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Is that even possible? Why would you ever step back or slow down from working really hard? Isn’t that a paradox, going slower lets us get more done?
You vary your intensity to produce great things, without burning out or rushing and the results turning out less than par. Essentially, as you work, you then stop and step away to recharge then you come back, allowing yourself to achieve better productivity over a longer time frame.
Creating a plan or to-do list, creating clarity on what exactly you need to do, creating blocks of time to do your work with short break intervals in between allows the intensity of your work to vary, giving you a better end result. You’re able to take that 10 minute or so break to refuel, recharge, refocus, integrate new insights, and come back to the work refreshed and with that high intensity again. Long continuous work on one thing can lead to burnout and results that you know you’re better than.
Doing less can mean spreading out your tasks over a period of time, giving yourself deadlines for each, allowing breaks during the tasks and not overwhelming yourself with too much to do at one time. Or in other words, single-tasking. One and only one thing at a time and if you are able to minimize the number of times that you change tasks during the day by staying focused on one until it's completed and then moving on to the next one, you will exponentially increase your impact on each task. Having numerous tasks at once can actually take you longer to complete than breaking them down individually. Ever try to multitask? It may appear you’re cutting down your time but it actually takes you longer and there’ll always be at least one thing that will suffer on quality. And if all your tasks are done quickly while multitasking, they’re done 'half-assed’ am I right? So does that even count? Think about it as slowing down just enough to actually be present in each and every moment of our day and that simple shift makes time feel expansive.
You’re able to take that 10 minute or so break to refuel, recharge, refocus, integrate new insights, and come back to the work refreshed and with that high intensity again.
You’ll never get that moment back again, once you’ve chosen how to spend that moment, it’s in the past and it’s gone. When we're racing through our day only half present, multitasking or with just too much on our plates, we think we're getting so much done but we're not, because what we're skipping over is not making intentional choices about where we're investing our time.
We're just going through the motions and when we're not slowing down enough to drop into that moment, we lose focus, which means we lose concentration and the ability to commit things to short term memory and then move them to long term memory making our recall lower as if we almost don't remember that it happened at all.
We should strive to have less on our plate at any one time so we can get more done overtime and getting them done at a higher quality. It's not so much that we're doing more, like quantitatively doing more things, it's that we're getting more out of each thing that we do and making a bigger impact on those things. Being obsessive over quality makes your work more meaningful, it forces you to slow down and you’re working at your natural pace, it also eventually gives you the ammo to really start to push the structure of your life in remarkable directions.
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Meet the expert:
Kristen DelBene
Another Chance Resale – Founder/Owner
I provide pre-loved designer purses, jewelry and other accessories to women who may not be able to afford these items new in retail stores while also helping the planet by keeping these items out of landfills, giving them “Another Chance” at being loved again. I also offer a monthly jewelry styling subscription where I hand pick costume jewelry and ship it to your door. Since creating my business from scratch in 2020 to scaling it to six figures, one thing I’ve learned is how to slow down to do more.
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