Slow Productivity - An Oxymoron?

Ritesh Bawri

15 Aug 2024 — 2 min read

Slow productivity. The term sounds like an oxymoron.

How can someone be slow and productive?

As my country enters another day celebrating freedom from trynanny and oppression, Happy Independence Day to everyone. It is a wonderful day to choose to discuss the frenetic pace of our lives.

We live in a world where productivity is associated with speed and time. If you look at the success gurus online, they all claim they are smarter, harder-working, and more motivated than you.

How can you compete without trying to match up?

So when someone comes along speaking about slow productivity, you wonder if it is a trick. A trick to induce you into laziness while they and their friends get ahead in life?

I believed in speed and hard work all my life. Ok, maybe not all my life, but certainly after I joined work. Over the past few years, I have been reading about the notion of empty space.

Leaving parts of your day empty and doing what most people would label "nothing," if asked, what were you doing?

You leave your day empty, not because you lack ambition or drive. Instead, you do so as a strategy to make the rest of your time productive.

The strategy is not without merit.

Constantly being occupied does not allow your brain to create connections between multiple data points that you have acquired in the past few hours. To do so, your brain needs empty space.

Given an opportunity, the brain connects the data that you acquired with prior knowledge and understanding to make leaps.

In the absence of which, you would still form an opinion or make a judgement. It may not be the best opinion.

So don't feel pressured to follow the crowd. Be independent and fill your day with empty space.

What is empty space, you ask?

Why having fun, listening to music, watching a play, or going out with friends. Celebrating life, if you will. The insights? They will follow.

Happy Birthday to the most amazing sister in the world!

Reach out to me on twitter @rbawri Instagram @riteshbawriofficial and YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain

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