On Slow Productivity

“Slow productivity is all about identifying alternatives. I’m trying to develop this notion of productivity that’s based on, at the large time scales, the production of things you’re proud of and that have high impact, but on the small time scale, there’s periods where you’re doing very little. Right now, I open the book with a story of John McPhee, working on one of his first really complex New Yorker pieces. He spent two weeks lying on a picnic table in his backyard trying to figure out, How am I going to make this piece work? On the small scale, you’re like, you spent all day lying on a table, you’re incredibly unproductive. But zoom out to John McPhee’s career, and you’re like, you’re one of the most productive and impactful writers of all time. 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, but obsessing over quality. That trio of properties better hits the sweet spot of how we’re actually wired and produces valuable meaningful work, but it’s sustainable.”

David Marchese “The Digital Workplace is Designed to Bring You Down,” nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/23/magazine/cal-newport-interview.html. Interesting interview on the need to rethink how we work towards producing things of value in digital workplaces of which universities are increasingly akin. The three principles identified are apropos in my view. Doing fewer things and obsessing over quality are key, but there is a lot that goes into establishing daily practices that support a longstanding natural pace of work. It made me think of bird migration, a mammoth global scale task for some species. Yet when watching them in their element, they seem free and in concert with each other as they move through space and time. Imagine writing the next book with that coincidence of liberty and distraction free purpose. While our current digital predicament carries its own difficulties, it’s also worth noting that the “demon of distraction,” has longstanding historical antecedents as noted in the recent review article of The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction here: .wsj.com/articles/the-wandering-mind-book-review-medieval-history-the-demon-of-distraction-11674232751.