A friend posted on Twitter that they’d started reading Slow Productivity and just the title piqued my interest.
It’s a short book which builds on the idea of Bullshit Jobs, pseudo productivity, and presenteeism by putting forward an idea of a more humane way of working in the current economic system. Newport uses many examples where people (scientists, authors, musicians, etc) were able to spend lots of time on their projects which allowed them to create great works. Newport argues that the pandemic accelerated the way the work day for many is filled with meetings and interruptions which makes it harder to actually deliver value from Deep Work.
Slow Productivity is preaching to the choir (me). It also marries nicely with comments Peter Higgs made back in 2016 about how the demand to publish papers would have stopped him working on the Higgs Boson. I do however have a few problems with the book:
- I really don’t like the term “knowledge worker”. It has a classist tone which I read as someone trying to separate their work from the less worth ‘unskilled’ labour of other workers.
- Despite claims to the contrary most strategies seem only useful if you’re self employed. There are recommendations for how to adapt them to the corporate world but they don’t feel realistic.
- A lot of the project management strategies are already industry standard(ish) in software but they haven’t really solved the problem. If you argue that most companies only pay lip service to the Agile Manifesto then maybe Newport does have a point here.
- There’s a wrinkle to the solitary Deep Work concept espoused here that ignores the benefits of things like Pair Programming and Mobbing.
- This book could have been an email. It’s really short and yet it could be shorter. It’s often verbose and the examples are also frequently overkill.
Even with these criticisms I think you should read it. You might not be able to implement the strategies but it will get you thinking about how to create a more humane work life for you and your peers.