How to Slow Your Day Down – and Get More Done
Slow productivity is a work philosophy that offers an antidote to hustle culture. Here are a few ways to get more done by doing less.
My 20s feel like a blur. Once I graduated from college and entered the real world, it didn’t take long for me to figure out the 9to5 life wasn’t for me. I spent most of my 20s hustling, trying to create a viable business that would liberate me from the world of work.
I started my first business, an oat milk company, while I still had a 9to5 job. I didn’t know anything about food production, much less that people paid manufacturers to produce products for them. So I did what every entrepreneur is supposed to do: I wore all the hats and made my oat milk business my 5to9.
I didn’t sleep much when I had my oat milk company. On top of making small batches of oat milk five nights a week, I made deliveries to our customers before work in the mornings and ran a farmers market stall on the weekends.
After that failed, I realized product-based businesses are much harder to build than I thought. I decided to try my hand at building an internet business instead. I dabbled in dropshipping and print-on-demand. I started a personal finance blog, hoping to earn affiliate commissions that never came. I flipped thrift store finds on eBay and experimented with retail arbitrage.
While the flipping gig helped me leave Washington, DC and travel the country, it didn’t pan out the way Gary Vee made me think it would.
As a byproduct of all the hustling, I had to find ways to become more productive. I learned all the hacks and took them to heart.
I woke up at 4am. I bought courses. I attended conferences. And at one point, I tried to develop my own version of Soylent so I could reduce the amount of time I was “wasting” cooking meals.
The productivity gurus told me to work harder so I did. But in the end I just burned myself out. This Redditor captures the sentiment I felt and I think a lot of people feel regarding hustle culture as well:
In the end I didn't achieve anything. Not a single goal. Nothing. Now, around 6-7 years later, I don't follow those gurus anymore and I'm happier than ever, but I feel like this "hustle" mindset is still ingrained in me….whenever I go on a vacation, I feel like I didn't deserve it, because I didn't accomplish my goals for the month or for the year. I try very hard to get rid of this mindset but I feel like all of this self-help, hustle culture mindset is more toxic than helpful and can create real damage.
Hustle culture seems to be on the way out. According to Deloitte, 77% of people have felt burnout at their job. Over the past few years, workers have been quiet quitting, lying flat, and doing whatever they can to slow down.
But this new trend of working at a slower pace leaves more questions than answers. If you’re not supposed to be hustling then what are you supposed to be doing with your life?
America doesn’t have an existing culture of taking time off for lunch, let alone afternoon siestas. How are you supposed to slow down when everyone else around you is constantly on the go?
Slow productivity is an emerging work philosophy that may be the answer to our obsession with hustle culture. It’s not so much about being less productive as it is with being more strategic with how you use your time so you can be more productive in the long run.
This article will dive into what slow productivity is, why it matters, and offer a few ways you can design your days around hustling less.
Slow productivity is a new work philosophy that promotes doing less in order to accomplish more.
In his book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, Cal Newport makes the case for a slower – more intentional – way of working. Rather than haphazardly hustling through the workday, he suggests aligning your work around three principles:
Do fewer things
Work at a natural pace
Obsess over quality
The goal of slow productivity isn’t to literally work at a slower pace. It’s just to be more intentional with how you determine what work needs to be done and allocate time toward doing it.
When it comes to work, a lot of people feel like they’re trapped on a hamster wheel. They go around in circles, running as fast as they can, never really accomplishing anything.
The hamster wheel isn’t the job itself, it’s what the job is meant to achieve – success. You constantly do more to chase a promotion, a higher salary, or some status symbol that signals to the world that you have arrived. Either you reach your desired goal and realize it’s not what you thought it would be, or you spend so much time running in circles that you eventually burn yourself out.
Slow productivity is a solution that may help you get off the hamster wheel entirely. By doing less and doing it better, you make it possible to actually bring projects to completion. When you do so, you give yourself the chance of experiencing the success that comes from doing things rather than the fleeting feeling of success that comes from just getting things.
Slow productivity is designed to help you build endurance to play the long game. Just like going to the gym builds muscle, completing projects builds confidence and expertise. Over time, that’s what compounds into real success.
But just like you wouldn’t want to spend 16 hours a day working out, you shouldn’t spend 16 hours a day grinding at your job or a side hustle either.
Slow productivity offers to help you get things done in a more sustainable and intentional way. But what does this philosophy look like in practice?
These are a few ways I think you can incorporate slow productivity into your life. What you might find is that slow productivity isn’t a system or hack, it’s a holistic approach of looking at work through a broader context of life itself.
Start your day with the right mindset
The stories you tell yourself shape how you show up in the world. Those stories create a mindset that determines the habits you develop and the actions you take on a daily basis.
Your mindset guides you throughout the day. What you do – or don’t do – determines whether or not you achieve your goals.
Start the day by getting your mindset into a more productive and abundant place.
Tony Robbins refers to this as state change. Change the state you’re in and you’ll change how productive you are throughout the day. Meditate, do breathwork, talk to yourself in the bathroom mirror – do whatever you need to do to get yourself in the right state of mind.
