Read an Excerpt from Do Nothing
What if freedom wasn't about walking away — but about learning how not to answer everything that calls your name?
This excerpt comes from the book's opening chapter: Set Status to Away.
It captures one of the first shifts I noticed after leaving work — that the reflex to stay productive doesn't vanish when your calendar clears. It lingers. And sometimes, the hardest part isn't stopping what you're doing — it's letting go of why you were doing it in the first place.
Excerpt from Chapter 1: Set Status to Away
I used to think that once I left corporate life, my time would finally be mine.
No more urgent emails.
No more packed calendars.
No more chat pings demanding instant replies.
It sounded like freedom.
But it wasn't — not right away.
What I've learned is that walking away from work doesn't automatically undo the habits work built into me.
I woke up early.
I checked my phone before getting out of bed.
I opened Microsoft Outlook — only now it was pointed at my personal inbox instead of my corporate one.
And yes, I chased Inbox Zero — like clearing messages somehow made the day feel accomplished, even when it wasn't.
It felt productive. Responsible. Safe.
But all it really meant was I was handing my time over to other people's priorities — not my own.
I wasn't working anymore — but I was acting like I was on the clock.
No one tells you that stopping doesn't feel like freedom.
After years of running at full speed, it's more like whiplash.
You have to unlearn it.
I didn't leave because I had a plan. I left because I had questions I didn't want to ignore anymore.
At the time, I thought those questions were about what came next.
But they were really about why I'd kept going the way I had.
It's not as simple as flipping your availability status to yellow.
Setting yourself to Away is a mindset, not a menu option.
It's about giving yourself permission not to respond — to others, to tasks, and most of all, to your own restless need to get things done.
And honestly? That kind of permission — to pause, to disengage — has been harder to learn than any job I ever had.
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