Slow - 031

Dear {First Name},

Note: This was written earlier in the month.

 

I. The Slow Now

The last few weeks have been a very strange experience of time.

As I write this in early June, we're less than a week away from Lauren's due date.

Part of me says, "Enough waiting. Let's jump into having a newborn (and a toddler). Let's fast forward to 4 months from now when we're sleeping through the night again and maybe even have a house?"

But at the same time, I want to slow down or stop time and appreciate the present moment. Just the three of us. Several weeks in a row of sleeping through the night. A morning routine. Exercise. Writing.

I don't think I'm alone. A lot of us are in this weird time right now. We we want to fast forward to a time when we can get on a plane without a second thought. Or plan more than 2 months ahead of time. But maybe there's a part of us that wants things to slow down. We're finally getting the hang of wearing masks and working from home and having an excuse not to go out.

We live in a fast-paced world that wants to stay in motion. We keep moving fast because we don't have enough time– in our day for work, in our weeks for rest, in our lives for depth. So we do some work while watching TV and texting. Exercise while listening to a podcast. Eat lunch during a meeting.

Time scarcity makes us feel like we need to rush, move fast, cram as much as we can into every minute.

Slowing down can feel like we're not keeping up.

Not keeping up means we're left behind.

And left behind means we're not surviving.

(So, move! Faster!)

But what actually happens when we hit the brakes?

Let's take it slow.

 

The Road Runner always wins, huh?

 

II. Parkinson's Law

This last week I've been trying to wind down my work. Unload commitments and wrap projects in time so I can take a proper family leave soon. Operating at 70% capacity, I've started to notice something a bit counter-intuitive.

Working less actually made me more productive (and less stressed– which may be related).

When I have less commitments, meetings and tasks, I end up able to dive deeper on the ones that I do have. Not only that but it's also allowed space for flexibility.

The extra space in my schedule absorbs the shock of a change of plans, emergencies, or just moving slower and more deliberately in my work. I feel less rushed. Less overwhelmed. Less constrained to living by my calendar, and more involved in the work in front of me.

In quiet corners of the corporate world, a small handful of companies are picking up on this. The 4 day workweek movement has gained some momentum. (For the record, not 40 hours in 4 days, but a genuine 32 hour workweek.) 

The concept is a variation of Parkinson's Law, which states that work fills the time given to complete it. If a project is given a week to complete, we inevitably cram the last night or last few hours to complete it. And if the same project were given a month, same thing. Work fills the time. So this shorter workweek takes advantage of that psychology and asks– what would happen if we just had less time for work? The implication is that we would still get all our work done by wasting less time.

A symptom of the pandemic and WFH is having a completely packed schedule. Back-to-back meetings, phone call after Zoom Call with no transition time. As offices open back up, we have the opportunity to recreating new boundaries for ourselves in how we structure our days. Think Parkinson's Law, but for rest.

Creating extra space in our calendar creates extra time in our lives.

Extra time.

Huh.

We so rarely get that, or feel that.

So what would it take to block off that extra space?

 
 

III. The Tortoise and The Squirrel

Once upon a time there was a Tortoise. Yep. That same Tortoise that you know from the race. Years later, he was still pretty well-known in the forest for the victory over that cocky Hare (although Tortoise never let it get to his head). 

One Autumn day, he was on a long walk home through the forest when he bumped into Squirrel. Squirrel seemed very nervous, like always. He jumped back and started up the tree before realizing it was just Tortoise.

“Oh! W’chout! I-mean. Hi'tort’se. Hi.” Squirrel said, barely able to keep his attention. 

“Ohhhhhh. Hiiiiighhhh. Therrrrrrrrre. Squiiiiiiirrrrrel.” Tortoise said slowly.

Squirrel was always on high alert. Always looking over his shoulder and nervous. Like someone was going to scare him at any moment. He seemed to always hear a noise and jump. Today, he was beginning his seasonal hunt for peanuts and acorns. Each Winter, Squirrel would hide away in his den and wait out the cold by writing. 

“Heeeey. I haaaad an iiiidea for a booooook” Tortoise said. 

But just like Hare, Squirrel was competitive.

