Finding Balance with Slow Productivity

Short video explaining the benefits and concept of slow productivity

The book Slow Productivity by Cal Newport was sent to me by my coach since it was clear that I live a cycle of burnout.

Although I've gotten better over the years, sometimes I slip back into high productivity grind. It feels good to be celebrated, my ego gets a boost when I get an award, and I always end up exhausted, short-tempered, or sick.

This book not only gave me tips on how to say yes to things that light me up and no to things that drained me, it also gave me deeper understanding about why I kept slipping back into burnout mode.

As a society, many of us are "knowledge workers" now and we can't measure productivity the same way we did when we were manufacturing widgets in the Industrial Revolution. But they system is still set up to assume that more hours worked = more work produced. That's a recipe for burnout.

So if the system isn't supporting us, we need to know how to support us.

It's worth a read if you slip into burnout like I do. I'm happy to say that although I still catch myself, it's less frequent and I notice it a lot faster so I can correct course without the crash.

With love,

Ming-Wai