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A review by categal
Less Doing, More Living: Make Everything in Life Easier by Ari Meisel
2.0
This book is packed with tips, advice, ideas, suggestions on how to automate yourself. By turning your brain over to the internet and semi-anonymous online services that will do the thinking for you, you can become more efficient, productive, and creative. I am uncomfortable with signing up for "free" or low fee services that have access to all sorts of personal information and data - I wonder what's being done with all this private data, how else it might be used.
I was also struck by how we have taken some very modern technology, and turned it into a sort of Mad Men style boss/secretary relationship. Let's outsource buying flowers for our girlfriends - have your online assistant send flowers, but not too regularly, that way it seems more spontaneous and heartfelt. Do we all need secretaries to handle our dry cleaning and make appointments for us? Is it ok to pay anonymous services pennies a month to schedule mammograms and write checks on our behalf because we don't feel like we should have to do it ourselves? Do we have a responsibility to know the working conditions of these establishments? These are some of the thoughts that popped up for me during this read, which makes me think that I am not quite up-to-speed in this modern world.
If your work is primarily online, there are very useful explanations of different softwares and apps that you'll want to check out, and I like the minimize everything approach. I liked the Wellness chapter because it was an excellent analysis of how to think about health, along with solid suggestions that weren't just app reviews.
This is a book that I would like to revisit in maybe five years, and see if my own ideas about privacy and the quantified self have changed enough to appreciate this approach.
I was also struck by how we have taken some very modern technology, and turned it into a sort of Mad Men style boss/secretary relationship. Let's outsource buying flowers for our girlfriends - have your online assistant send flowers, but not too regularly, that way it seems more spontaneous and heartfelt. Do we all need secretaries to handle our dry cleaning and make appointments for us? Is it ok to pay anonymous services pennies a month to schedule mammograms and write checks on our behalf because we don't feel like we should have to do it ourselves? Do we have a responsibility to know the working conditions of these establishments? These are some of the thoughts that popped up for me during this read, which makes me think that I am not quite up-to-speed in this modern world.
If your work is primarily online, there are very useful explanations of different softwares and apps that you'll want to check out, and I like the minimize everything approach. I liked the Wellness chapter because it was an excellent analysis of how to think about health, along with solid suggestions that weren't just app reviews.
This is a book that I would like to revisit in maybe five years, and see if my own ideas about privacy and the quantified self have changed enough to appreciate this approach.