Why You Should Slow The F**k Down
Don’t look up and realise you missed it all.
“New year, new me. Let’s go, go, GO!”
I hope you cringed reading that as much as I did writing it.
But be honest: a small part of you envies the idiot with this sort of energy.
You want to feel raring to go.
You want to get sh*t done.
You want to be busy. Busy making your ambitions a reality.
And that’s superb and you should keep at it.
But before you rush off to wake up at 5am to build your business for 2 hours and then sprint to your 9–5, remember this important fact:
Every second that goes by is a second you’ll never get back.
Wouldn’t you like to enjoy as many of those seconds as possible? Isn’t that why you’re working so hard? To enjoy life, one day?
Slowing down is one of the best ways to help you get the most out of life right now. And it’s a practice that will improve your life more than anything you could complete by rushing.
“Slowing down enables you to act in a high quality way. Kind rather than curt. Polished rather than sloppy. It’s hard to be thoughtful when you’re in a rush.” — James Clear
Don’t embarrass yourself in front of the monk
“It’s hard to be thoughtful when you’re in a rush.” I learned this first-hand by making a fool of myself in front of a monk.
Who worse to forget to be mindful in front of than a literal monk!
I’d been a model student all morning, mindfully asking questions and listening. Then when it came time to leave, I realised I was almost late to my next event. All present moment awareness immediately left my brain and my focus switched to efficiency and speed.
As I was leaving and saying my goodbyes, in my hurry I almost forgot to take away my lunch tray. That was when the monk got me.
He (kindly) said only one word: “Mindfulness”.
It struck me like a gong.
He was 100% correct, and in that one word he taught me more than the entire morning of talks.
Rushing takes your awareness off of what you’re doing and places it solely onto the deadline you’re trying to meet. It reduces the quality of your actions and makes you do silly things that you otherwise wouldn’t catch yourself doing.
Whatever you do, don’t rush. The monks are always watching…
Bonus lesson: Always enter consciously and exit consciously. These are the times when you’re most likely to mess up and where you make or break a good impression.
Kinder and more polished
Not making a fool of yourself through oversight isn’t the only benefit of slowing down. You’ll find your actions being kinder and more refined.
You bump into fewer things when you slow down. If you’ve ever bashed your tooth with a glass or entirely missed your mouth and poured water down yourself, you know the consequences of mindlessly rushing.
You also snap at people less. If you’re in a rush and someone comes to you, they become an obstacle to deal with and move past. This is obvious at work (and you’re sometimes justified in rushing them away), but notice how you also do this at home. Are you too busy rushing to enjoy a meal with your spouse? How about playing with your kids? Calling your parents?
Is what you’re rushing to worth more than your interaction with them here and now?
Slowing down makes you less vulnerable to moments of idiocy and selfishness. If you’re in a low-energy mood (e.g. if you’re tired or ill), make the decision to consciously do things slowly. This will minimise any difficulties caused by your current state.
Space to breathe — and to think
“Activity is often unrelated to productivity. Busyness rarely takes care of business.” — Gary Keller
We’re all too sped up. Social media hits us daily with instant dopamine bombs. Amazon makes you expect everything to be delivered straight to your door. Just Eat and Deliveroo make the miracle of globally-stocked supermarkets look stupid.
All this speed is designed to free up more time for even more things to be done quickly. It’s a perpetual loop of rushing around just so you can go and rush some more.
And don’t even get me started on the effects of this rushing on people’s expectations of success.
No one ever stops to question why we’re rushing because they’re afraid to be left behind.
Fortunately, taking a moment to not get caught up in all the busyness will not leave you stranded behind everyone else.
In fact, slowing down some activities can put you ahead of the curve.
Pausing gives you space to think. Sadly, most of your best ideas probably come from thinking about work outside of the office. This is because your mind is free to make connections without any pressure.
Research shows that taking time to intentionally be bored can make you more creative. This is because when you’re bored, your brain is free to make sense of all it’s processed and your subconscious starts making links. Seemingly out of nowhere, you’ll have a great idea. How might you implement this at work?
If you’re ever under pressure, slowing down becomes a superpower. Great speakers and negotiators act like they have all the time in the world, allowing them to speak as slowly and confidently as they like.
When you’re doing public speaking or an interview, those pauses that feel long and awkward to you are actually imperceptible to the audience. If you ever get the opportunity to listen to yourself speak, you’ll hear this. And you’ll laugh at how worried you were about the 3-second pause that felt like a 10-second gap.
You are the only one putting pressure on yourself to be speedy, so stop. Your own pace is just fine.
These things feel better slowed down
Most activities just feel better when done slowly. Thoughts are fast, and we spend so much time in our head. Slowing down and returning to the body turns the most mundane tasks blissful.
Eating slowly makes you realise you rarely ever actually, properly taste your food.
Walking slowly opens you up to little things like the colour of trees and the sound of birds.
Having sex slowly reveals delights that are hard to put on the page.
Remembering to do all this is difficult, so just pick one. Which area of your life could benefit from a bit of slowed-down enjoyment?
Key Takeaway: You’re rushing into nothing
Ultimately, what are you hoping to achieve by being as quick and time-efficient as possible?
You can keep rushing but you’ll never get to a point where it all stops.
It never ends. The world will never stop rushing. But you can.
If you take one thing from this article, let it be this: pause whenever you can and look at all the busyness around you. Notice how much of it is useful and how much is simply noise.
Don’t be part of the noise.
Bursts of speed can be great for getting things done quickly. Just don’t make sprinting through life your default option.