When was the last time someone said to you, “slow down, take the time needed and finish the task to a quality completion?” Whether it’s at work, home, school or anywhere else in life, typically an urgency is raised by someone else and imposed on you; whether a last-minute task or a poorly-developed plan, it’s now on you to complete it. I have referred to this before as a “culture of ASAP”, however most would just say it’s pretty much standard operating procedure these days.

When the suggestion from a work-related book club was made to read Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport, I had mixed emotions about it. By simply reading the title I knew I was generally in agreement with premise, however I was already lamenting finishing the book and not being able to integrate any of it. I knew the usage of the word “slow” comes from the expression “slow food,” which is a movement where people take the time to prepare meals using real ingredients and not rushing to eat. Rather than judging this book by its cover, I bought a copy and decided to see how I felt after reading it.

Any biases aside, I was hoping to gain some key takeaways from Slow Productivity, which did happen.

Humans derive great satisfaction from being good at what they do and producing useful things – This line I took from the book verbatim, and I can’t agree with it more. Having satisfaction and pride is not egotistical, as I see it essential to us getting up every morning and facing the day. Granted, there’s many times when someone does something for the money, but this I see as a goal for the journey in what someone spends most of their time doing. This line reminded me of how I got started working with computers and my first consulting gig using them in high school.

The importance of work intake – Whether something is assigned to us or we take it upon ourselves, we often don’t consider the full 360-degree picture of it. We often say we will “make it work,” but don’t think that balancing the new task or activity among all the others we have in process will impact the quality or completion of any or all of them. The concept of “task-switching” instead of multi-tasking comes to mind here, as we are not doing multiple things at once, rather we are switching between multiple things, not giving any of them the focus and attention they deserve. Even if we believe it’s the right thing to do, not doing it well – whatever it is – is a consequence.

Rituals in how we work – Where I know some people who can just sit down and do the task before them, I am not one of them. I often use rituals in my own work. For example, as I write this, I am at a coffee shop and not at home nor at my co-working space, as I find I can sometimes be more focused and creative with beans grinding and various conversations in the background, not to mention other venues where I have gone to in order to simply think. My notes for this post indicated I read this book while sitting in parking lots when taking my kids to various sports practices.

Slow Productivity was a quick read, and in the end worthwhile to me, namely as it reaffirmed many of my beliefs and gave me some additional context in approaching many of the tasks I take on. This is a good book for anyone who feels a little stuck in their working ways, or for a leader who doesn’t feel their team is working as well as they could be, as it may enlighten them on their approach to them.

As for what I am doing with this book, I am going to hold onto this and bring it with me the next time I am in Chicago and drop it off in a high-profile place in the Loop; perhaps some leader will see it and it will help their thinking about those who work for them and that there’s a better way to be more productive.

This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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