Slowdown to Speedup - How does that work?

​About two years ago, I stumbled across #slowdowntospeedup and this tag line represented a few things that I stand for. Today, this slogan is more relevant than ever. I observe people around me burning out, many peers feel huge pressure to deliver, and many organisations stopped their strategic planning cycles. Just yesterday, a person shared with me that they wished to find 3 hours in their calendar to focus on some work. Does that sound familiar?

This WIRED article - How Slack ruined work - illustrates how the always-on culture is destroying the flow in our work. The various messaging tools we are using, combined with the a high expectation to immediately respond, has created a constant source of distraction. This leads to stress and a feeling of being overwhelmed. It is time to stop - to slow down.

Why do I think slowing down will speed us up? Here three thoughts:

• Space to reflect - when we take a step back, we can observe what we are doing. We are able to ask the essential question: Are we doing the right things? Sometimes we are simply following an outdated lead and wasting our efforts. The important follow-up question is, are we doing these things in a right way? This allows us to constantly improve the way we operate.
• Singular focus - with the the focus to deliver, I observe many teams taking up too many things at the same time. More often than not, the teams spread themselves thin and nothing gets finished. Since years, I promote teams to try to focus on one thing at the time and minimise the number projects they work on in parallel. This allows them to finish these projects quickly, which is a great reward. And this leads to overall more success.
• Balance - some people work 14 hours a day and feel they are running out of time; and running out of ideas. Life consists of many different parts and taking quality time to follow other interests and activities will enrich people's thoughts. This will drive positivity and contentedness. And, these outside activities will also drive creativity and inspirations back at work. Can you afford to miss out on this?

Ok, great - I want to slow down. How can I start? First of all, this is a journey and will take a while. A journey during which we will learn a lot. Keeping this in mind, I suggest create a weekly block in your calendar of 2-3 hours. This big rock is for yourself - for activities outside of your daily work. Enjoy this time off.

What else can you do to slow down and balance your life?