A few weeks ago, I started a new Are.na channel that I entitled Intentional unproductivity. I added this recently, and it annoys me that I think that it's a good idea and something that I might actually use.
Why does it annoy me? Because it feels like something that neither I, nor any human, should need. But most of us are subject to the Protestant work ethic which underpins modern capitalism, equating our value with how much we work.
…The burnout of our age, Han writes, doesn’t come from external repression but from internal overproduction. We are not crushed by the lash; we are fried by the light, the constant buzz of notifications, the tyranny of being reachable, and the invisible expectation to always be on.
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– Miski Omar, The Guardian
Ky Decker has written a really interesting post about quitting his tech job. Yes, the proximal cause is AI, but once you get past that, there some interesting points on productive friction, values, and burnout.
No matter how rapidly technology changes, I am coalescing around some core beliefs:
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