There’s little doubt that technology over the last two centuries has made most work easier, but the more recent introduction of smartphones and tablets, in particular, has rendered the term “o ff the clock” nearly obsolete. However, unstructured downtime is often when we do our best creative thinking.
“At every red light you [can] look over
and people are checking their email or texting
somebody,” says sociologist and Costco member
Christine Carter (
christinecarter.com).
“Th ere is no such thing anymore as just waiting,
just staring into space.”
Carter, an author and senior fellow at the
University of California, Berkeley’s Greater
Good Science Center, is eager to let everyone
know that “if you want to be highly productive
and effi cient, then there are ways to do
that and it does not involve working all the
time. It involves taking a lot of breaks.”
Journalist Carl Honoré, who wrote In Praise of Slowness (HarperOne, 2004)—which examines the bene fits of infusing every aspect of our lives with slowness—o ffers insight into why people stick with overloaded schedules.
Honoré tells Th e Connection, “The world is this huge buff et of things to do, and the natural human instinct is to want to have it all. [However], if you try to have it all, you will end up hurrying it all.”
Another reason, he says, is that slow “is a four-letter word that’s a byword for lazy, stupid, unproductive, boring—all the things that nobody wants to be. And because of that taboo, even when people can feel in their bones that it will be good to put on the brakes, or they yearn to slow down, they don’t do it because they feel afraid, they feel guilty, they feel shame.”
The last reason Honoré (
carlhonore.com) cites is the physical nature of stress addiction. “A high-speed lifestyle is like a drug; it’s where we’re in fight-or-flight mode. It changes the chemistry of the body and the brain,” he says, addressing how people become stress junkies.
Honoré, who lives in fast-paced London,
is the rst to admit that the Slow Movement
isn’t about doing everything at a snail’s pace.
It’s about doing things at the right pace.
“I call it slow; other people might
call it flow,” he says. “You’re fully immersed
in the moment and you’re
at one, almost, with the act of the
task itself.”
That flow is what Carter refers
to as the sweet spot, which
she describes as the
intersection of
strength and
ease where a
person feels
the most relaxed
and the
most productive. In
addition to strategically saying
no and refraining from
multitasking, Carter encourages
people to take an occasional
recess to help find
that sweet spot.
She says that, for her,
feeling overwhelmed is
the signal to step away from what she’s doing, give herself 10 to 15
minutes to get outside, leaf through a magazine
or just stare into space.
“To everybody else it looks like I am not
working very hard; to me it’s a strategy for getting
[everything] done,” she says, adding that
most people are skeptical about how taking
breaks can help with work. “ e irony is that
the best way to get your head in the game is to
actually fully take it out of the game.”
Slow start
Because it’s difficult to envision slowing
down without falling behind, Honoré encourages
people to start small. (See “Slow down,
live better” on page 34 for more tips on adding
slowness to your day.)
“It can be as simple as the next time you
make yourself a sandwich at home alone …
set the table with cutlery, plates and a glass of
water, and just sit there and eat it rather than
trying to do something else at the same time,”
he suggests.
Whether it’s a sandwich moment, getting
away from your desk or turning off gadgets for
an hour each day, each act is a step in the right
direction. “It’s moments of silence … that can
start to open up all kinds of doors. You’ll get,
ironically, the fast payoff of the enjoyment, the
recharging, the replenishing of having a slow
moment,” Honoré says. He adds that most
people don’t apply it to just one aspect of their
lives; it starts seeping into all areas until it
becomes a state of mind.
“If you’re going to make the most of your
life, then you have to have the time, the attention,
the energy to invest in what’s happening
right here, right now,” he notes. “You can never do that if you’re overburdened, if you’re overscheduled,
if you’re doing too many things.”
He continues: “I think what’s o en missing
is that real, deep living. And it’s when we
slow down and we’re fully engaged when we’re
doing things, that we remember them. And so
much about a life well-lived is memory.”
***
Slow down,
live better
CARL HONORÉ, who coined the phrase
“Slow Movement,” has the following tips
to add a little slowness to your life.
Breathe. Slow, deep breathing reoxygenates
the body, which slows the heartbeat
and stabilizes blood pressure. When
you feel panicky, stop for a moment and
take a few deep breaths.
Speed audit. Stop and ask yourself if
you’re doing whatever you’re doing too fast.
If you are going faster than you need to
when you do the audit, go back to the task
and work more slowly.
Downsize your calendar. Look at
your schedule for the next week, pick the
least important scheduled activity and drop
it. This will take some of the heat out of
that particular day.
Schedule unscheduled time. Block
off two hours in your week when you don’t
plan anything in advance. This will guarantee
you some time when you can slow down to
your own rhythm.
Find a slow ritual. Find a slow ritual
that acts as your personal brake and helps
you shift into a lower gear. It might be
gardening, reading, yoga, cooking, knitting,
painting, whatever.—SEP
-- Costco Connection,
June 2015
