found out I really didn&#8217;t need it and that was that.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>How do I communicate effectively with clients and friends?<\/strong> (I make plans and stick to them. Every productivity expert on the planet tells you to only check messages at a few planned times a day, so not carrying a phone is probably a best practice.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>What&#8217;s it like to not carry a smart phone?<\/strong> (I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;ve never carried a smart phone, only a cell phone. I have nothing to compare it to, so I honestly don&#8217;t know. The smart phone seems like a way for marketers and others to have unrestricted access to me, so I&#8217;m not all that keen on the idea of owning one.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>What if you have an emergency?<\/strong> (At first, I was stubborn. Everyone else has a phone, so I can borrow one in an emergency. That was my argument, and it lasted about 7 months. However, my partner insisted that I carry a cell for emergencies, so I got a burner mostly to comfort him and foster family harmony.)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, there I was, not-doing anything, and it got me all kinds of attention. It was like I was actually doing something! One conference organizer suggested I prepare a talk about what it was like to not-carry a phone.<\/p>\n<p>That seemed crazy to me. But I was wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Not-doing something is the new doing something. People are fascinated by people who don&#8217;t-do things.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a long list of popular things to not-do. Eat meat\/gluten\/sugar. Drink alcohol or coffee. Do drugs. Have children. Watch TV. Consume the news. Drive a car. Go to church. Use social media. Carry a gun or credit card. Honestly, the list of things to not-do is infinite.<\/p>\n<p>However, what do people do while they&#8217;re not doing the thing they&#8217;re not doing?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the odd part: they talk or write incessantly about the thing they are not doing! If you decide <a href=\"http:\/\/fork-free.tumblr.com\/\">not to use a fork<\/a>, for example, you set up a Tumblr account to journal about the experience. If you&#8217;re<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3012521\/unplug\/baratunde-thurston-leaves-the-internet\"> not going to use the internet for a bit<\/a>, you issue a press release and try to get media coverage or a book deal. If you plan to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mrmoneymustache.com\/\">not-work and not-drive a car<\/a>, you set up a blog and make money from the idea of not needing much money.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, I&#8217;m a bit jealous. There&#8217;s a zillion things that I don&#8217;t do. It simply never occurred to me that not-doing something was worthy of a book deal, blog, TV show, press release, or humanitarian award.<\/p>\n<p>Since not-doing anything is a pretty hot trend, I thought I might cash in on this gravy train. Pick a thing that I don&#8217;t do, and then write about not doing it. What I normally do is not even think about the things I&#8217;m not doing.<\/p>\n<p>Why feed the poor, care for the sick, pick up trash, or plant trees &#8212; for example &#8212; when you can do nothing and make the world a better place?<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, I&#8217;ve been doing it wrong. I&#8217;m going to start not-doing it right!<\/p>\n<p>What are you not-doing lately? Where&#8217;s your humanitarian award?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, I noticed this absurd trend of gallantly and heroically doing nothing. About 19 months ago, I accidentally left my cell phone home and traveled out of town on business. When I arrived at the hotel, I needed to find the conference organizer. I used my laptop to call her via Skype &amp; explained that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogging","category-content-ideas","category-fun","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":528,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}