
Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

Starting in the 1990s, however, a lot of the activity that began dominating the attention of knowledge workers like Mann wasn’t the execution of discrete tasks, but instead interactions with others about these tasks.
Cal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
Containing tasks is not about escaping the small. It’s instead about making these efforts as painless as possible.
Cal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
“Once you get to the point where your regular work is getting done with minimum of thinking,” I wrote in one of my early articles on this topic, “you’ve hit that low-stress sweet spot where you can start turning your attention to the bigger things.”
Cal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
I also suggested writing more structured emails to minimize unnecessary back-and-forth messaging, an objective I elaborate in much greater detail in a follow-up book I published a half decade later titled A World Without Email.
Cal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
A coach named Laura, for example, reported that she simplified her practice by reducing her offerings down to a few key services. “Since figuring this out,” she told me, “my brain is calmer, the quality of my interactions is stronger, and my work quality is higher.” As a result of this higher-quality work, she now makes the same amount of money wor
... See moreCal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
This is what ultimately matters: where you end up, not the speed at which you get there, or the number of people you impress with your jittery busyness along the way.
Cal Newport • 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.
Cal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
Slow productivity, for example, is designed to be actionable, providing ideas that individuals can implement immediately.
Cal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
The way we’re working no longer works.