Why You Should Slow Down to Speed Up

What are you rushing towards?

I have to confess; I’m often in a rush. I like to get things done quickly and am much more the hare than the tortoise. And look what happened to him.

You, like me, might imagine that you will get less done if you slow down, but that isn’t true.

Everything you want to do can be achieved faster because of the focus and clarity that comes from slowing down.

Why would you need the increased focus and clarity? Surely multitasking is a quick and efficient way of working?

No. Multitasking is a myth; you just do more things poorly. When you focus on one thing at a time, it’s incredible how quickly the task gets done. Thinking about the job in front of you instead of the next ten tasks allows you to crack on and get the task done.

Slowing down to get tasks done quickly

“I don’t want to accomplish anymore; I just want to be.” Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol’s quote captures this concept of trying to accomplish more perfectly. How many people do you know whose focus is on what they can accomplish and get done yet complain about not having enough time? The problem is that none of the things you accomplish will ever truly satisfy you because you’re always rushing to get the next task done.

Slowing down allows you to really pay attention when working on something important. You’ll become more efficient if you slow down because you won’t make mistakes or waste time on something unnecessary, to begin with.

This is not the only reason slowing down is good. Slowing things down also makes you more productive because it gives you time to think about what you are doing before acting, and then when you’ve considered all of your actions carefully, there will be no more thinking to do.

You need to slow down to do your best.

Just as significant is the slowdown’s effect on your mental health and the quality of your life, many people are obsessed with productivity. They will not slow down for anything, but this can quickly lead to burnout if it hasn’t already. Slowing things down allows you to be.

And, if you slow down, you can begin to appreciate what you have. It’s impossible to fully enjoy each moment of your life if you’re constantly rushing through each moment to save time.

Slowing down to save time

“Slowing down will not change the number of days in your life, but it will change the quality of those days.” -Herbert Lui.

What are you rushing for? Towards what?

Take housework as an example. Now, I’m sure most of us just want to get housework done and dusted (see what I did just there?), but the problem with having so many time-saving gadgets to clean with is that it’s easy to try to do too many tasks in an allotted time. Are you saving time?

And what do you do with the time you’ve ‘saved’?

Do you work? Go to the gym? Go out running? More rush and haste.

What you do with your time is entirely subjective, but start to notice how you’re using your time, or you will imagine that time is using you.

Maybe you think that you have to rush and hustle to make money?

Making money slowly

Everybody wants to make money fast. This is one of the reasons that people fall for get-rich-quick schemes peddled by good looking people standing on the steps of a (hired) private jet, sipping cocktails on a boat or lounging against a Lambo.

These people promise to show you how to create a course in an afternoon that will bring you thousands of dollars. They tell you that they’ve made a million, but they forget to mention that they made a million by selling you a course on how to make a million.

I’m not suggesting that it’s impossible to make money quickly, just that you don’t have to. You know that most overnight sensations have years of trial and error behind them, and there’s something satisfying about learning a craft, honing your skills to make money, and that might take a bit of time.

It’s like the story of the plumber and the submarine. When the submarine wouldn’t sail, and the captain had tried everything, he called in a plumber. The plumber walked around the craft, staring up at the pipes, then took out a wrench and tapped one of the pipes. The ship shuddered into life.

‘That’ll be £1000’, said the plumber.

‘But you only spent five minutes here and hit one pipe’ spluttered the captain.

‘Yes’, said the plumber. ‘It’s 1 dollar for hitting the pipe. And 999.99 for knowing which pipe to hit.’

Slowing down to speed up

How can you slow down to speed up?

Have you ever started a job without preparation only to find that the job takes longer than you imagined?

I hate prepping to paint walls or furniture. It’s boring. But, I’ve discovered, to my cost, that without slowing down and spending a bit of time cleaning the woodwork or laying a painting cloth down, I spend much more time rubbing down or cleaning up.

So whilst it feels like I’m slowing down when I prep, it saves me time.

It’s the same with writing. Sometimes when I have an idea, I plunge straight in and get my thoughts down, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Except when I read back my work, it’s often a mishmash of thoughts. But when I take some time to plan the piece of work, to make some bullet points or formulate the idea, the piece almost writes itself.

Taking the time to slow down is meditative. The irony is that some people rush through their day so that they can take time to meditate, but when you take your time over a task, you fall into a space where thoughts drift through you rather than hooking you into a thought loop.

Slowing down to eat

When you eat slowly, you’re able to listen to the signals from your body. Eating slowly can allow enough time to trigger the signal from the brain that you are full, whereas when you eat too fast, you can take in too many calories before you realise you have eaten enough. You know that feeling when you have left it too long before eating and eat too quickly but still feel hungry when you’ve finished the meal, although you know that you can’t still be hungry by the size of the meal you’ve eaten.

You need to slow down and put your knife and fork down between bites. Take longer over the bites. And see how quickly you feel full when you slow down.

Play with the idea. See how long you can take over something you usually rush. Enjoy the process, and be present to whatever you’re doing.

Treat yourself to the gift of time by slowing down.