As a long-term supporter of Slow Food, I am always happy to see its principles applied to other areas (I guess the general principle is to focus on quality and enjoyment, not on the time it takes to achieve results).
Slow Food was originally meant as a protest movement against fast food when the first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Italy in 1986. Its idea was to promote fresh, regional, saisonal and simple food instead. It still does that, notably in its Osterie d’Italia guide, which lists restaurants offering such food throughout Italy (similar guides exist in other countries). Over time, Slow Food has grown into a bit of a mass movement in Italy and is now mainly focused on helping defend traditional varieties of produce globally.
In Slow Productivity, Cal Newport transfers these ideas to the area of – you guessed it – productivity: Starting from the observation that knowledge workers are increasingly stressed and unhappy at being subjected to productivity measurements, he shows how some of history’s great thinkers and inventors (e.g. Isaac Newton, Lin-Manuel Miranda or Marie Curie) took years or even decades to develop their ideas, and would sometimes go on holiday right after coming up with a new idea!
They were productive, he argues – but much less stressed than today’s knowledge workers, who may be caught up in a wrong definition of productivity. Instead, Newport promotes Slow Productivity, with three key principles:
Slow Productivity Principles
- DO FEWER THINGS – 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.
- WORK AT A NATURAL PACE – 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.
- OBSESS OVER QUALITY – 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.
These ideas can serve as a counterweight to any notions of measurable productivity (for those who can afford it and do not depend on some more or less arbitrary success metrics in their work). Specific ideas include e.g. making a 5-year plan and returning to this regularly to keep a focus on what’s important, or embracing seasonality by varying the intensity and focus of your work throughout the year.
Also, Newport gives a nice background on Slow Food, identifying two big ideas for developing reform movements: (A) focus on alternatives to what’s wrong and (B) draw these solutions from time-tested traditions. Do not just protest/ sue against new developments, but show how and why traditional practices can be better. Now this sounds worth thinking about. In time.
image: calnewport.com