Knowledge workers & creatives trying to escape the hamster wheel of pseudo-productivity might enjoy Cal Newport’s new book, Slow Productivity.

It’s the tortoise-beats-the-hare concept applied to productivity & modern work, advocating for 3 principles:

Do fewer things
Work at a natural pace
Focus on quality

This post elaborates on ideas I found most interesting and provides some recommended reading for those interested in the topic.

Key Ideas

The “slow producitivity” concept includes 3 principles:

Do fewer things
- People weren’t meant to work modern 40-60 hour weeks year-round.
- Hunter-gatherers took long breaks while foraging or fishing. And stopped when they had food.
- Farmers’ work ebbed and flowed (or at least changed) with the seasons.
- Hunter-gatherers and farmers both had natural constraints on their work: what nature could provide.
- As our work shifted to creating specialized goods for money and trade, people worked more and more to increase potential outputs. The constraints became elements of a system that could be expanded by human design.
- Industrial workers had to fight for bare minimum limits like 40 hour weeks and breaks.
- Knowledge workers must make similar adjustments to rein in pseudo-productivity and low-value busyness.
Work at a natural pace
- Techniques like scheduling, rate limiting, and environment design feature prominently.
Obsess* over quality
- “Obsess” is a buzzword here. Newport acknowledges the dangers of perfectionism and suggests setting comfortable deadlines and targets.
- Focus on improving beyond past capabilities, products, or performance—but guards against endless tweaking that doesn't add substantial value.

Otherwise, these principles are exactly what they sound like, without any suprises.

Newport argues that the true power lies in the synergy of all three principles applied together.

Target Audience

Slow Productivity is aimed at knowledge workers and others with autonomy over their work (if not what, then at least how). This makes the book a nice companion to Newport's earlier So Good They Can't Ignore You, a book about developing a satisfying career by increasing skill and autonomy.

Writers may find extra interest in the exemplars Newport chose. While his books always use human stories to illustrate his ideas, Slow Productivity features extended passages on John McPhee and Jane Austen, along with shorter anecdotes on writers like Stephanie Meyer, Michael Crichton, and John Grisham, providing relatable examples for others in the field.

Overall Impressions

The book felt like a remix of Newport's existing catalog, updated from insights gained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Newport's work stands out for its actionability. Self improvement writers perform a balancing act between overly prescriptive advice that's irrelevant or counterproductive to much of their audience, and overly generic advice that parrots common sense.

Newport leans toward specificity, but with sufficient self awareness (and beta reader feedback via his blog) to provide useful caveats and alternatives that help readers understand how and when to apply his advice.

Verdict

If you're new to Newport's work, Slow Productivity is a solid starting point, though Deep Work remains my favorite of his books.

For those familiar with Newport’s writing, know there’s not much new ground to cover here. It’s still an easy read or listen, but if your goal is to extend your knowledge, consider one of the other titles below.

Rating: 3.5/5

What to Read Next

Build on the ideas of healthy productivity:
- Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal
- Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
- Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte
Dive deeper into Newport's work:
- Deep Work
- So Good They Can't Ignore You

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport: The Tortoise Approach to Doing Better Work

Book review, summary, and recommended reading.

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