The benefits of slow productivity

If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed by the pace of modern life and the constant churn of change, a new book may be just what the doctor ordered. Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout by Cal Newport, now out in paperback, draws on the slow food movement and questions whether our constant busyness is actually effective and whether, in a world of AI, we should focus on going at a more human pace instead. He is a firm believer in the value of human creativity and the power of reflection to lead to deep change.

His book sets out how to get to slow productivity in ‘knowledge-related’ jobs, based on three main principles: Do fewer things; work at a natural pace; and obsess over quality.

Newport writes about how the knowledge sector offers “a never-ending supply of available tasks” and that ‘no-one is going to tell you specifically how much is enough – that’s up to you.’  That will be a very familiar pressure for many people and it can very easily lead to overwork and a blurring of work and leisure time.

So how does slow productivity work? Newport begins by questioning the concept of productivity which he says is quite vague for white collar workers and tends to result in using visible activity as a proxy for actual productivity. That, he says, results in less creativity and more effort being directed to shallower, more concrete tasks that can be more easily ticked off a to-do list.

His first principle, do fewer things, may seem self-explanatory, but he fleshes it out. It’s not just about cutting down on meetings and emails and limiting missions, projects and daily goals. Newport advises focusing on the big picture things, putting routine tasks on autopilot schedules to contain the time spent on them, reducing the amount of time spent talking about tasks rather than doing them, implementing reverse task lists where you encourage people to think more about what they really want before requesting something and spending money – if you can afford it – on offloading tasks to experts such as accountants.

In a world where you can never do enough, he proposes a pull model where you divide tasks that need to be done according to urgency and have a holding tank of those that are less important. You can then regularly review these and keep people in the loop with regard to progress and explain that you are working on other urgent projects, therefore managing their expectations. Transparency and communication are key, he says.

Work at a natural pace

The second principle of slow productivity is to work at a natural pace. Newport says: “Our exhausting tendency to grind without relief, hour after hour, day after day, month after month, is more arbitrary than we recognise…We suffer from overly ambitious timelines and poorly managed workloads due to a fundamental uneasiness with ever stepping back from the numbing exhaustion of jittery busyness.”

While it may seem we are being useful, this actually makes us less effective, he says, and more miserable. To work at a more natural pace, he counsels making long-term plans, doubling project timelines, simplifying your workday [for instance, through protecting certain hours, embracing seasonality [where you work harder at certain times, but factor in rest time or slow seasons of ‘quiet quitting’] or implement ‘small seasonality’, for instance, by not having meetings on one day or morning/afternoon of the week, matching big projects with less intensive rest projects or working in cycles of busyness and less busyness.

Obsess over quality

The third principle is to obsess over quality and do core tasks better, taking inspiration from other types of work and focusing on progress rather than perfection.

Newport concludes that the way we are now working no longer works and it is time to be more intentional about what productivity actually is. He says a slower approach is not only feasible, but “likely superior” to the current approach and could improve many people’s lives. What matters is where you end up, not the speed at which you get there. “We’ve tried the fast approach for at least the past 70 seventy years. It isn’t working. The time has come to try something slower,” he says. “Slowing down isn’t about protesting work. It’s instead about finding a better way to do it.”

*Slow productivity: The lost art of accomplishment without burnout by Cal Newport, is published by Penguin Random House. 

• Vote  
• 0
• 0
• You already voted!