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M T h e A R T & S C I E N C E
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R o f D O I N G N O T H I N G
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A N D R E W S M A R T
ANDREW SMART WANTS YOU TO SIT AND DO NOTHING MUCH
MORE OFTEN—AND HE HAS THE SCIENCE TO EXPLAIN WHY
Andrew Smart wants you to sit and do nothing much
more often—and he has the science to explain why
“A hugely entertaining read about what we do most
of the time, i.e. nothing. If you are to read one pop A U T O -
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science book this year, this should be it.”
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—PROF. HAKWAN LAU, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
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At every turn, we’re pushed to do more faster, more efficiently: that
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drumbeat resounds throughout our wage-slave society. Multitasking
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is not only a virtue, it’s a necessity. But Autopilot argues that slackers
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may have the last laugh. It makes a compelling case—backed by I
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science—that filling life with activity at work and at home actually
hurts your brain. O
Autopilot is a witty, informative and wide-ranging book that draws
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on the most recent research into brain power. Use it to explain to bosses,
family, and friends why you need to relax—right now.
A human factors research scientist, ANDREW SMART received B.S. and
M.S. degrees from Lund University in Sweden, where he worked on
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using noise to improve memory and attention in children with ADHD. M T h e A R T & S C I E N C E
While at New York University, he analyzed brain imaging data from
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experiments on the neural basis of language. Autopilot is his first book.
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OR Books
www.orbooks.com
A N D R E W S M A R T
Brain illustration courtesy of Wikimedia
Cover design by Bathcat Ltd
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OR Books
New York • London
© 2013 Andrew Smart
Printed by OR Books, New York and London
Visit our website at www.orbooks.com
First printing 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,
or any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher, except brief passages for review purposes.
Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-939293-10-7 paperback
ISBN 978-1-939293-11-4 e-book
Typeset by Lapiz Digital, Chennai, India.
Printed by BookMobile, USA, and CPI, UK. The U.S. printed edition of this book
comes on Forest Stewardship Council-certified, 30% recycled paper. The printer,
BookMobile, is 100% wind-powered.
C O N T E N T S
Introduction 1
1: That Loathsome Monster Idleness 13
2: Someone Else’s Noise 35
3: Aha! moments and Self-Knowledge 61
4: Rilke and the Idle Examined Life 67
5: You Are a Self-Organizing System 79
6: Revolution or Suicide 87
7: The Signal Is the Noise 99
8: Six Sigma Is a Seizure 119
9: Work Is Destroying the Planet 133
Acknowledgements 141
References 145
I N T R O D U C T I O N
I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are
forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spent in the most pro-
found activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not
take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of
a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days.
In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with
devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not
stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them
without hearing a whole lot.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
This book is about being idle. Being idle is one of the most
important activities in life, and I have roused myself to share
my thoughts on the subject, and hope to convince others as well.
This, despite the fact that all over the world our working hours
are increasing and every time management book on the market
claims that you can and should get more done. The message
of this book is the opposite. You should get less done; in fact
you should be idle. Neuroscientific evidence argues that your
brain needs to rest, right now. While our minds are exquisitely
evolved for intense action, in order to function normally our
brains also need to be idle—a lot of the time, it turns out.
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A N D R E W S M A R T
We are too purposeful, too directed; we should let ourselves
go on autopilot more often. In aviation, an autopilot is a system
for controlling airplanes without input from pilots, developed
because flying an airplane manually requires absolute, con-
stant attention from the pilot. As flying got higher, faster, and
longer, manual flying caused serious (and dangerous) levels of
pilot fatigue. The introduction of autopilots allowed pilots to
take a break from physically controlling the airplane so they
could save mental energy for higher risk phases of the flight,
like takeoff and landing. Today, autopilots use software to fly
the plane.
The downside of autopilots is that sometimes pilots become
confused about whether the autopilot or they themselves are fly-
ing the plane. This is called “mode confusion” and has resulted
in fatal accidents.
Interestingly, your brain has an autopilot. When you enter
a resting state, relinquishing “manual control” over your life,
your brain’s autopilot engages. The autopilot knows where you
really want to go, and what you really want to do. But the only
way to find out what your autopilot knows is to stop flying the
plane, and let your autopilot guide you. Just as pilots become
dangerously fatigued while flying airplanes manually, all of us
need to take a break and let our autopilots fly our planes more
of the time. The trick is to avoid “mode confusion” by taking it
easy, putting away our schedule, and not getting things done.
Psychological research has shown that humans, espe-
cially American humans, tend to dread idleness. However, this
research also shows that if people do not have a justification
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