Wait… what!? No, you read that right. Slowing down can actually make you much faster. The world will live in can be incredibly fast paced and when we are busy and have a lot to do, we often feel like we are crashing through life from one thing to the next. We feel as if we need to speed through everything we do just to keep up with it all. But, no matter how fast we try to go, we feel like we fall further and further behind. Into this mess I have the following advice – slow down. Here are 6 reasons why slowing down can actually make you MUCH faster.
1. Time to consider the best approach
Throughout all of military history it is a well known fact that all off the best Generals, as soon as they realise that have been outflanked, or ambushed in a surprise attack just yell “CHAAARGE!!!” to their troops without a moments hesitation. That’s NOT a well known fact as it is complete rubbish. Such an approach is the response of panic and is almost undoubtedly bad. The best Generals would pause and take a moment to consider their position, the position of the enemy, the relative strengths of the forces and the terrain. Then they would come up with a response strategy.
So, when life is hectic or something takes you by surprise, DO NOT leap into action but pause, just for a moment, consider the relevant factors and come up with a plan. This will make you more effective and this will make you faster.
2. When we operate in a frantic rush or a frantic ‘go faster mode’ we are prone to errors.
When we rush, we make mistakes. This isn’t about making a plan beforehand, this is about taking the time to think about what we are doing as we do it. We’ve all done that thing where in a desperate rush to get out the house we’ve ended up having to go back and forth from room to room multiple times because we forget about things or don’t think about things as we are trying to get sorted to leave. Yes, we move quickly about our business, but all in, it takes longer.
If I am typing or calculating, if I rush, the number of typos I leave behind is significantly higher than if act at a calm speed. I don’t mean slow typing, but I do mean ‘not frantic’.
3. The frantic rush will deplete your energy much faster and leave you with less capacity overall
Whatever sphere you look at this in, aviation, cars, birds, running, whatever. There is an optimum ‘cruise’ speed. This is the speed that can be maintained for longest and uses up the least fuel or energy. It is documented that, though slightly different for every car, that the most fuel efficient speed is around 50 mph. People are similar. In our frantic rushing, we do not consider the fact that we actually need to be functional beyond our current crisis.
When we start to get tired, we make more mistakes and will slow down significantly. As such, most of us will find that the act of slowing down, of calming down, makes the situation we are in less frantic, less stressful and makes demand less energy from us. This means that we can actually be a lot more efficient and get a lot more done.
4. When we approach life in a mad rush, we often create a repeating cycle
I have written about this here “After this week…things will slow down”. In summary, things do not slow down unless we take steps to make them slow down. Acting in a frantic rush to get something done, in hope that next week will be quieter is futile and only by slowing down and working how to make the future more manageable can we break this cycle.
I combine points 3 and 4 with a summary – the mad frantic rush approach will lead to overwhelm, stress and exhaustion. It might even lead to full blown burnout. At this point, you cannot help but stop completely, for who knows how long. And everything suffers.
Far better for your overall speed and productivity to operate at a pace that is sustainable for the long term.
5. When in this frantic rush mode, we make bad decisions.
In some ways, this is an extension of points 1 & 2. At least it is quite similar but I do want to handle it separately. When in rush mode, we tend to be quite reactive. We tend to focus our energy on whatever we see first or whatever is shouting the loudest. This is not necessarily what will get you to the end goal the quickest.
I don’t know if it is just me, but when I am rushing to get something done and feeling stressed, I am MORE likely to break my focus and respond to income emails or messages or notifications. Rushing, and trying to blitz things as fast as we possibly can just puts us in that frame of mind where we are prone to distraction. If we slowed down and focussed on what we actually needed to achieve, we would achieve it a lot faster. Slowing down can actually make you much faster.
6. When we are rushing to get things done, we will never consider that it might not need doing.
This point speaks for itself. Despite our distractibility when we rush, we also tend to have a kind of tunnel vision that cannot see a world where this ‘thing’ isn’t the be all and end all of the universe. That’s overstating the point but you understand what I mean. I have spent a chunk of time today feeling frantic and stressed about a growing mountain of things to do and shrinking pool of time to do them in. You feel that franticness as you try to tackle that backlog to clear it. Thankfully, I was able to pause and recognise that next week things will look a little different and I do not in fact need to clear backlog today. But, if I didn’t stop, slow down and take a step back, this would have never occurred to me.
So, here is why slowing down can actually make you much faster. You’ll attack the problem with plan, you’ll make fewer mistakes that need correcting, you’ll preserve your energy meaning you can operate at a consistent pace, in the medium and long term its more sustainable and will prevent future occurrences of this kind of thing, you will be less prone to distractions and making bad choices and you might just realise that what you are doing doesn’t need to be done at all.
You know what they say after all … Less Haste, More Speed.
