When was the last time you took a real lunch break? In workplaces around the world the mid-day meal has shrunk or vanished altogether. Never mind dining al fresco; these days you’re lucky to find time to dine al desko. What a waste. Stopping for lunch makes us more productive, more creative and less stressed. It allows us to enjoy our food, smell the roses and indulge in a little social time. That’s why there is a growing campaign to bring back lunch. Hilke Meyer, a student at London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, is doing her bit for the cause. She has just designed a range of nifty place mats and tea towels that not only look sharp and funky but also bear mini-essays on the joys and purpose of lunch. Find out more or upload your own thoughts at her websiteHERE.
Tag: Productivity
Slow improv
I love improvisational comedy. It has a high-wire act quality that adds an extra edge and energy to the humour. It also seems like a very fast art: you have to come up with killer lines or movements in the blink of an eye. But now it seems that the Slow philosophy is making inroads in the world of improv. Apparently there is a Chicago school of improv that is more patient, less frenetic and built more around characters and ensemble work. Read an intriguing chat-room thread about itHERE. Meanwhile, Katie Goodman, a smart, funny and very thoughtful actress-director-writer is just finishing up a book on how to use the tools of improvisiational comedy in everyday life. One of the things she is exploring is how finding your inner tortoise off stage can allow you to be calmer, sharper and more creative when you’re actually in a fast-moving game of improv. You can find out more about by clickingHERE.
Rational exuberance
I’ve just heard that Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, wrote 85% of his new book in the bathtub. Soaking in a hot bath is the ultimate form of slow. Greenspan says that he does his best writing, reading and thinking in the tub. I know the feeling. I love a slow bath at the end of the day. And a lot of my best ideas come while watching the children’s rubber ducks bob among the bubbles.
Slow prayer
I gave a talk over the weekend to some executives and afterwards one of them, a very affable Austrian called Thomas, told me about the time he went to close a big business deal with the Vatican. He arrived from Vienna with a full schedule of meetings but instead of hurrying to the first of them his priest-chaperone took him to a chapel to pray for 45 minutes. And they stopped for further prayers after every meeting through the busy day. At first Thomas was anxious and restless, but eventually he surrendered to the ritual and actually found the breaks quite soothing. He also found that the meetings were more relaxed and more efficient (faster, even!) because he’d had time to reflect, recharge and even plan a little. Maybe prayer is the ultimate form of slowness.
Slow down with a siesta
Today is National Siesta Day in Britain! And siestas are the ultimate expression of Slow. Taking a post-prandial snooze seems like heresy in our fast-forward culture, but actually it’s very good for you. It can boost productivity by over 30% and almost double your alertness. It can also enhance memory and concentration, reduce stress and the risk of heart disease by 34%. It can even help you lose weight. So what are you waiting for? I’ve just finished lunch and that means one thing: zzzzzzzzz
A lover with a slow hand
A recent poll by the people atRat Race Rebellionhas underlined what many of us know already: that the virus of hurry is taking a heavy toll on our love lives. Nearly 90% of respondents said that a high-stress, over-scheduled, always-on lifestyle was crowding out romance. This jibes with other research showing that more and more of us are now willing to interrupt the act of love to take a cellphone call or read an email. Christine Durst, one of the people behind the Rat Race Rebellion, sums it up neatly: “We’re turning everything on but each other.”
Slow email
The Slow email movement from IBM has a rival. The good people at Slowlab are developing a new email service that will slow down the pace of electronic messaging. It’s called SLOWmail. It works like this. You tag your message with a description of your relationship with the recipient (lover, sibling, etc), where they are in the world and the mood of the message (ironic, angry, frivolous, etc). Based on this data, as well as on your emailing history with the recipient, the SLOWmail software will then assign a delivery time. You can then track the email’s progress through cyberspace. It all sounds fascinating. If you want to know more, clickHERE.
Consultant time
I gave a talk this morning to a group of management consultants at the Accenture headquarters in London. Not an easy audience, you’d think, but they seemed very open to the idea that slowing down might be good for them, the company and the world in general. Afterwards, a woman from the audience told me about the incident that persuaded her it was time to put on the brakes. She spotted a good friend in the street but, deciding she was too busy even to stop and say hello, ducked into a shop to avoid catching his eye. He died suddenly a few days later and so the next time she saw him was at his funeral.
Patience for Spanish patients
Just got back from giving a talk in Barcelona. Love that city, even in the rain. But the trip there was dreadful thanks to the snow that paralyzed the trains and the airports in Britain – lots of bad slow. Along the way I discovered that Spanish doctors, fed up with the constant pressure to hurry patients through the system as quickly as possible, are fighting back. They want more time in order to do their job properly. To that end, they are demanding a minimum of 10 minutes with each patient. There is a campaign group called Plataforma 10 Minutos and you can find out more by clickingHERE.
We DON’T need that yesterday
The Slow philosophy seems to be making inroads in the corporate world of the Baltic states. Before my talk yesterday in Riga, Latvia, a manager from UPS, the delivery company, told me that businesses in the region no longer insist on shipping everything as fast as possible. In the 1990s, demand for late-night and weekend deliveries was brisk. But now most UPS deliveries occur during normal working hours. His conclusion: Baltic companies have realized that many shipments can wait till tomorrow, or even till Monday. Staff are also less willing to put up with work hassles outside the office. Amen to that.
My final Baltic talk is this afternoon here in Tartu, Estonia….