Slow Productivity
By: Cal Newport
Cal is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University. He has written other books including Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and many more. He also hosts a podcast called Deep Questions.
What The Book Is About
The aim of this book is to introduce a new way of being productive at work. Cal argues against what he has termed “pseudo-productivity” which he describes as “the use of visible activity as a primary means of approximating actual productive effort.” In simple terms, this is when your productivity is mainly based on the appearance of doing work instead of the actual work produced.
An example of this many people might understand all too well is the expectation to be ultra responsive to emails. Unless part of your job description is responding to customers or team emails immediately, Cal believes this act does not appropriately display productivity or lead directly to desired outcomes or revenue.
In today’s world, many jobs are knowledge based compared to physical labor or assembly lines. Because of this, it can be difficult to know if workers are actually being productive. Cal offers his insights into what he believes is a better approach to productivity.
Who Could Benefit From Reading This
- This book is mainly for those working in the “knowledge sector”
- This means someone who’s time input does not have a direct correlation to product output
- Anyone who does creative work
- Author, musician, artist, content creator, etc
- People who work from home
- This is especially true if you work on a team
Overall Impression
I enjoyed reading this book as the author provided ample examples for his opinions. The book was roughly 220 pages and it was an easy read. There was a good blend of storytelling practical takeaways throughout.
Cal made it very easy to remember his main concepts as they don’t require much explanation. The principles are: 1) do fewer things, 2) work at a natural pace, and 3) obsess over quality.
However, he elaborates within each chapter for why he believes these principles and how to apply them. Most of his concepts can be easily applied if you are in control of your work flow or schedule. Cal offers solutions on how to apply these concepts even if you do not have complete autonomy with your work environment or situation.
Key Takeaways and Highlights
The main focus of this book is to rethink how people approach their work systems. The goal is to achieve better outcomes and feel less stressed during the process. In today’s world, success and achievement are often measured by how many active things people are working on and how busy their schedules are. Many feel expected to be working at a frenetic pace and juggle many obligations simultaneously. This often leads to projects being completed right “on time” with “good enough” production value.
I have felt all of these working as a Physician Assistant/Associate. In the medical field, it is common to have a full schedule with back-to-back patients for the entire day. Stress is common and you often feel behind with your workload. Sometimes, this can lead to discussing the minimum acceptable amount with a patient during their visit in order to get caught up.
Do Fewer Things
One of the reasons many people feel burnt out is because they have too many things to manage. If you have less items on your plate, you would be able to focus on each item with more time.
”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”
Reduce your missions, projects, and daily goals. Missions are defined as major commitments or things which require substantial time and planning. Projects are tasks which require more than 1 session to complete. Daily goals allow you to complete your projects. The less you have of each of these, the better.
An example of each of these are as follows. A mission could be to be promoted to divisional manager at your company. Projects could be leading your current team members, participating in other committees, organizing events, and managing client cases. Daily goals could be having meetings with each team member to get updates, responding to many different emails for the committees you are on, calling vendors for your events, and working on your client cases. Each goal helps you complete your project and each project helps you move closer to your mission.
The example above demonstrates how many tasks there are with a mission, projects, and goals. Daily goals may seem small but they add up. Projects require many goals in order to complete them. Missions add a significant amount of workload.
Now imagine your boss asks you to complete a few more projects or you feel ambitious and add another mission. Or consider the fact that what someone sees as a project, someone else may view it as a mission. This exponentially increases the amount you would be responsible for. This hasn’t even taken into account non-work related missions such as having a social life, being a good spouse, raising children, or maintaining your health. And yet this is what your average person views as normal. It’s easy to see how a vast amount of people are feeling burnout at high levels.
By reducing the amount of tasks you are juggling, you can direct your focus on the items that have the biggest impact. Limit the amount of missions, projects, and daily tasks in order to work at a more natural pace.
Work At A Natural Pace
Because people have too many obligations, they tend to speed through them too fast. By slowing down and working at a reasonable pace, you can complete assignments and tasks comfortably without anxiety hanging over your head.
“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”
Have you ever estimated how long something will take then feel stressed because the deadline is approaching and you aren’t close to finishing the task? Many people can relate to this. I am laughing to myself as I write this post because I thought it would only take me a few hours to complete. I write down notes when I read a book so that, in theory, it will streamline the writing. In reality, this post has taken at least 4 hours and counting. I’m sure I’m not alone with incorrectly guessing how long certain efforts will take.
Humans are lousy at predicting how long is required to complete things. Especially if we don’t keep track of how long those things normally take. We often estimate time based on best case scenarios. Unfortunately, life happens and rarely do these best case scenarios become reality. This is why we tend to rush and feel consistently behind.
One way to combat this is to double the estimated time it will take to complete any project or task. By dramatically increasing your timetables, you then will provide the leniency to take longer than expected. In fact, doing this will help you actually finish everything on time because you expected it to take longer anyway.
The end result is you will help create a sense of accomplishment instead of distress. By sharpening the skill of estimating time and your capabilities, you will actually be able to complete more tasks because you will be working on the appropriate amount of projects. And there is nothing wrong with finishing projects earlier than expected. This will give you more time to make changes and final adjustments to produce your best work.
Obsess Over Quality
When thinking about someone’s reputation, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Is it a personality trait, a physical feature, a feeling, or something else? This will be different for everyone. But the one underlying factor that is true for everyone is the magnitude of the thought.
“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”
In your professional life, the quality of your work is your reputation. No one will choose a surgeon with great bedside manner and a welcoming office if their condition is likely to become worse after an operation. The same is true in any industry.
This is the most important principle of the book. If you do not produce quality work, you will not be allowed to do fewer things or work at a natural pace. However, if your reputation is to deliver high level outcomes, doing fewer things and working at a natural pace will be justified. Prove to those around you the juice is worth the squeeze.
One way to achieve this is to get people to invest into you and your goals. When people invest in you, there will be an obligation to put your best foot forward and not let them down. For example, if your grandma pays for the equipment you said is required to move forward with your project, you can’t repay this debt with little effort and poor results.
However, the same obligation is felt when someone invests their time and energy into you. A mentor who spends their free time helping you is also an investor. When people support you, it creates motivation to succeed and prove their faith in you was well deserved. The best way to accomplish this is to obsess over the quality of your work.
Final Thoughts
Slow Productivity is a great book which aims to help improve your work life while simultaneously producing your highest quality work. There were so many good thoughts and insights. I had a hard time narrowing down my favorite takeaways.
Here are a few of my honorable mentions:
- Overhead tax is the extra administrative time and energy required to complete a task. This can include participating in meetings, responding to task specific emails, or collaborating with other members of a team. Make sure to take these time and energy costs into account when accepting a new task or project.
- Apply seasonality into your work schedule. Do this within your year, month, or week. Create slow seasons to combat a constant high stress workload, implementing “no meeting Mondays,” or schedule “rest projects” in order to have something to look forward to after a duration of intense work.
- Tell people the projects you are working on and when you plan to complete them. This will create deadlines and the people you tell may ask for updates on your projects. This will force you to stick to a schedule and to produce work you are proud to share with others.
I recommend this book for anyone working on projects that require planning and taking consistent action. It is easy to fall into the productivity trap of multitasking, working at a fast pace, and focusing on the quantity of work produced. However, taking a slow productivity approach may be the better path to do fewer things, work at a natural pace and create your highest quality results.
