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Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
Are You Working Too Hard To Get Anything Done?
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“There are advantages to putting in longer hours. You often get more done, for a start. Countries that work longer, such as Canada, Britain, and the U.S. have racked up higher economic growth in recent years. But when the work ethic turns workaholic, there is a price to pay. Productivity falls, absenteeism rises, and the bottom line suffers. Something else, something deeper, also gets lost in the dash to keep up-quality of life.”
Carl Honoré
enRoute Magazine
Air Canada
On Canadian Thanksgiving Day, I read a provocative article on a flight on Air Canada between Vancouver and San Francisco. The article was written by Carl Honoré, author of the book, In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed. (The book is published as In Praise of Slowness in the United States.)
The particular aspect of the article that I want to focus on is the connection between speed and productivity.
Many of us, especially those of us who are entrepreneurs, or attempting to become entrepreneurs, get caught up in a frantic rush to do more and more, faster and faster. The inevitable consequence of trying to go faster and faster is that quality gets lost.
“When we speed around, are we mastering our life or hanging on for dear life?”
The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche
Have you ever had the experience of rushing to do something? It seems that the more you rush, the more likely you are to make mistakes.
As a college student, I had a summer job on an assembly line, one of about 20 female college students hired to box glittery greeting cards. It was without question the worst job I ever had. We lined up beside a conveyer belt, in front of a wall of windows in an old factory building without air conditioning. We were divided into groups. The first group put boxes on the belt. The second group were supposed to count out twenty envelopes and put them in the boxes. The third group were supposed to count twenty cards and add them to the boxes with the envelopes. And the fourth group put the tops on the boxes.
Meanwhile, the sun glared into the windows behind us, as the temperature rose past one hundred degrees. We worked continuously for one hour and fifteen minutes intervals. Then the conveyor belt would stop and we could rest for a few minutes.
It wasn’t so bad as long as the belt moved slowly enough that we could accurately count out twenty envelopes or cards. The quality problem started when a supervisor decided that we were not filling enough boxes per hour. And so he increased the speed of the belt. It reached the point where empty boxes were going by so fast that it was impossible to count anything. At that point, my sister workers and I began simply plopping fistfuls of cards or envelopes into the boxes whizzing past. It became a joke and a game. I remember the gleeful statements of the girl next to me as she tossed cards into the boxes flying by. “There’s another box of cards for a happy housewife.”
Before too long, the same supervisor who cranked up the speed of the conveyor belt stood before us and harangued us. He said that spot inspections of the boxes showed that every single box had the wrong number of envelopes and cards.
That was a vivid example of the truth that faster is not always better. Working faster to get more done usually results in more mistakes. Frantic mode is error mode.
The “Slow Movement” is a worldwide reaction to our obsession with speed. It started 17 years ago in Italy with the “Slow Food” movement.
“Slow Food aims to be everything fast food is not. It’s slow – in the making and the eating. It’s fresh – not processed. It’s from neighborhood farms and stores – not from industrial growers such as Tyson Foods (TSN) or retail goliaths such as Wal-Mart (WMT).”
Jim Hopkins, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2003-11-25-slowfood_x.htm
Slow Food is a conscious rebellion against “fast food,” that heavily processed stuff that has become the way many of us eat many of our meals.
I was in Vancouver for a seminar. At lunch time, several hundred of us invaded the food court of the shopping mall next door to the seminar hotel. We had only time enough to buy some of the “fast food,” eat it quickly, and rush back to our seminar room. Fast food is everywhere. In schools, hospitals, airports, shopping malls, and on every city block. Slow food is much harder to find. And it is even harder to allow ourselves the time to eat it slowly.
The Slow Food movement has expanded to become the “Slow Movement.”
“These days, many of us live in fast forward – and pay a heavy price for it. Our work, health and relationships suffer. Over-stimulated, over-scheduled and overwrought, we struggle to relax, to enjoy things properly, to spend time with family and friends. The Slow movement offers a lifeline. It is not a Luddite plot to abolish all things modern. You don’t have to shun technology, live in the wilderness or do everything at a snail’s pace. Being “Slow” means living better in the hectic modern world by striking a balance between fast and slow. In Praise of Slow is the first handbook for the emerging Slow movement. Through a blend of anecdote, reportage, first-hand experience, history and intellectual inquiry, it explains how the world got so fast and why slowing down can pay dividends in every walk of life.”
Carl Honoré
http://www.inpraiseofslow.com/book.htm
One of the dividends of slowing down is that creativity seems to thrive at slow speed.
Overwork is the enemy of creative thinking. The latest brain research confirms that the best way to get the creative juices flowing is to relax.
Carl Honoré
enRoute Magazine
Air Canada
Our creative minds do best when we are relaxed and have time. All of us have had the experience of being stuck on a problem and then having the idea pop into our minds after we wake up or while we are doing something else.
Ask yourself how relaxed you are in your work. Are you attempting to do more and more? How much do you get accomplished that way? And how creative are you when you are working too hard and trying to do too much?
These are very real questions for me. Each morning, my husband and I sit down for our morning meeting. We talk about what we have scheduled for that day and what we would like to accomplish. And each day, our lists include more items than any two people can possibly accomplish. The next morning, many of the same items remain undone on our lists. And so we sit down again feeling that we are not making progress fast enough. And each day we add more items to our lists.
6th century Christian theology identified 7 deadly sins: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sadness. In the 17th century, “sadness” was replaced by “sloth.” “Sloth” is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work. Frantic overwork didn’t make the list. Yet for many of us in the 21st century, working too much is a bigger problem than working too little.
“Make haste slowly.”
Benjamin Franklin
The creative solution to productivity is to make haste slowly, not working harder and longer. I speak for myself when I say that writing down too many items on my to-do list is counter-productive. I intend to follow my own counsel and make a shorter list tomorrow. I invite you to slow down with me to work less and accomplish more.
And while you’re at it, here’s a song you can sing to celebrate slowing down.
“Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy.
Hello lamppost,
What cha knowing?
I’ve come to watch your flowers growing.
Ain’t cha got no rhymes for me?
Doot-in’ doo-doo,
Feelin’ groovy.
Got no deeds to do,
No promises to keep.
I’m dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you,
All is groovy.”
Simon & Garfunkel › The 59th Street Bridge Song
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon-and-garfunkel/124694.html
This article was originally published October 11, 2005.
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com/archive/AANN-2005-10-11.htm
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© 2005 Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.
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2248 Meridian Blvd. Suite H
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