Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less

An updated edition for the classic book on escaping the drudgery of overwork and finding excellence and happiness--by doing less 

Overwork is the new normal. Rest is something to do when the important things are done—but they are never done. Looking at different forms of rest, from sleep to vacation, Silicon Valley futurist and business consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang dispels the myth that the harder we work, the better the outcome. He combines rigorous scientific research with a rich array of examples of writers, painters, and thinkers—from Darwin to Stephen King—to challenge our tendency to see work and relaxation as antithetical. "Deliberate rest," as Pang calls it, is the true key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life. Updated with a new epilogue on rest and successful aging, Rest offers a road map to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.  

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang has spent the past twenty years studying people, technology, and the worlds they make. A professional futurist with a PhD in the history of science, Pang is a former Microsoft Research fellow, a visiting scholar at Stanford and Oxford universities, and a senior consultant at Strategic Business Insights. Pang is the author of four books, including Shorter and The Distraction Addiction, and his writings have appeared in Scientific American, American Scientist, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review, as well as in many academic publications. He is based in Silicon Valley.