# Slow Productivity  ## Metadata - Author: [[Cal Newport]] - Full Title: Slow Productivity - Category: #source/book📚/ingested | #note/book | #note/sourcereview/book ## Highlights - core idea that this book will explore: perhaps knowledge workers’ problem is not with productivity in a general sense, but instead with a specific faulty definition of this term that has taken hold in recent decades. The relentless overload that’s wearing us down is generated by a belief that “good” work requires increasing busyness—faster responses to email and chats, more meetings, more tasks, more hours. ([Location 142](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=142)) - Tags: [[orange]] - alternative approaches to productivity can be just as easily justified, including those in which overfilled task lists and constant activity are downgraded in importance, ([Location 146](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=146)) - Tags: [[orange]] - 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. ([Location 152](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=152)) - Tags: [[orange]] - want to rescue knowledge work from its increasingly untenable freneticism and rebuild it into something more sustainable and humane, enabling you to create things you’re proud of without requiring you to grind yourself down along the way. ([Location 165](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=165)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The carefully engineered systems of factories were replaced with the “personal productivity” of offices, in which individuals deploy their own ad hoc and often ill-defined collection of tools and hacks to make sense of their jobs, ([Location 262](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=262)) - Tags: [[orange]] - PSEUDO-PRODUCTIVITY The use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort. ([Location 286](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=286)) - Tags: [[orange]] - “The slow movement was first seen as an idea for a few people who liked to eat and drink well,” explained the mayor of Petrini’s hometown of Bra. “But now it has become a much broader cultural discussion about the benefits of doing things in a more human, less frenetic manner.” ([Location 435](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=435)) - Tags: [[orange]] - KNOWLEDGE WORK (GENERAL DEFINITION) The economic activity in which knowledge is transformed into an artifact with market value through the application of cognitive effort. ([Location 473](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=473)) - Tags: [[orange]] - To embrace slow productivity, in other words, is to reorient your work to be a source of meaning instead of overwhelm, while still maintaining the ability to produce valuable output. ([Location 504](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=504)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Slow productivity supports legacy-building accomplishments but allows them to unfold at a more human speed. ([Location 531](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=531)) - Tags: [[orange]] - These increases in both the quantity and cost of overhead tax were modest. ([Location 684](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=684)) - Tags: [[orange]] - And yet these modest increases were enough to push many, like Jonathan Frostick, past the overhead tax tipping point, spiraling them into the all-consuming quantities of logistical overload that defined the worst moments of the Zoom Apocalypse. ([Location 685](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=685)) - Tags: [[orange]] - it’s easy to mistake “do fewer things” as a request to “accomplish fewer things.” ([Location 710](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=710)) - Tags: [[blue]] - How is it that so many knowledge workers end up with workloads calibrated to the exact edge of the overhead tax tipping point? ([Location 722](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=722)) - They exist at that point of maximum sustainable overhead tax that seems to represent the worst of all configurations, as it maintains the pain of having too much to do, but keeps this pain just manageable enough to avoid reform. ([Location 727](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=727)) - If our workloads were entirely determined by all-powerful managers looking to maximize profits, we might expect, as paradoxical as this sounds at first, to have less on our plates. ([Location 737](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=737)) - When you say, “I don’t see any really significant swaths of open time to work on something like this for at least three weeks, and in the meantime, I have five other projects competing for my schedule,” it’s hard for someone to rebut you, unless they’re willing to challenge your calculations, or demand that you expand your working hours to accommodate their specific request. ([Location 882](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=882)) - Tags: [[orange]] - For now, what’s important with this strategy is that you maintain clarity and control over your schedule, ([Location 898](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=898)) - Tags: [[orange]] - day. Real progress accrues, while anxiety is subdued. This pace might seem slow in the moment, but zooming out to consider the results that eventually accrue over many months reveals the narrowness of this concern. ([Location 912](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=912)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Small tasks, in sufficient quantity, can act like productivity termites, ([Location 984](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=984)) - Tags: [[orange]] - these ideas focus on containing the overhead tax of tasks you cannot avoid tackling. ([Location 994](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=994)) - Tags: [[orange]] - If much of your perceived busyness comes from talking about tasks instead of actually executing them, you might be less overloaded than you realize. In other words, if you can reduce the footprint of these conversations, the pile of actual, concrete obligations that remains might not be so forbidding. ([Location 1057](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1057)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The right balance can be found in using office hours: regularly scheduled sessions for quick discussions that can be used to resolve many different issues. ([Location 1065](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1065)) - Tags: [[orange]] - docket-clearing meetings. Like office hours, these meetings happen at the same times on the same days, each week. ([Location 1071](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1071)) - One thirty-minute docket-clearing session can save a team from hours of highly distracting inbox checking and back-and-forth emailing. ([Location 1075](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1075)) - Reverse task lists require people to spend more time specifying exactly what they need from you, which simplifies the later execution of their requests. ([Location 1102](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1102)) - introduce processes that require your colleagues or clients to do more of the work associated with a given task. ([Location 1106](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1106)) - the task footprint of a project should be taken just as seriously. ([Location 1130](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1130)) - The client conference, in other words, is a task engine—an efficient generator of numerous urgent small things to do. ([Location 1139](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1139)) - The first step in simulating a pull-based workflow is tracking all projects to which you’re currently committed on a list divided into two sections: “holding tank” and “active.” ([Location 1280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1280)) - Tags: [[orange]] - “write book” is in your holding tank, and a free slot opens up on your active