“Oh! Wanna race? Write’abook. Firsta fift'thousand words!”

The tortoise thought for a long minute.

He didn’t love competitions but he was looking for some accountability to get his book done. (Hare was great accountability to train to get into shape, which Tortoise had been wanting to do for years before that race.)

"Okaaaaay."

That Winter, they both sat down to write their novels but with very different approaches. Squirrel planned to write all day. 8 or 10 hours straight, never leaving his den. It was small, so some days he would write at the kitchen table. Some days from bed. Some days he would sit on the couch and write while the TV was on in the background. And his phone was always by his side. Squirrel loved the (literal and metaphoric) buzz of getting a message or notification.

The Tortoise blocked off 2 hours of deep work every morning, when he did his best thinking. He cleared his desk and put his phone in the kitchen and wrote. When his timer went off, he would exercise, make lunch, and finish up any other chores around the house. 

Squirrel, being as on-edge and easily distracted as he was, kept running into writers block. And couldn’t figure out the turning point scene in act two of his story. So he scrolled Instagram for a bit, hoping for inspiration. Yesterday, he searched old screenplays online and writing subreddits for any help.  It wasn’t going very well.

Tortoise was, as you'd expect, slow. Only 2 hours a day of writing, but with the commitment and focus, he making steady progress.

By March, word has spread around the forest. And at the sign of the first buds on the trees,  the other animals anxiously awaited the outcome of the writing contest.

One morning, Squirrel emerged from his den holding a thick notebook exploding with posits and bookmarks. He looked at the crowd, and then his head dropped to his feet as he shook his head. The crowd gasped! (Which made squirrel jump nervously.) He didn't finish his novel.

Tortoise waddled out next. He was holding a smoothie. The other  animals looked confused.

"I’ve beeeeeen peerrrrrfeeeecccting thiiiiis spiiiinachh banaaaaana caaaaaardamom smooooothieee. It’ssss deliiiiciouuuus.”

Tortoise saw their confusion and stared for a long moment, also confused. The realization slowly washed over his face. “Ohhhh. The booooook. I fiiiinished that baaaaack in Jaaaaaanuary.

The crowd erupted in cheer.

Squirrel learned that being on high alert for any distraction makes you more susceptible for ALL distractions. Checking his phone every 5 minutes conditioned him to have a fragmented attention span. Such is the nature of squirrels. And humans.

Tortoise’s book went on to be an Amazon best seller (the forest, not the website). He went on to share his secret. Namely that a few hours a day of slow, focused, distraction-free work is enough to make a career's worth of great work.

Slowly and intentionally, we can all do more than we think we are capable of. 

 

"Self Care" oil painting by Erika Lee Sears

 

IV. If I Want To

Some
times

when
I
read,

I'll
pore
over
one

sen
tence

as
slow
as
I
can

just
to
re

mind

myself

that
I
can

ac

tually

slow

down.

If I want to.

 

"Stand Tall" charcoal painting by Stirling Caiulo

 

V. Time Abundance

It's likely you're reading this while doing something else. Making coffee, watching TV, driving, exercising... I don't wanna know. But I do know that feeling.

Time scarcity: that feeling that there's not adequate time.

Rushing through dinner and bathtime and bedtime routine to get to, what? Netflix? Email? Rushing through everything means I'm missing it. And then I'm just rushing through my entire life.

Lately, one of my big intentions in life is to move towards time abundance. The luxury in a feeling that I have all the time that I need. No need to rush or multitask. I'm not perfect. I still multitask. I still rush. I still check my phone more than I'd lke.

It's not something that I will achieve and cross off my list, done. It's a relationship and a process. It's something that will happen now and then, and a feeling that I continually look for in moments with my family, my business, and personal development.

Time abundance is possible if I believe it is, and act like I already have it (that's the hardest part). To be patient and present. To be even-tempered, quiet, and steady in a pursuit of that feeling. Time abundance is what happens when I slow down.

I just have to remind myself that I have all the time that I need.

We all do.

 
 

-Jake

Hey it’s me again. One last thing. In case you don’t want to get these emails anymore, no hard feelings. Just click here to change your settings.

 
Jake Kahana