In 2022, I’m trying to practice slowing down, so I was intrigued by Cal Newport’s idea of “slow productivity” in a recent essay in the New Yorker. And yet Newport isn’t just arguing for slowing down.
He’s also arguing that even if we slow down, we can still be equally productive. He writes:
“The central goal of Slow Productivity is to keep an individual worker’s volume at a sustainable level…[If you] enable the individual to work more sequentially, focussing on a small number of things at a time, waiting until she is done before bringing on new obligations, the rate at which she completes tasks might actually increase.”
I wonder.
What if we can’t be as productive, yet we need and want to slow down anyway?
What if slowing down results in less money, slower promotions, less currency within the meritocracy?
What if slowing down allows us to acknowledge our human limits, appreciate where we are and who we are with?
What if slowing down hurts the bottom line but elevates love?
Read more with Amy Julia:
- S5 E8 | What Disability Teaches Us About Health and Wholeness with Dr. Brian Brock
- Meritocracy Is the Antithesis to Love | Plough Essay
- Loves Looks to Move Towards One Another
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