Once you’re there, you’ll process your workday differently. Instead of just doing work for the sake of doing work, you’ll be able to structure your day in such a way that you begin moving the needle on projects and tasks that really matter.
Limit your days to three to dos
Your todo list is infinite but time is not. There’s only so many hours in a day and so many given days in your life. If you chase your todo list it will follow you to the grave.
Instead of trying to accomplish everything on your todo list, focus on the three most important things at a time. Doing so will help you accomplish two things: it will give you a feeling of accomplishment by being able to actually check something off your list and figuring out what three things to do on a given day will force you to prioritize what’s really important.
By limiting your todo list you might find that there are things you’ve been telling yourself you need to do that you don’t actually need to do at all. Keep your list small and achievable.
Work on one thing at a time
Multitasking has become something of a badge of honor in modern work culture. Everyone is expected to do multiple things at once. But is it really productive?
Think of yourself like a computer. Imagine you have 100 browser tabs open on your computer right now. How is your computer operating? Is it fast or is it slow?
Now think about yourself. How many “tabs” do you have open in your mind right now? How many tasks are you jumping between? Does this make you feel productive or do you feel anxious?
When you try to do too much at once it activates low-grade anxiety in your body. Each task drains your mental bandwidth, making it harder to complete any of the tasks on your todo list in the first place.
By trying to get everything done you wind up getting nothing done. Slow down by focusing on one thing at a time. Move on to the next task only once the first task is complete.
Schedule downtime in your day
You probably know you should read, meditate, and go for walks throughout the day. But how often do you actually do any of those things?
Probably never.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Most Americans don’t even take a lunch break, let alone any form of break during the day.
Breaks are fundamental to productivity. Taking time off to read a book or go for a walk allows your brain to reset. That reset can provide clarity, helping you work through problems and come up with solutions you might not have otherwise been able to if you just kept pushing through with the workday.
It’s important to not just think about taking some downtime but to actually do it. Schedule it in your calendar. Let your coworkers know you’ll be offline for 20-30 minutes. Take yourself to a coffee shop or go to a place away from your desk.
Make downtime as essential in your day as work itself.
Spend more time on your work
One of the core principles of slow productivity is to obsess over quality. But this can be tricky to implement.
Where do you draw the line between refinement and analysis paralysis?
While you might feel pressured to get more done during the day, more isn’t always better.
Instead of limiting yourself to 15- or 30-minute blocks to get tasks done, give yourself an hour or two. Do less throughout the day and spend more time on each task.
Your goal shouldn’t be to check as many things off your todo list as possible. It should be to become excellent at whatever it is you’re doing.
For me, that’s writing. For you that might be coding or delivering speeches. Spend more time on your work so you can become really good at it.
Take care of yourself
Your life isn’t just about your job. You’re a human, not a cog in a machine.
Just like a car needs oil changes and routine maintenance, your body does too.
Fuel it with real food. Highly processed foods that are full of sugar and ingredients you can’t pronounce create inflammation in the body, including your brain. Glucose spikes can make it hard to focus and get things done.
In addition to downtime, schedule dedicated time to exercise in your day. Regular exercise can help reduce stress and anxiety while helping you build confidence in yourself.
The better shape you’re in physically, the more prepared you’ll be to tackle your workday.
Reduce your screen time
A core theme of slow productivity is being more intentional with how you get work done. This includes choosing the right tools to work with.
Just because your phone can deliver email to you at all hours of the day doesn’t mean you should constantly be checking it.
In one of his other books, Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport recommends setting boundaries between you and technology. This includes devices as well as websites and apps.
You can use a number of tools to do this. I use Opal to limit which sites I can access during the work day. Some people lock their phones in a box, making it inaccessible for part of the work day.
I assign specific jobs to specific pieces of technology. For example, when I do check my email I only do so on my computer.
The goal isn’t to eliminate screens entirely but you should make it difficult to access distractions. When you can’t mindlessly scroll through videos on your phone, you make it easier to put yourself in a position to get work done.
Schedule time to check in with yourself
Today’s work culture has us trained to look at the world in short-term cycles. Before you enter the workforce you become accustomed to school years and once you’re in the workforce, you probably have quarterly performance objectives you’ll be expected to hit.
Rome wasn’t built in a night. All great things take time. That doesn’t mean you should procrastinate getting things done but it does mean you should loosen your time horizons a bit.
Don’t force yourself to cram everything into a month or a year. You’ll only leave yourself defeated when you don’t accomplish what you set out to do.
Increase the time you’ve set for your big goals. Establish short-term milestones that signify you’re making progress toward that goal.
Carve out some time at the end of every week to check in with yourself. Are you inching closer to a milestone?
If you’re not, you’re either not allocating enough time towards that goal or it’s not as important to you as you thought it was.
You won’t know any of this until you begin practicing a habit of frequently checking in with yourself.
Slow productivity isn’t about working slower, it’s about being more intentional with your time. Carving out time for specific activities, setting boundaries, and limiting your expectations of what you can accomplish in a day can help you be more productive without completely burning yourself out.
What else would you add to this list? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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