How Do You Resist Being Productive? (Michelle Intro) (12/04/2021)

How Do You Resist Being Productive? | The Weekly Atticus

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Intro by Michelle Ross.

As I considered what to write about in this newsletter, I found myself feeling frenzied because of all that I must produce in the upcoming days and weeks. In addition to this newsletter, there is the content I must create for my day job, the content I must create in way of generating publicity for the book I published this past month, the content I must help my son produce for school. I could go on and on. Sometimes, this frenzied state helps me get done what needs to get done. I get a buzz of mad energy. I make long to-do lists, and I plow through the items on those lists. Other times, this frenzied state makes me rebellious. Like Jenny Odell advocates for in her book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, I find myself seeking ways to resist being productive. Instead of tackling the most urgent tasks, I write a new flash fiction, I cook a lovely dinner, I go on a long hike, or I read a novel. I suppose one could argue that these are productive pursuits, too, but the difference, I think, is in the mindset. This approach to writing (or cooking) isn't so much driven by some urge to produce something. It's escapism. It's bliss. But then there's a third kind of frenzied state, the frenzied state in which I waste far too much time falling through an internet rabbit hole. I might flit between the news and social media and Googling this which leads to Googling that. This state feels so intimately tied with the internet that I struggle to remember what this state was like for me before the internet.The term "attention economy" has been around for about 50 years (it was coined by Herbert A. Simon), but the idea of attention as a limited resource we barter and spend is much older than that, evidenced by the idiom, pay attention. To pay attention in exchange for information or entertainment or whatever else it is we seek is all well and good, but one of the challenges with the internet is that we can't seek out anything online without being bombarded by much we were not seeking. Sometimes bumping into that which we weren't seeking can be delightful, but oftentimes, not so much. For instance, in writing this newsletter, I sought out online interviews with Jenny Odell, and every site I visited was littered with advertisements. When the blinking and jerking movements of advertisements on one site drove me nuts, I closed that window and tried another interview, only to run into the same problem again and again. These advertisements made it impossible for me to focus on Odell's words. They also made me irritable and jittery. Someone asked me in an interview recently what writing means to me. There are so many ways I could answer this question, but what strikes me now is how much I cherish and need the solitude of writing—the escape from the external world, from all the noise. Writing is a means of warding off that third kind of frenzied state, or at least limiting it. If I'm doing it right—meaning approaching writing as play, as escape versus another item on a to-do list—writing isn't hard. It's work, sure. It requires the payment of attention. But writing is easier than not writing. The ritual of getting up before sunrise, when my house and my street and my city feel quiet, to be alone with my thoughts, helps me feel balanced. It's a feeling that carries into the rest of my day.What helps you resist the attention economy? How do you resist being productive?Thanks for reading. We're glad you're here.Michelle RossFiction Editor

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