Cal Newport's _Slow Productivity_

Pursuing accomplishment without burnout.

What is the point of productivity? Back when I started this newsletter, I could take the worthiness of productivity as a given. But during COVID, people began to raise more questions about what productivity was for, and whether our modern workplace culture was fundamentally disordered. This led to trends like “quiet quitting,” where people sought to do as little as possible at work while remaining employed.

One of my favorite productivity authors is Cal Newport, and his latest, Slow Productivity [affiliate link], offers helpful reflections on what productivity is for, and how we can be productive without being constantly “on.” The threat of burnout is especially acute for knowledge workers and creative professionals who have 24/7 notifications from email, texts, social media, Slack, Teams, Zoom, and the like.

One of Newport’s key insights is that modern work culture steers us toward spending time on many things that are not really that important. Whether boss-imposed or self-imposed, we feel pressure to appear “busy” all the time (or “bz",” as texting specialists put it). More than any generation before us, we are constantly barraged with electronic stimuli, ones that we have to consciously shield ourselves from to get work done. Or simply to get some sleep.

One of Newport’s primary suggestions for getting our work life under control and focusing on what matters most is to “do fewer things.” (I will consider other suggestions in another email.) This principle is no surprise to readers of works such as Greg McKeown’s outstanding book Essentialism.

But Newport’s is a welcome reminder, and he shows how agreeing to do less will likely lead to us getting more done overall, due to the accumulating effects of managing each new commitment. At some point, we are juggling so many commitments that our overall quality of work must suffer, and our most important long-term projects must languish.

“Doing Fewer Things,” to Newport, entails prioritizing commitments that have the greatest long-term value, and accepting only the number of commitments such that you can easily get them done in the time allotted. How do you know what commitments have the greatest long-term value professionally? Well, for academic writers it is not too hard to tell - articles in major journals or books from major presses make the biggest impact, all things being equal.

When pressed, focusing on the big article or book (or the dissertation that will lead to a book) makes more long-term sense than agreeing to write a bunch of minor book reviews or encyclopedia articles or presenting more conference papers. And agreeing to more of the latter while also writing your big book will almost certainly detract from the book, not enhance it.

You should also accept only the number of additional commitments that will not prevent you from finishing the “big one” with time to spare. Overbusyness, procrastination, and lateness are chronic among writers, and among the best ways you can stand out with editors is to simply deliver your work on time. Regularly turning manuscripts in on time has been one of the greatest secrets to my ability to keep publishing with presses like Yale.

People sometimes assume that I must work late nights or do all-weekend cram sessions to get my writing done. Not true! I never do professional work on Sundays, and I hardly ever work in the evenings. The key, as Newport suggests, is constant vigilance against busyness and excessive commitment to things that don’t have as much professional value as book writing.

This means turning down a lot of small and large possible commitments. Recently, I’ve said ‘no’ to opportunities to serve on editorial boards, to travel and speaking engagements, to book reviews, to external review responsibilities. I’ve declined to answer emails from inquirers and reporters who I don’t know; I’ve kept proposed meetings at bay when it seemed that inquirers really needed to put their questions on paper.

I could go on, but you get the point. I do say ‘yes’ to new commitments regularly, but I am constantly mindful that each new ‘yes’ means less bandwith for my most valuable long-term creative projects - namely, books.