list, you might pull in “write next chapter of book” to work on next. In this case, the larger project, “write book,” would remain in the holding tank until completely finished. ([Location 1289](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1289)) - Tags: [[orange]] - It’s true that many of us have bosses or clients making demands, but they don’t always dictate the details of our daily schedules—it’s often our own anxieties that play the role of the fiercest taskmaster. ([Location 1390](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1390)) - Tags: [[orange]] - PRINCIPLE #2: 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. ([Location 1399](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1399)) - Tags: [[orange]] - our experience of “work” was centered on foraging. ([Location 1422](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1422)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The powered mill, followed by the factory, made every day a harvest day—continuous, ([Location 1482](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1482)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Entfremdung (estrangement), which argued that the industrial order alienated us from our basic human nature. ([Location 1484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1484)) - Tags: [[orange]] - become comfortable taking longer on important projects. ([Location 1559](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1559)) - Tags: [[orange]] - MAKE A FIVE-YEAR PLAN ([Location 1564](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1564)) - Tags: [[orange]] - By deploying a blanket policy of doubling these initial estimates, you can counter this instinct toward unjustified optimism. ([Location 1602](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1602)) - Tags: [[orange]] - A key tenet of slow productivity is that grand achievement is built on the steady accumulation of modest results over time. This path is long. Pace yourself. ([Location 1604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1604)) - Tags: [[orange]] - first, reduce the number of tasks you schedule, and second, reduce the number of appointments on your calendar. In other words, cut back on what you plan to accomplish while increasing your available time. ([Location 1611](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1611)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Proposition: Embrace Seasonality ([Location 1646](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1646)) - Tags: [[orange]] - for most of recorded human history, the working lives of the vast majority of people on earth were intertwined with agriculture, a (literally) seasonal activity. ([Location 1684](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1684)) - Tags: [[orange]] - a pragmatic observation: you have more control than you think over the intensity of your workload. ([Location 1711](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1711)) - What if, for example, you decided to quiet quit a single season each year: maybe July and August, ([Location 1716](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1716)) - arrange for major projects to wrap up before your simulated offseason begins, ([Location 1719](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1719)) - pair each major work project with a corresponding rest project. ([Location 1814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1814)) - if these rest projects are relatively small compared with the work that triggers them, this back-and-forth rhythm can still induce a sustaining experience of variation. ([Location 1819](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1819)) - sometimes a natural pace is too slow. Important work, this objection argues, requires sustained high-intensity, perhaps even obsessive, attention. ([Location 1854](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1854)) - we shouldn’t underestimate the ability of our surroundings to transform our cognitive reality. ([Location 1880](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1880)) - STRANGE IS BETTER THAN STYLISH ([Location 1913](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1913)) - First, form your own personalized rituals around the work you find most important. Second, in doing so, ensure your rituals are sufficiently striking to effectively shift your mental state into something more supportive of your goals. ([Location 1992](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1992)) - The second principle of productivity asks that you work at a more natural pace. ([Location 1994](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=1994)) - “Hardwood grows slowly.” ([Location 2066](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2066)) - Tags: [[orange]] - PRINCIPLE #3: 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. ([Location 2101](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2101)) - Tags: [[orange]] - obsess over the quality of the core activities in your professional life. ([Location 2127](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2127)) - Tags: [[orange]] - “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do,” Jobs explained. ([Location 2145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2145)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The marketplace doesn’t care about your personal interest in slowing down. If you want more control over your schedule, you need something to offer in return. ([Location 2209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2209)) - some ineffable understanding of what works and what doesn’t—the visceral intuition that we call taste. ([Location 2234](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2234)) - Glass’s taste in 2022 is more refined than it was in 1986. His success came not only from a drive to meet his own high standards, but also from his efforts to improve those standards over time. ([Location 2256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2256)) - The bigger observation is that there can be utility in immersing yourself in appreciation for fields that are different from your own. ([Location 2299](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2299)) - Give yourself enough time to produce something great, but not unlimited time. Focus on creating something good enough to catch the attention of those whose taste you care about, but relieve yourself of the need to forge a masterpiece. Progress is what matters. Not perfection. ([Location 2433](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2433)) - Proposition: Bet on Yourself ([Location 2435](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2435)) - one of the more approachable strategies for betting on yourself: temporarily dedicating significant amounts of free time to the project in question. ([Location 2505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2505)) - The problem, of course, is that for every Grisham there are a dozen other aspiring writers—or entrepreneurs, or artists—who end up slinking back to their old jobs, chastened and deeper in debt than when they started. ([Location 2524](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2524)) - how the knowledge sector derailed from reasonable notions of organizing work, and then walked you through three principles for systematically cultivating something better—a philosophy I called slow productivity. ([Location 2621](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2621)) - 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. ([Location 2630](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2630)) - What’s needed is more intentional thinking about what we mean by “productivity” in the knowledge sector—seeking ([Location 2644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2644)) - And the routine of doing this six days a week puts a little drop in a bucket each day, and that’s the key. Because if you put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket’s going to have some water in it. ([Location 2658](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C7716FW1&location=2658)) - Tags: [[orange]]