I had seen this book recommended by a bunch of people, and they were right! It's an important message about how our culture pushes us to work way more than is healthy or necessary, and how we can start to set boundaries and prioritize what really matters. But unlike a lot of "self-help" messages, this book is grounded in recognizing how oppression and inequality affect the situation, and the individual people whose stories are featured are a diverse set. I also appreciated the chapter devoted specifically to activism and how to engage in a way that's sustainable. ( )

A really interesting book with a provocative title. Devon challenges to look at our own overcommitted, busy lives and stop blaming ourselves for not doing everything we think we ought to be doing, and beating ourselves up if we take time out to rest and recharge. He argues that we will be better employees, better friends and relatives and better citizens if we stop feeling guilty about what we don't do, and instead celebrate what we are able to achieve, and look for the good and the beautiful in the world. He also teaches us, instead of rushing to judgment, to practice "compassionate curiosity", looking for the reasons (individual and systemic) that may be behind failures we see in others. He calls us to be humble about our own abilities and free ourselves accept ourselves with our own imperfections. I found this work thought provoking and though the title may overstate the case a little, the content will stay with me for a long time. ( )

Devon Price is a social psychologist with a strong emphasis on the practical--what works for individuals, and the importance of recognizing and respecting self-care and your own values.

In this book, their emphasis is on the importance on not valuing yourself solely on your productivity for others. If you are struggling to make deadlines, always exhausted, and on the edge of burning out, you're probably doing something wrong. And the problem isn't "laziness." It's defining your value by how productive you are for others, while setting your own needs, and often health, aside.

Price takes an in-depth, compassionate look at that the situations in which employers, family, friends, and the people themselves call someone lazy, the different things that may really be going on, and how to start setting healthy boundaries, addressing whatever real issues there are, and becoming a happier, healthier person. This includes their own experience with getting the flu, ignoring it because they had work obligations including writing their thesis, and staying sick for a year because they never slowed down to let themself recover. Other cases, of other people with different challenges but the same basic problem--working too hard to have time to address other important things in their lives because we live in a society which values us by our productivity at work--offer different perspectives, different situations, and different approaches to getting life back under control and getting healthy and happy again.

This is such a good book. I both enjoyed it, and found it very helpful.

The narrator is also excellent.

I bought this audiobook. ( )

Let go of the myths surrounding productivity.

Scene: I'm sitting at my desk at the library, finishing a book called Laziness Does Not Exist because I want to recommend it as an extra resource for a program called "The Science of Success" that I'm presenting next month. I'm in the last couple of paragraphs of the conclusion, and I'm reading, but my mind is also wandering ahead to the to-do list I need to make for work tomorrow, the stuff I need to do when I get home tonight, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.

A co-worker, who knows I just finished spring semester and I have about a month off until my summer class starts, walks by and says, "Enjoy your break from school."

Oh.

I'm going to need to read this about seven more times. ( )