The claim, “I’m busy,” is flaunted as a badge of honour. But, are you getting things done? Is your health and personal relationships suffering from your busy-ness?
There is a better approach to success and productivity: “slow work.”
“Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you’re doing.” — Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation
- Dismount the treadmill: We get stuck in the cycle of prioritising the urgent over the important. You have to step off and reverse the choices.
- Single-tasking: Set aside time to focus on a single activity. If the job is complex, break it down into smaller, simpler chunks. It’s useful to work in 20- to 30-minute sessions with short breaks in between. If you are stuck, listen to music, take a short walk–break the rhythm.
- Use the Pareto Principle (80-20 rule): 80% of our outcomes originate from 20% of our efforts. Invest time in understanding the activities that have the “greatest bang for the buck” and focus your energies on them. This will help you transition from a hustling attitude to a leisurely work philosophy.
Decision making has speed limits
In today’s world, much of our daily efforts involve decisions. If you are hoping to hasten your decision-making, forget it. You can’t ramp up the speed of your thoughts no matter what you do or how hard you try. Your thinking rate is fixed.
Some guidelines for good decision making
- Concentrate on what you really want. Ask yourself, “What do I intend to accomplish by addressing this choice?” Look at the answer from a 360 degree perspective.
- Don’t get caught up in little details. Leave them for later, when you are actually executing the task.
- To avoid decision-making under pressure, pre-commit to strategies that you have thought out ahead of time.
- Seek the opinion of others. Obtain a few perspectives, preferably from those who have past knowledge of the subject.
- Be aware of your emotions. Don’t let anger and other negative feelings push you.
- Write down your ideas and options to help you clarify your thinking.
The quality of your judgments suffers when you are under pressure.
If you want to make better decisions, you need to do everything you can to reduce the pressure you’re under. You need to let your brain take all the time it needs to think through the problem at hand. You need to get out of a reactive mode, recognise when you need to pause, and spend more time looking at problems.
Make judgments while sitting down and examining the subject from several perspectives. You’ll still need to set aside time to do nothing but ponder.
The merits of slack time
Slack is the lubricant of change.
We are brainwashed by the belief that continuous activity equals efficiency. A lot of this perceived busyness is spent in the pursuit of trivial, unimportant tasks. In order to be effective, a certain amount of wiggle room is mandatory.