Like hypercolour t shirts, margarine butter, transfats antioxidants, the Dalai Lama, and goji berries, the Slow movement is starting to pick up speed (yes, pun intended) in the trend-o-sphere. Everything from food to travel to sex to medicine to town planning, all of this and Life in general needs to be Slo-oh-oh-ow for maximum enjoyment.
In one of his many books on the Slow movement, In Praise of Slowness , Carl Honoré covers a huge range of Slow and rattles off all of their benefits. The recurring theme seems to be that by taking things slow, rather than trying to get things done faster, people become healthier, more productive, more creative, and better thinkers.
In an ideal Slow world, work also needs to be Slow – there’s the sound of managers fainting – with shorter working days and more time given to the blue/white collar masses to stop having lunch at their desks and be home at a reasonable hour to cook, eat dinner with their family, and read a bedtime story to their kids.
In the meantime, there’s a client coming in for a meeting in 15 10 now minutes, a presentation that needs to be completed by ASAP-o’clock, a concept pitched in three hours, and a nagging list of site changes to be made before it can be approved…
My mum’s ’secret’ to productivity:
Do the things you don’t like in the morning when you’re still more motivated and clear-headed, and then do the stuff you like after lunch after the food coma sets in.
That might work if your clients didn’t want everything done yesterday. But when you’re required to be productive and clear-headed all the time, come up with concepts and have them ready by the end of the day, there’s no room to pick and choose what you want to do, food coma or not.
The Slow movement’s secret to productivity:
Live Slow, and work Slow (but be Fast when you need to be).
It is unlikely that the pace of work will slow down (or want to), but we can change to adapt to it. Everyone (in Honoré’s book) has praised, raved or demonstrated that living Slow has helped them:
- tackle problems better and come to a solution faster
- think more creatively
- relax and not freak out as often (if at all), and
- improve their health.
as well as
- win lawsuits
- recover from illness and surgery, faster
- lose weight in half the time, and keep it off
- negotiate contracts and seal the deal – in their favour
- come up with better marketing ideas
Sounds too good to be true? Its not all chakras and reiki (although some of it is, apparently), there are practical and easy ways of Slowing down. Sometimes its just a matter of taking the time to listen – to your clients, patients, your co-workers – so that you can approach problems and briefs clearly, instead of rushing into a job and finding that it doesn’t address the client’s needs to begin with. Other times its being able to relax yourself, so that when you face a hectic situation you can approach it well, instead of scrambling and making silly mistakes.
There’s a whole slew of information on the Slow movement, but here’s a good place to start. In the meantime, some of us have a deadline.
