Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

Slow productivity, more than anything else, is a plea to step back from the frenzied activity of the daily grind. It’s not that these efforts are arbitrary: our anxious days include tasks and appointments that really do need to get done. But once you realize, as McPhee did, that this exhausted scrambling is often orthogonal to the activities that m

What’s needed is more intentional thinking about what we mean by “productivity” in the knowledge sector—seeking ideas that start from the premise that these efforts must be sustainable and engaging for the actual humans doing the work. Slow productivity is one example of this thinking, but it shouldn’t be the only one. My long-term wish is that thi

So how do you actually work with your mind and create things of value? What I’ve identified is three principles: doing fewer things,  working at a natural pace, 9

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Meaning one with more variability in intensity than the always-on pace to which we’ve become accustomed.

 but obsessing over quality. That trio of properties better hits the

Slow productivity supports legacy-building accomplishments but allows them to unfold at a more human speed.