Do Nothing: Stop Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving

A core belief of our current culture is that hard work leads to success. While there is some truth to that, it's far too tempting to go to extremes and lose yourself in the process. This isn't an accident. Companies have been trying to instill the “time is money” priority in workers for decades. Over time, however, the so-called “cult of efficiency” resulted in the feeling that we live to work, rather than work to live.

Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Celeste Headlee, this talk looks at how companies manipulated us into feeling obligated to spend far too much time at work, and far too much time staying connected to work even when we're not there. The goal is to find ways to take back your life and establish a realistic balance between what you do for a living, and who you are as a person.

The presentation covers how we got into the present situation, and practical steps we can take to reclaim your time, your values, and your life.

About Kenneth Kousen

Ken Kousen is a Java Champion, several time JavaOne Rock Star, and a Grails Rock Star. He is the author of the Pragmatic Library books “Mockito Made Clear” and “Help Your Boss Help You,” the O'Reilly books “Kotlin Cookbook”, “Modern Java Recipes”, and “Gradle Recipes for Android”, and the Manning book “Making Java Groovy”. He also has recorded over a dozen video courses for the O'Reilly Learning Platform, covering topics related to Android, Spring, Java, Groovy, Grails, and Gradle.

His academic background include BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics from M.I.T., an MA and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Princeton, and an MS in Computer Science from R.P.I. He is currently President of Kousen IT, Inc., based in Connecticut.

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