In the last few weeks, I have been involved in a lot of things at work and after analyzing at the end of the month I realized I did not do any meaningful work during this time. This made me recall an article, I read earlier this year, by Cal Newport on Slow Productivity. It is definitely a game-changer.

Building on the idea of System 1 and System 2 in the book, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, it could be said that short-circuiting our brain to achieve our assigned task would not be at par with the quality of work that was well thought of using our logical brain a.k.a. System 2. Given a high volume of work, our brain does exactly that – it starts finding shortcuts. Quality work especially in science and technology requires you to analyze and understand the problem deeply which requires mental effort. Therefore, the volume of work assigned to you should be limited as human beings are adapted to make good strategies to achieve a longer-term goal not so much for short-term goals.

However, I wonder, for jobs requiring thin-slicing, as Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book Blink, which would mostly engage System 1, should the volume of work assigned be more? Take police officers for example – they usually look at a person and make an opinion which results in some action. I guess they are pretty good at doing this – would their efficiency decrease if they spent a long time before taking action? Let me know in the comments what you think.

I find this idea of slow productivity applicable in all sorts of ways. In today’s world, where you have enumerable emails to check, blogs to read, work to complete, movies to watch, series to binge, and on and on – taking a moment to enjoy what you are doing right now makes the current task meaningful. For example, while cooking you should not think about taking the trash out or replying to an email – just cook and enjoy it while you are at it. If someone is waiting, let them wait.

Other interesting things I encountered last week

Act now! 🥊

The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.

Amelia Earhart

Oh, the Brits! 🇬🇧

The Economist had interesting statistics that the British Economy sank by 11% in 2020, the largest fall in GDP since 1709.

The Internet 🌏

An NYT opinion piece by Farhad Manjoo had a terrific opening for his article – The internet is the most comprehensive compendium of human knowledge ever assembled, but is its size a feature or a bug?

Think 🤔

This blog talks about important lessons from History. I highly recommend reading it. Here are a few that I found interesting –

👉🏼 Unsustainable things can last longer than you anticipate.

During the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh put it bluntly: “You will kill ten of us, and we will kill one of you, but it is you who will tire first.” Something similar seems to be going on in Ukraine.

👉🏼 Progress happens too slowly for people to notice; setbacks happen too fast for people to ignore

In careers, where reputations take a lifetime to build and a single email to destroy.