Harvardwood x Penntertainment Co-Present: Learn How to Work Less

Join us for a conversation with author Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, PhD, as he discusses the hidden role that rest plays in the lives of creative, prolific people. Moderated by Harvardwood President Allison Kiessling. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, and history, it shows that many accomplished people used rest in ways that helped them be more creative and productive. REST seeks to understand why their practices worked, and how adapt them to our own busy lives.   

About REST: 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, Dr. 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. Rest offers a roadmap 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 is program director at 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit advocating for the 4-day workweek. His trilogy of books— SHORTER: Work Better, Smarter and Less— Here’s How (Public Affairs, 2020); REST: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less (Basic Books, 2016), and THE DISTRACTION ADDICTION (Little Brown, 2013)— shows how companies and individuals can better integrate rest, creativity, and focus into digital-age lives and work. Alex has been a consultant at Institute for the Future and Strategic Business Insights, and a visiting scholar at Microsoft Research Cambridge, Oxford University, Stanford University, and UC Berkeley. Alex received a Ph.D. in history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania.