The cost of working too fast
In the pursuit of efficiency have we lost the true meaning of our work?
Hi everyone. This week’s piece is a little different than usual. I’ve spent some time reflecting on the way we work, and what busyness and efficiency at work can result in it. I hope you enjoy reading.
Throughout my life, I have had a knack for completing tasks quickly. As a child, I would always finish my homework on time, get chores done in a frantic rush, and put my hand up for extracurricular activities.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Teachers Pet. My eagerness to please was a product of my worrywart traits (see newsletter bio). I was a particularly anxious kid, and I tried to (and still do) control how others perceived me by always being well-behaved, agreeable and quick at getting things done. I also learnt that I could be rewarded for these behaviours. Teachers would give me free time to do fun activities and I received a lot of praise.
Fast forward to as an adult, my efficiency was put to use in my work life. Early in my working life I’d rush through tasks, finish reporting early, and immediately respond to emails upon receiving them. I would get rewarded again: praise, promotions and so on.
But slowly it started to have an adverse effect on me.
I began to make careless mistakes, miss critical insights and I would completely forget about tasks if I didn’t attend to them straight away. And I started to forget my craft. I used to love writing and creating thought-provoking reports. But I’d been in such a rush that I stopped thinking about what I was working on and what I wanted to say. It had all become automated.
In today’s working world efficiency is highly regarded. Countless resources are devoted to helping workers become faster and more efficient. There are workshops, podcasts, books, articles and so on. And we’ve learnt that working fast reaps rewards such as high praise, more money and promotions. But what if this obsession with efficiency is costing us?
Take, for example, teachers. To make a positive contribution to a child’s development, teachers have to be incredibly resilient, patient and measured people. These qualities don’t come naturally. They are developed over years through practice and also learning from mistakes. But what are teachers often measured on if not their qualities? Getting in reports quickly, replying to parent emails quickly, and being on top of a mounting admin workload in the 2-hr time slot they have after managing kids all day.
When did we stop valuing dedicating time, thought and resilience to our work? And why is it that efficiency is considered so integral to success when there are so many success stories born from long-term growth and change? Perhaps it’s time to reconsider how we measure success in the workplace and learn from those who did take the time and didn’t rush.
For example. One of my favourite singers is Joni Mitchell. In 1970 despite already experiencing so much success, Joni was feeling disconnected from fame and from her work. Instead of staying home, engaging in her newfound fame and writing a new album quickly, she up and left to reside in Europe. And it was in those long months, where she was able to stop and slow down, that she wrote one of the most profound and successful albums of all time: Blue.
Now maybe writing music doesn’t serve as a great comparison to knowledge work or office work. So here are some other examples:
It took J. R. R. Tolkien 16 years to write The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Netflix started in 1997 and only became profitable 9 years after starting.
The first Starbucks was opened in 1971 in Seattle and it took 16 years before it expanded out of the state.
It took 8 years for the creator of Angy Birds to create the game, and he also made 51 games beforehand.
Now I’m not saying we start spending years on every work task. Rather that we should value the time and space it can require to create something impactful, instead of the speed at which we can complete it.
There is so much research that shows how speeding up can have adverse effects and how slowing down improves the quality of our work. For example, researchers at The University of Sussex found that multitasking had the potential to damage the part of the brain responsible for emotional intelligence. And evidently, 90% of top performers possess a high EQ. Harvard Business Review found that “companies that embraced initiatives and chose to go, go, go to try to gain an edge ended up with lower sales and operating profits than those that paused at key moments to make sure they were on the right track”.
So efficiency and speed aren’t always the answer.
I’d like to end on a profound TedTalk I watched recently by Kimi Werner who is a professional free diver and spearfisher. I encourage you to watch. It’s worth the full 20 minutes and I was very moved by her story. She starts with a lesson she was taught as a young free diver:
When you feel the need to speed up, slow down.
Kimi has used this lesson throughout her life. When she was suddenly approached by a great white shark when diving, she went against her flight mode instincts and swam calmly towards the shark, meaning that it no longer saw her as prey. This act of slowing down allowed for some meaningful interactions with the shark rather than being overcome with fear. When she became famous for winning free diving competitions, she realised she’d lost her passion in the pursuit of winning. So she took the advice of slowing down again and decided to quit all future competitions. She was called a waste of talent and a disgrace. But she found her purpose again, returning to diving through the means of promoting conservation and ethical hunting. All throughout her life, she has found meaning in her work by slowing down. To end on her quote:
The next time that you feel any form of outside pressure telling you that you’d better speed up, please give yourself just a brief moment before you react to that and slow down. Because I truly believe that in that moment you might just see a different path and you might just see what you are truly capable of