Having chosen slowing down and intentional living as top priorities for 2025, I thought it’d be useful to listen to “Do Nothing”, a book that discusses both. In two parts, Celeste Headlee introduces the “cult of efficiency” that our current capitalist culture subscribes to—including a brief history of the productivity and labor shifts that brought us here—and conveniently provides an action plan for the individual to escape it.

Although some view this book as anti-capitalist, I don’t believe it is inherently against it, but instead a proposal on how we can optimize our lives for healthy wellbeing while capitalism remains our core economic system. We must rethink the way we prioritize our time, align our actions with our deeper values, and reconcile our consumption and ambition with our “enough”. Implementing these simple steps, along with promoting wellbeing as a key indicator of a healthy economy, instead of entirely relying on the current metric of spending, will allow us to thrive in a capitalist society.

I definitely recommend listening to the audiobook. With decades of experience hosting a radio show, Celeste has mastered both pitch and tone, making her narration excellent. Three stars for the entertaining and thought provoking overview. Lacking enough depth and analysis for four.