Try slow productivity to accomplish things without burning out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Ada Community Library I recently found the interesting 2024 book by Calvin C. Newport titled SLOW PRODUCTIVITY: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout. There is a review of it by Jennifer Szalai at The New York Times on March 6, 2024 titled The Very Busy Writer Telling Everyone to Slow Down.

 

He defines slow productivity on page 41:

 

SLOW PRODUCTIVITY

A philosophy for organizing knowledge work efforts in a sustainable and meaningful manner, based on the following three principles:

1] Do fewer things.

2] Work at a natural pace.

3] Obsess over quality.

 

Then he defines those principles in more detail:

 

PRINCIPLE #1: DO FEWER THINGS (page 53)

Strive to reduce your obligations to the point where you can easily imagine accomplishing them with time to spare. Leverage this reduced load to more fully embrace and advance the small number of projects that matter most.

 

PRINCIPLE #2: WORK AT A NATURAL PACE (page 116)

Don’t rush your most important work. Allow it instead to unfold along a sustainable timeline, with variations in intensity, in settings conducive to brilliance.

 

PRINCIPLE #3: OBSESS OVER QUALITY (page 173)

Obsess over the quality of what you produce, even if this means missing opportunities in the short term. Leverage the value of these results to gain more and more freedom in your efforts over the long term.

 

Cal describes his goals in conclusion on page 216:

 

“I have two goals for this book. The first is focused: to help as many people as possible free themselves from the dehumanizing grip of pseudo-productivity. As noted in the introduction, not everyone has access to this outcome. The philosophy I developed is meant primarily for those who engage in skilled labor with significant amounts of autonomy. This target audience covers large swaths of the knowledge sector, including most freelancers, solopreneurs, and small-business owners, as well as those in fields like academia, where great freedom is afforded in how you choose and organize your efforts.

 

If you fall into one of those categories, and are exhausted by the chronic overload and fast pacing of pseudo-productivity, then I urge you to consider radically transforming your professional life along the three principles I proposed. Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality. Depending on the details of your role, this probably won’t mean spending weeks staring up at tree branches or typing notes on a typewriter, but it will almost certainly lead to a more sustainable relationship with your job.”  

 

The Antonio Zanchi painting of Sisyphus was modified from one at Wikimedia Commons.