Slow Productivity

by Cal Newport

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.

“Those who suffer for others do more damage to humanity than those who enjoy themselves,” Petrini explained.

You need to feel sufficient personal distress to justify the distress saying no might generate in the other party

To gain this credibility, I recommend, at first, when considering a new project, you estimate how much time it will require and then go find that time and schedule it on your calendar. Block off the hours as you would for a meeting. If you’re unable to find enough blank spaces in your schedule in the near future to easily fit the work, then you don’t have enough time for it

My recommendation here is simple: work on at most one project per day. To clarify, I don’t intend for this single daily project to be your only work for the day. You’ll likely also have meetings to attend, emails to answer, and administrative nonsense to subdue (we’ll talk more about these smaller tasks in the upcoming proposition about containing the small). But when it comes to expending efforts on important, bigger initiatives, stay focused on just one target per day.

I recommend capturing as many categories of regular tasks as possible into an increasingly elaborate autopilot schedule: when you review client request; when you check in on the contractors updating your website; when you prep for meetings; when you read emails or update project management websites. Containing tasks is not about escaping the small. It’s instead about making these efforts as painless as possible. Seeking, as I once put it, that “low-stress sweet spot.”

“Happy to help! Grab me during one of my upcoming office hours and we’ll figure out the details.'

(1) a request for any additional details you need from the source before you can start the project, (2) a count of the number of existing projects already on your lists, and (3) an estimate of when you expect to complete this new work. After sending this message, label the project with the time estimate you included in your acknowledgment message so you won’t later forget. Notice, when making this estimate, you can look at the estimates on all of your existing projects to help inform a realistic prediction.

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.

take whatever timelines you first identify as reasonable for upcoming projects, and then double their length. For example, if your initial instinct is to plan for spending two weeks on launching a new website, revise this goal to give yourself a full month

If you work for yourself, however, the main force pushing you into year-round labor is likely cultural convention. Nothing terrible happened to Fleming, Blake, Sullivan, or Young when they decided to step back from their normal work for extended periods.

My advice here has two parts. 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 mental state into something more supportive of your shift your goals

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.

This same effect applies to many different fields: Obsessing over quality often demands that you slow down, as the focus required to get better is simply not compatible with busyness